Master Shower

People keep asking what's left on the house? 

The upstairs is 100% complete. Yay!!

There are 3 things left in the kitchen, 1) Back splash, 2) Install the pot filler (after back splash is done) and 3) the wall needs painted where the old kitchen hook ups were. Not the whole wall just a small portion of it. 

The family room is done for now. Eventually we will build a corner fireplace but as of now it's not even on the list to do. I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen for a year or two.  

We do need the carpet installed on the stairs. 

The laundry room needs 1 stick of baseboard and then to paint it of course. 

The master bedroom needs 3 sticks of baseboards installed, the baseboards then painted and carpet installed.

The master bathroom needs the shower finished. the baseboards are installed just needs painted and then the bathtub and toilet installed.

What a glorious day that will be!

There are other plans like building a patio cover (probably this Fall), putting cabinets out in the garage and fixing the shed up.

End of February/beginning of March we started on the master shower. We hung water boards, sealed the screws and then applied 4 coats of water proof goop to all the cracks and walls. It took forever for each coat to dry, like 3-4 days each time. It was crazy! During this time we decided to use Harmony and Dustin's left over tile. We had about 1/3 but needed to order more. Thanks to Covid it took about 2 weeks to get the tile in. They came in on a big pallet. They loaded the pallet up with a fork lift into the back of Kory's truck. We weren't quite ready for it so Kory unloaded it into the garage. One day as he was walking by he noticed some of the plastic had come un done. He didn't recognize the tile. He opened it up and realized they sent us home with the wrong floor tiles. Ooops! I took them back and luckily they had what we had ordered but didn't know who it belonged to. 

My blue coated shower. 

A Saturday finally came that we were both home and decided to start on the shower. It took forever to figure out a pattern. We had issues mixing up the cement to the right consistency. 

We only ended up doing enough tiles that one bucket of mud gave us.

 It took 4+ hours. 

Ridiculous!

Kory ended up working several Saturdays at the shop. 

We finally had a Saturday come available again so we finished the one wall. Looks good. 

But I felt so disappointed in how long it was taking. At this rate it might be done by Christmas. 

A friend who has tiled many times volunteered to come give us a hand. 

We haven't been able to work on it for a month so I was excited. Jeremy came over and spent about 10 hours helping us. They got so much done. I was really hoping all the tile would be laid so I can grout this week but we didn't quite get there. But we are a lot closer than we were. 

All we have left is the 2 small walls or what is the entry wall. One is 1/2 way done. Hopefully it will just take one more Saturday to finish laying the tile. I'm planning on grouting it myself.

Once the tile is done we can get the tile saw and the extra tiles out of the master bedroom. Kory will paint ALL the baseboard and trim throughout the 1st floor that still needs it. Then we can install the tub and toilet in the master bedroom. We can also then call our carpet guy and he can come do the master bedroom and stairs. And then I will fill like our house is about done. Kory and I can move from one of the kids bedrooms into the master. Finally! So, so close! I can hardly wait. We just need some good working days at the shop, less mistakes by our new employee's and to finish a job or two so Kory doesn't feel like he is drowning! Then maybe we can finish the dang project that has been dragging out for way to long. 

Kitchen is 99% complete

We got our doors and drawer fronts done. My kitchen's look is changing once again. One afternoon Kory and our employee Brandon came up and together we put the doors and drawers on. 

The bottom cabinets are all drawers. I love being able to pull them out to see what is in the back. It's been so nice to be using them for a few weeks now. We quickly had to empty all the drawers so we could get the front's on. Man how I hate having to move crap back and forth. 

We were able to put most of the contents in the drawers on the counter and the table. No room for the pans, so they went on the floor. 

Kids school drawers and office files also found themselves on the floor too. 

I sure love my deep office drawers. 

Oh how I hate the mess! But it's just for the day right?

Our handles we ordered were suppose to be delivered the same day. That's why Kory picked this day to put the doors and drawer fronts on, we'd only have to empty the drawers once. Well they didn't show up. The handles didn't come Friday or over the weekend either. Monday they weren't here either. My patience is very thin after living in construction for 3 years now. Kory called his supplier and told him they had better be here first thing Tuesday morning. I was NOT happy and he let the supplier know it. 

The supplier ended up hand delivering them on Tuesday. Hallelujah! 

Kory and Hunter went around drilling the holes for the handles. Brayden vacuumed the mess for me. 

 Christmas is next week! I'm not going to miss the "rush" of getting something done before the current holiday! Between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, it's about to do me in. 

Oh how I love my kitchen!

I think it's just BEAUTIFUL!

I love the coloring in my Walnut cabinets. 

My "under the stairs" alcove is probably my favorite. I love having my mixer and baking goods all in one spot.  

My island is also amazing. I love the width and depth. 

The drawers are so deep. I've got my crockpot and rice cooker in one drawer with lots of room to spare. 

I love, love, love my new kitchen. 

