My Little Life

There's a little four letter word that I hate. Oops. I just used it. Yes, the word "hate" is not on my favorite list...and I use it way more than I like to, b ut you know what? Sometimes, a situation calls for the use of four letter words. Like HATE. As in, "I HATE (loathe, despise, dread) HATE HATE HATE removing wallpaper.". See? Totally justifiable, no? I know I totally need to do a remodel update for y'all, but for now...just lemme vent. The entire time we've lived here, I've always assumed that the previous owners (not the original owners) updated the wall paper in this house. Well, when we removed the cabinets, we discovered the wallpaper went BEHIND the cabinets, which leads one to believe it was original wallpaper, no? And 40 year old wallpaper shouldn't be THAT hard to remove...right? Wrong. (If you look closely, you can see some of the wallpaper ...thankfully, most of this was removed with demolition...crazy to me already, ...

Before we begin, let me clarify...it is not the ring that is "high-maintenance" in this story, oh no, my friends, not the ring...it is the mother. If you've read around here for any length of time, you'll have gathered that my wonderful husband is NOT the World's Best Gift Giver. As in, if gift giving were an Olympic sport...well, he wouldn't even qualify to attend. ;) I mean, y'all remember the chocolate covered strawberry story , right? And, I'm not sure that I ever told you about the beef jerky and Pepsi birthday present, did I? (Disclaimer: I'm a Coke girl.) Even still, I love him so. But then...THEN the one time he puts forth a lot of thought and effort (well, I guess the berries DID require some planning...), I go and blow it. And here is where you learn that I am high-maintenance. (Ugh. I try not to be...but sometimes? Well, sometimes I just can't help it.) So, a week or so before Mother's Day this year, the Mr. was looking a...

Before I start...let's be honest; I am CERTAIN I will learn a lot more before this project has reached completion! We've sort of reached the "putting it back together" part of our remodel...today, the "stair project" will start and by tomorrow, I should have a new area in which I can walk downstairs! Hoping to start painting next week so that we can be ready to start installing the flooring! Okay, so let's get started with things I've learned: 1. (Speaking of stairs...) Have you ever tried to calculate the rise and run of a staircase? I did. I consumed approximately 300% of my time and absolutely fried my brain. And I'm still not sure. Calculating rise and run of a stair case is infinitely more difficult than anything in the whole world. 2. Recessed lights: 2nd most infinitely difficult task is figuring out where to put the dang cans. 3. When demolishing things, make sure to check to see if they contain asbestos. 4. Remodeling during ...

Well...all throughout this remodel plan (even whilst in the planning stages) we kept hearing about the bumps along the way, the "issues" that crop up when you start tearing apart on older home. Behind every ripped off piece of drywall, I expected to see termites, rotting boards, leaking ceilings, alien creatures destroying our home from the inside out...you know, all THAT stuff. All we found, however, was just a whole bunch (like, a whole, WHOLE bunch) of cobwebs. Until last night. We had a piece of paint that had been peeling on one of our walls and I kind of ignored it for a long time. Like, years. Then, as we're tearing apart everything else, a little one tugged a bit on the paint and GAH. Mold. And a rusty screw. Well, we decided to rip off that piece of drywall, figuring we'd replace it AND make it easier for the plumber as well, and wouldn't you know...mold on the other side too. (Please ignore the cobwebs...it's hard to dust inside your walls......

Well, we've "officially" started!! Saturday brought forth some major progress...hubs bowed out on an invite to Dr. J's, citing electrical work that needed to be done and I was a bit annoyed, until I came home and saw THIS: Crikey! Hard to be annoyed any longer when I saw the surprise he had up his sleeve!! Our good friend stayed to help the hubs tear stuff apart! Walls, sheetrock, lights...WOW!!  Here's a "before" from the same angle: Sunday afternoon we went to Menards to price doors and windows and GAH. Holy moly they're expensive. As we were walking out if Menards I said, "Well, I guess I could pick up a few shifts at the hospital?"...to which my hubby agreed that yes, that would probably be a fantastic idea. So, guess what I did Monday? Hospital shift it was! Truly, I am grateful that I have the option of making some extra money when we need it!  Now, gotta finish getting the ceiling scraped, then patched,...

When you're remodeling an older home, you never really know what you're going to find when you start digging in. As my dreams were blossoming in my mind about our "new" kitchen (which, let's face it, our remodel is more of an "upper level" remodel than a kitchen remodel!) with a sleek, modern open floor concept, everything suddenly came to a screeching halt when our carpenter mentioned that we should probably hold off on tearing out the walls until he could get someone to look at it. The walls we are removing are, essentially, part of one big wall (with some walkway openings) that runs down the center of our home.  We had always been a smidge leery about removing this wall,  with its nearly continuous central location, because we weren't certain if it was important or not. (Forgive the mess, we're, you know, remodeling.) "Important" as in "load bearing". "Load bearing" as in "roof collapsing". ...

Have I mentioned we're remodeling ? ;) Oh, I have? Silly me...I wasn't sure . Anyway, you know how they say "If a marriage can survive a home remodel, it can survive ANYTHING."? I'm starting to see glimpses of where that saying came from. The other night, we were DEEP in the throes of ripping stuff out. I was all "full speed ahead" and let's just get everything ripped out...while my hubby, bless his heart, would put in a 12-14 hour day at work then come home to me, bouncing off the walls, wanting to "TEAR OUT ALL THE THINGS!!!!"...and he'd oblige and rip something out. So, one night, we (and by "we" I mean "he") was working out getting a cabinet out of our laundry area. This cabinet was deep, with only one door, and he had to climb into it to unscrew the counter from the cabinet.  While in said cabinet, he asked Dubya to "Grab me a Phillips screw driver." Dubya quickly ran over to this pile of scre...