Renovation Week #2

Shane and I both took a personal day this past Friday and were able to work on the house Friday and Saturday. We tore up the carpet in the dining room, living room, staircase, and upstairs hallway. All four bedrooms have hardwood floors and there is laminate in the kitchen and downstairs hallway. When we tore up the carpet in the staircase and upstairs hallway we found gorgeous hardwood underneath the carpet. Yea!!! We also cleaned out the basement, tore down some of the plywood walls in the basement, attempted to take down some wallpaper, and bought all the hardwood to put in the kitchen, hallway, and dining room.We will put carpet in the living room. We are making some progress, little by little.

The living room down to the sub-floors

The dining room down to the sub-floors

 

 

Dad and I taking out the 500 staples that were in the stairs from the carpet. Okay that's probably an exaggeration, but there was ALOT!

Now Shane comes to help

The beautiful hardwood underneath

The hallway that leads to the four bedrooms and bathroom

My attempt at removing the wallpaper did not go so well. I found a concoction on pinterest that uses fabric softener, ammonia, and warm water. It worked once you peeled the outer layer off, but getting the outer layer off is going to be the hard part. I'm going to have to borrow Myrl's steamer. At least the only wallpaper in the whole house is in the hallways and the bathroom.

The paint color underneath looks like a Tiffany blue. I'm thinking we will definitely have to paint over that.

Renovation Week #1

We plan on using this blog as a means of documenting our progress on the house. So, there will be many more posts to come. Our first day of renovation was on Saturday April 13. We are getting a whole new heating and air conditioning system, so we had to get rid of the old one. We are going to do as much of the work ourselves as we can, so we saved money and took out the old system ourselves. Well I didn't, but Shane, dad, and Uncle Dick did. It was quite the process. The old boiler weighed about 700 pounds so the guys ended up hooking it up to dad's loader tractor and dragging it out the basement stairs. We also had to take our 12 floor registers that had been there since it was built in 1954. On this day we also got a little crazy and took out some upper cabinets in the kitchen just to get a glimpse of what our open concept will look like. Mom and I also went through things in the house and started a big pile in the garage to have a garage sale at the end of May. I think it was a good first day!

Hooking up the chain to the old boiler

The tractor ready to pull

Poor Uncle Dick almost broke his hip after being pinned for a few seconds

 

Ready to demo, but Shane wouldn't let me use the sledgehammer. Maybe someday :)

The kitchen before

 

The kitchen before

Shane getting ready to take it all down

Pondering what to do next

The finished look! What a difference!

What a happy couple! Hopefully we are still this happy at the end of this renovation!

The crew on the first day: Me, Uncle Dick, Shane, Dad, and Mom

 

Our Big News!

Well our little family has some big news to share! And no I am not pregnant again! That was every ones response when we said we had some big news. Shane got a new teaching position at Wethersfield High School starting in August. We are finally moving back home closer to our families! We could not be more excited! We are so tired of renting and are ready to get our own house together! Ever since Shane and I started dating we both have talked about how we want to move closer to our families. How lucky that our families are close together. I told him about my grandparents house in the country where my dad grew up. It's an old brick house that was built in 1954. It has four bedrooms, 2 stall garage, big yard, full basement, large living room with built-ins, and a large kitchen. It is a solid house with a lot of potential. Gosh, I kinda sound like a realtor! I guess I've been watching too many HGTV shows. We would just be doing a lot of updating such as new furnace/central air, new windows, new kitchen, updated bathroom, new flooring, new carpet, lots of paint, basement redo. Sounds easy right? Well we are up for the challenge and decided to buy it. Luckily, I married a guy who is very handy and loves to do things like this! We are very excited to start this journey together! I have very fond memories of this house and my amazing grandparents. I can remember playing kick the can, climbing the big tree in the front yard, scaring our little cousin with stories of the corn monster, and playing with all my cousins in the basement. It was where we had Christmas Eve each year, where we enjoyed peanut butter popcorn with my Grandpa Wayne, long talks with my Grandma Kay, and treasure hunts with my Aunt Jan. It is a place where I am excited to raise my kids and start memories of our own!

Our house from the road

Our house! I'm sitting on the front porch with a pink shirt on!

View from the front porch

Wide open spaces! Our view to the West

Our view to the East

Disturbing Images!

The images you are about to see may be disturbing. Parental guidance is advised.

Just hanging out naked!

What are you looking at?

This boy loves to be naked!

Kindergarten Quotes!

Here is my next collection of Kindergarten quotes! The first three were from years past that I found on my computer.

* When asked to use a sentence using the word are, a girl replied, "I'm a pirate. I say are.."

* When asked how old her sister was, a girl responded, "All her fingers and one toe."

* During the morning of pajama day one boy comes up to me and says, "Well, these aren't my real pajamas cuz I sleep in my underwear."

Quotes from this year:

*While Student #13 was coloring, she randomly asked, "What color are belly buttons?"

* When we were learning all about Dr. Seuss, we were reading the book There's a Wocket in my Pocket. In the book there are all kinds of silly characters that rhyme with where they are. For example: a Bofa on the sofa and a Link in the sink. Each student had to come up with their own character and where they were in their house. Student #12 said, "How about a Bitchen in the kitchen?" I said, "How about something different."

* Student #3 said to his friend "What if our whole house was made of toilet paper and whenever you had to blow your nose, you would just take a piece off the wall and blow your nose."

* Student #11 has been going with our Reading Recovery teacher everyday for about two months. While walking to her room, he looks up and asks her, "Do you work here?"

* Oh here we go with Student #8. During snack one day I was sitting at my desk sending out an email, and he said, "What are you doing? Emailing your boyfriend?" During a rainstorm last week it was thundering pretty loud and some of the students were starting to get a little scared. Not Student #8. He had his hands in the air and was shouting, "Yea!! Good job Angels! What? They're just bowling!" While my students were lining up in hallway after using the restroom, I was talking to a fellow teacher about how she kept losing her water bottle. I jokingly told her that I couldn't sleep last night not knowing if she found it or not. After we laughed and she walked away, Student #8 said, "But you don't get any sleep at night anyway with little Bryce." I said, "Yes I do he sleeps all night." He then replied, "So he's like a real human?"

Oak Run!

When we come home to see our families for a weekend, we are so lucky to have my grandparents lake house at Oak Run to stay at. We call it our home away from home. Over our spring break, we decided to have a little photo shoot on the dock by the water. It was a little chilly this day, but Bryce was such a little trooper, of course!

Hey, where'd my hat go?

So this is Oak Run huh?  

Kisses from daddy

 

So sweet

 

Two peas in a pod

Hey there little fisherman, what are you doing?

Love this one!

Kisses from mommy

Relaxing at the lake house!

8 Months Old!

Bryce is 8 months old today! Shane and I can't believe how fast 8 months has gone. He is now crawling all over the place and getting into everything! So much for relaxing on the couch and watching Bryce play with his toys! Who needs toys when you have the stairs, the dishwasher, registers, and outlets to play with! Taking his monthly pictures is not as easy as they used to be. He now rubs off my writing and pulls off his tie sticker. This month I wrote: "I can sit up on my own, pull myself up, and climb stairs." Oh what fun!

Do I really have to sit still?

Well I guess it's not so bad

 

 

Maybe I'll just stand up

Or maybe I'll try to climb this thing

Well, maybe I'll just sit right here

Hey there!

Let me off of this chair!