Water everywhere!

Our weather has been so crazy lately . . . early last week it was in the single digits and low teens, but by Friday it was raining in the upper 40's melting all the snow drifts, but not the ground itself. Friday afternoon Zander went downstairs to get something only to come upstairs saying "I can't get it. There is water everywhere." Of course I was curious what he meant so downstairs I went. Sure enough, there was water everywhere. After some inspection I found that the east window well was full of water and was spilling into the basement. There was an inch of standing water in the play room, storage room, part of the dirt room, and 3/4 of the big boys' room was soaked. UGH. The boys grabbed the shop vac and vacuumed out the window well while I called insurance. Unfortunately insurance wouldn't cover the mess because it had come from outside, so we were responsible for the clean up. Zander and Mckay thought it was so fun to have water in the basement. They were splashing around in it like it was a rain puddle. The boys and I began the work of vacuuming up the water. Matt picked up some big air movers on his way home from work. It took about 3 hours of vacuuming to get the water up. We have had fans blowing on it since Friday night and thankfully everything is drying out and it appears that there will be no permanent damage.

TAH DAH!!

We are finally done (minus a few small things) with our remodel/addition project! It has been a long 5 months, but we are so excited with the end result and are proud to say that we did the majority of it ourselves (thanks to Dad for all your help and to Doug and Kathryn). We have decided that if/when we do another project like this there will be some things that we will contract out--namely all the drywall work. We LOATHE drywall! Despite all the frustrations with the project I have enjoyed working side-by-side-with Matt. He has amazed me with all the new things he has learned how to do (electrical, roofing, etc). Anyway...for those that don't know we took out the north wall of our house, added 400 sq ft, and remodeled the kitchen. **You can click on the pictures to get a better view**

BEFORE

The old dining room and the old living room

AFTER
Kitchen from dining room and kitchen from living room (old dining is now kitchen area)
The new dining room (which was the living room before)
The new living room

Weed beds no longer

The previous owners of our home loved flower beds, or should I say WEED beds. They put in SO many "flower" beds that they obviously couldn't keep up with them and they were terribly overgrown with weeds. They also liked rocks and LOTS of them! It was all very overwhelming, even for my mom (an avid gardener) . . . just way too many weeds. After several months and countless loads of rocks and weeds with the wagon; along with free mulch from the transfer station (dump) I have managed to get the main bed to be a true FLOWER bed (just need to get the pavers for the edge)! I love how much better everything looks . . . flowers makes me happy! Thank you Mom for sharing perennial starts with me!

Before

After

The outside is DONE!!

While Matt was in Washington for work last week my time was spent putting the siding up on the addition. I had set a goal to get all the siding done before Matt got home and with a little help from Chase we got SO close. There was a very small section that Matt and I did together Saturday morning and then it was DONE! I can't tell you how excited I am to have it finished. We put the rain gutters up later Saturday afternoon, just in time because we got poured on not two hours later, so the outside is complete (minus covering the foundation insulation and hanging the corner downspout). I have to say that the siding looks pretty good and the addition now looks like it belongs. Now onto the inside....can't wait to be done with that!

Busy times

We have had a busy, but fun couple of weeks with the remodel, visitors, 4th of July, etc. The wall seperating the old part of the house and the addition came down on July 2nd. It was so awesome to stand in the kitchen and see what it is going to look like. That evening Roger and Maureen Roylance stayed the night on their way down to Utah. It was so fun to see them again. We sure miss everyone from Washington. We had some excitement that night when it decided to rain. And not just rain, but POUR! Unfortunately we didn't have anything on the roof (no paper, shingles, nothing) and the rain was pouring into the old part of the house and the addition. It was crazy. Luckily we had some plastic and were able to put it up where the wall used to be to help keep the water out of the living part of the house. Friday we had the final measure for the kitchen cabinets. I can't wait to see them in. My friend Ashleigh and her 5 boys dropped by on their way to Twin Falls. It was fun to catch up with her. Saturday, July 4th we took the boys to the parade in Rupert, although Matt and I wanted to be up on the roof instead. After the parade we picked up a roofing gun and got up on the roof. Doug, Kathryn, Mathew, and Nathanael were so AWESOME and came and spent the holiday helping us roof. It was a HOT day, but we got a lot done! Thank you guys we really couldn't have done it without you. That evening we had a BBQ, watched the fireworks from up on the roof, got attacked by JuneBugs, and ate homemade ice cream. It was a great day! Monday our friends the Freemans stopped by on their way back to WA. Again, it was so fun to see our friends. It makes us realize how lucky we are to have such good friends. Matt and I got up on the roof to finish the job. However with little kids it was hard for me to spend much of the day with him. Mama Barnes and Jordan came over that afternoon and brought us some new pets...two kittens. Jordan helped Matt finish the shingling that night which we are SO grateful for! My mom helped me the next coupld of days try to figure out what to do with my flower beds. They are quite overwhelming. We had a quick trip to the doctor for McKay and Zander (ear and sinus infections). It was fun to have her stay with us and so nice to have her help. And finally Wednesday night Matt and I finished the rid cap on the roof. Yay! It is done! I am so glad because it was terribly stressful doing it with kids. Zander climber up onto the roof (his brothers were supposed to be babysitting him) 4 times. Yes, all the way up onto the roof....talk about SCARY! Thank you to everyone for all of your help, we so appreciate it. And thank you to all of our friends that dropped in! It was so good to see everyone!

wall coming down and putting up plastic watching the parade (looking into the sun) and some of the roofing crew What the addition looks like now

Sad Day . . .

As many of you already know Matt has been transferred to Burley, Idaho so we are moving. Two days ago our house went on the market. We knew it was coming, but when the sign goes up and the lockbox on the door it definitely makes it very real. It has been hard for both Matt and I knowing that we are leaving OUR home. We love our house, the land, our friends, this town, etc. We had finally gotten most of the work done around the yard and were to the point where we could really enjoy it and now we are leaving it.

As for the move . . . so far we have been unable to find a house. We will be looking for a rental unit and for now our plan is to hopefully build as there haven't been good options for another house. We have 60 days, at most, that we will be apart (although we are hoping to find a place to live much sooner than that). After 60 days his company will buy our house if it hasn't sold so we HAVE to be out by then (Oct.14). We will continue to keep the blog updated with our moving progress.