October

Almost eight weeks have passed since Porter joined us and a lot has happened.
He's gotten bigger. He's smiling and laughing and playing real hard for a little guy. He's also noticed the animals he lives with and thinks they're pretty interesting.

His Aunt Carrie came to visit. And his favorite surrogate aunt and uncle, Sarah and Jeremy came to visit.And we finally caught his anger at being burped on film. However, he has, since that evening, begun to get a lot more calm about this part of the eating process.

On the home renovation front, WE GOT A LIVING ROOM!!!!!
It's not all complete (the crown moulding, kickboard and quarter round, and the window and door trim haven't been put up yet). Thankfully Andrew and Corey mixed several primers to make enough to cover the walls so the primer is colored rather than white. Until we get the trim up we have a lovely blue instead of boring white!
I'll let the before and after pictures tell the rest.


The brick was originally covered up by water damaged plaster and lathe that was poorly covered by paneling. We liked it with the stone fireplace so Andrew cleaned it up a bit and added the lights above it. There are a few other final touches the mantel is getting later.
It's not perfect, but it's getting close!

Getting Close on all fronts

The living room ceiling is mudded, taped, sanded, primed, and painted and the fan is up and running. All it needs now is a couple of new air vents and ceiling will be done. I just haven't made the run the Lowe's yet.



Andrew did a great job turning the double door to the dining room into an arch! Somehow I failed to take a picture of the doorway before we destroyed the living room, but I did find this picture that shows part of the doorway (on the left) back in November.


And here's the new doorway:

Also in the good news department. We had a doctor's appointment this morning and have been told that progress is so good that she expects to see us before next week's appointment!! Yahoo!!!

Photos Released!!!

After searching the entire house for hours for the cord to download pictures, I gave up and checked amazon.com. I found a used one for 2 bucks. It arrived this morning so the pictures from the memory card and the camera's internal memory have been freed!

So I'll start with pictures of the baby's room being redone.
First a few before pictures:

Before redoing the floors





Jeremy hanging out with Jack and Cooper while the room functioned as a living room.

New walls:



Mud , Tape, and Sand:






New Ceiling fan and light light fixture:







Andrew, Joey, Joe, and Aaron made the trim then began putting it up:





Andrew did such a great job putting the doors' trim in that all of them now close all the way!!!








The living room progress began with new insulation (thanks Andrew for spending your Saturday in a white jumpsuit!)



Then the drywall went up. It is important to note here that when I went to bed one night some weeks ago, the living room had no walls. When I woke the next morning it did!!! Thanks to Corey, Joe, and Joey for staying up until 3:00a.m. (and a big thanks to their ladies for allowing them to stay out so late on a weeknight!)


Currently, Andrew is in the living room. He has mudded and taped and is sanding right now. Tomorrow he's planning on priming and painting the ceiling so he can hang the new fan.

The baby's room has been painted. We're waiting for the arrival of his dresser and I'm working on wall hangings and organizing all of his things this week.

Updates, lots of Updates

We have a plan. The baby is due September 21. That gives us just less than 16 weeks to complete a long list of projects (some necessary and some really wanted). So before the projects start getting wrapped up at super quick rates (we're trying to stay very positive), I should make sure everyone is up to date on the little that has been done in the last few months and what all is in the project list.

We did a little yard work.
Andrew and Paul worked on re-wiring the house (starting with the living room). They also installed the new future electrical box so that as they rewire a room, they can hook the wires right into the box. The hope is that when the switch happens most of the hard work will be done, so Andrew and I will only be without power for a day. I should make it clear here that this is how I understand this work to be going. I could have easily misunderstood something as my jobs in the remodeling of the house do not include electrical things at all. I'm more like the designer. I come up with an idea and my sweet husband either explains why it won't work (this usually takes a while, but is very entertaining) or makes it happen (see fridge).

I came home from work one day to this:YAY!! A living room ceiling!! And work on the box for the recessed lighting over the fireplace has begun!


Yesterday I went to Fantastic Fans to check out their going out of business sale (10%-50% off) and found a great deal on the perfect ceiling fan and light for the living room. I can't wait to see it up, but we've decided to wait until all the drywall is up and the mudding and sanding is done.

After the living room is done we'll move all the living room furniture out of the baby's room and begin work there. We're also hoping to get some much needed lawn work done and maybe even straighten out the garage.



And these pictures are especially for Stacey:

Cute and Dr. Seuss-like.



A little gross with prosciutto wrapped melons!

Dusty Business

Andrew began the wiring process Saturday. At first we thought it wouldn't be too bad, in terms of the mess it would leave behind, but that quickly changed. One of the long term goals includes changing the location of the breaker box. Now it is in the pantry. One day it will be in the laundry room (that too is a long term goal). So Andrew and the electrician, our brother-in-law, Paul, decided to go ahead and install and run the wire from the location that it will one day be in, which right now is a spare room. I call it that because it's pretty small (11 x 10 feet) and mostly functions as a closet/ computer room.
So the first step in installing the new breaker box was pulling down the paneling. The entire room was paneled at some point, but Andrew only pulled down the stuff on the wall that's getting the breaker box.
This is said wall:

The location of the box will actually be on the wall behind the door.


So off with the paneling.

The paneling was placed over the existing walls (after they put up 1 x 4 in boards every few feet). This we had suspected since all the trim and moulding were covered by paneling. What we did not expect was the wonderful preservation of this delightfully old wallpaper.



I don't know why, but I just love this stuff!

So then they (Andrew and Paul) cut a nice big rectangle into the plaster and lathe so they could hang the new box. The long term plan here is that one day, when we get to work in this area of the house, all the paneling, plaster, and lathe will be removed. Then the one room will be split into 3 areas: laundry room, bathroom, and closet. So in order for the breaker box to make sense now and then, it had to be installed where there was no paneling, plaster, or lathe. But since we don't want to live in a construction zone, and had previously decided to do one room at a time and seal that sucker off, boys decided that cutting that nice big rectangle in the wall would be cleaner than taking down the entire wall of plaster and lathe. Here I agree. It was cleaner, but not that much!!! It trully is amazing how much dust plaster creates. It left a nice thick layer all over everything in the room. It took a nice good cleaning (which, to be honest, was needed back there), but we got it done in time to start work and school on Monday morning!

Oh, and we also got that nasty water damaged wood above the fireplace replaced!!!

It's been a While...

since we posted anything, I see. We have actually been pretty busy though. The living room is completely bare (that's right- all the plaster and lathe is GONE from the walls!) Now we're just waiting on getting this little problem fixed:



The "header boards" have water damage. We've got a guy coming on Friday to make sure the damage isn't in the joists or causing any other structural issues- Andrew just wants to be sure and I completely agree!

So after that Andrew and Paul will begin wiring the living room. That's exciting because that means that we get to pick out light fixtures soon!!!

We also replaced the old kitchen faucet:



which was beginning to make me crazy because it was getting hard to wash the French oven under that thing and since it's winter- Andrew's been making a lot of soups, chilis and stews! (They've all been very good) So my sweet husband spent almost his entire first Sunday of 2007 installing a new faucet.


Now we both agree it was worth it!

Keep on Working

Since we both had the day off, we decided to get some more work done in the living room. Originally we were not going to remove the plaster and lathe from the south and north walls, but after rethinking some wiring things, we decided to just go ahead and do those two walls as well. What's a little more plaster to clean up and lathe to burn, right?

So we started the day on the south wall.


We got most of it done.




I'd like to take this chance to update the whole knob and tube wiring thing because I got that wrong before. Andrew re-explained it to me. So this little white guy going through the stud is the tube:
Its purpose is to keep the wire from touching the wood and causing an electrical catastrophe.

The knob is this little white guy:
His job is to hold the wire in place.

So there you have it. Knob and tube wiring: still a pretty simple concept.

Burning Down the House!

We drove to Little Rock Thursday to see Andrew's father and step-mother for the holidays. His sister Carrie flew in and we drove into the city just in time to pick her up from the airport. We had a great time. Andrew and his dad, Ed, hung out while with ladies did a little shopping. Catherine took us to some neat little shops in her neighborhood.
So we did Christmas with them this morning and then drove back home. We did a little unpacking and then cracked open a bottle of champagne to celebrate an early Christmas present! We got a chiminea.


Not only is it fun, but it also helps us solve a bit of a problem we've been having: What do we do with all this plaster and lathe that is on the living room floor? We'll figure the plaster problem out later, but we've solved half the problem (good thinking Andrew!) . We burn the lathe!




Lathe burns great! It's pretty quick to burn, but it burns nice and hot- so we were warm for about six hours.


My brother Aaron stopped by to have a beer and check it out and then later my other brother, Joe and my sister-in-law Amanda came over. We all sat around and burned all walls. It was great!
We burned about half a wall. Only three and a half walls left!

And it continues...

We began working on the east wall of the living room tonight. This wall has two windows and a fireplace. So we figured it should be pretty interesting. Plus, we thought there would be insulation to add to the ever growing pile of junk we still have to figure out how to dispose of! Oddly enough, there was no insulation. That's one less thing to dispose of, so yay!



This wire goes to a socket and I'm glad we hadn't used it yet! It's a little scary, but apparently this is not a problem- it's just what this old wiring does! Yikes, glad we're rewiring too!

Another odd thing is that the plaster and lathe is under the fireplace mantle. Maybe this is how houses are built, I just always thought brick or stone fireplaces were put up before the walls. It appears I was wrong!