What would make my kitchen 100% complete?

Getting the back splash on. We've got it now. 

We just need to install it and then Kory can finish plumbing my pot filler. 

Hopefully it can be a one weekend kind of project. 

Painting

Kory's mom was going to host Thanksgiving this year. Knowing her house was to small she tried to reserve her church building. Someone beat her to it. So she tried to reserve the town hall in Alton, someone else had already reserved it. So Holly tried to reserve her church and their town hall in Antimony, again someone had already reserved it. So we offered our home. At the beginning we had 6 of the 8 siblings coming. We were going to have 70+ people here. Yikes!

I won't lie, I was excited to finally have our home finished enough that we felt like we could host Thanksgiving. Kory wanted to finish the baseboards. Most of it had been done already. 

Unfortunately, we lost our employee of almost 2 years last month. He moved his family to Panguitch. We've had a real hard time replacing him. Kory has worked late into each evening and most weekends. The plan was to spray the baseboards and trim the weekend before Thanksgiving. Kory had also told his cousin from up north that he could come down and Kory would finish helping him design his kitchen and start building it. There isn't enough hours in our one day weekends. 

Since Kory wasn't around the kiddo's and I got it ready to spray. It's crazy how long the prep time takes!

Emily blowing the dust from the trim after we sanded it down. 

After sanding and wiping the dust from the floor the girls started taping off the floor. 

Kylie wiping the floors trying to stay ahead of the girls taping. 

She wasn't a fan of the job. 

Brayden was also helping wiping the dust from the floor so the tape would stick. 

Hunter and Maddie working well with each other. 

It took hours, and hours to get it all ready. 

This is the front entryway leading into the family room.

Down the hallway.

A portion of the family room.

Just one wall in the kitchen. 

The Pantry.

We had to push everything to the center of the room. Our freezer has been sitting in the middle of my front room for weeks. We haven't wanted to move it into the pantry until the baseboards were painted. 

The house has been a mess for a week. 

Just waiting on Kory to find the time to spray. 

It didn't happen over the weekend like we were planning but it did happen the day BEFORE Thanksgiving. The morning of, we were ripping off the paper and tape, moving the freezer, taking the old stove outside and moving furniture around. I wasn't sure if it was going to happen but it did! 

Everything got painted except for the master bedroom and bath. We actually ran out of trim so the master bedroom has a little more work to do. The bathroom is ready to be sprayed. It's taped and everything, just didn't get to it. Some day, hopefully soon! 

My stove!

 I have been cooking on my 3 burner camping stove for more than 2 years. I am so excited for my new stove! It finally came yesterday! We ordered this bad boy almost 6 weeks ago! It's been a long time coming for sure. 

It's so pretty and shiny. I was almost scared to use it for dinner!

But I overcame that fear and used it for the 1st time. Oh my goodness. I'm in love....

And for breakfast I fixed pancakes. 

Will you look at that!

Look at all those pancakes..

This is what my kitchen currently looks like. I'm hoping my the end of November we will have our cabinet doors. Just got to save up a little more money. That new stove of mine cost a pretty penny. 

My kitchen is so, so big. It's amazing. 

This young man volunteered to clean my "old" stove for the very last time. 

More Cabinetry

Slowly bur surely our cabinetry is coming together. We have all the drawers finally. Kory also brought home the top portion of our book shelf in our office. I am so excited! Each child is going to get there very own drawer for their school supplies. It's going to be awesome! We also were able to "un pack" 2 totes full of books. My closet looks so much bigger without those totes.  

Love, love, love!

We have room to spare. Although I'm pretty sure we still have a tote of books hiding somewhere. There's quite a few books I know we own but aren't here. I'm also missing a few books from some of our series. Hopefully it will show up as we continue to unpack. 

Our hood is installed along with our spice racks. It's going to be AMAZING when it's all done. The kids and I have spent some time this week "un packing" kitchen totes and trying to get a little more organized now that we have all the drawers installed. 

Kory got our floating shelf installed for our microwave. It's nice to see the kitchen slowly coming together. Compared to what and how we've been living with over the past 3 years, this kitchen feels amazing. We have several empty drawers and empty shelves. I wonder low long it will take to fill em' up? 

Kory also brought home the master bath cabinet. 

Looking good. We're going to make the drawers this weekend. 

Grandpa Christensen helped me installed the sink fixtures. Yay!!

 

More Kitchen

Kory came home early today with a surprise!

He brought our hood home and got it hung up. And then he hung up the 3 cabinets that have been sitting on my family room floor for several weeks now. It's looking so good. 

While he had help he also hung the range hood. 

Look at that!

The tall walk through cabinet on the far right is our "hidden pantry". Through that walkway is the pantry and the stairs going down into the fruit room. Next we have the fridge cabinet, a small cabinet, spice rack, hood and another spice rack. This is so exciting to see it come together. 

 We ordered our stove right after we got our counter tops. We had no idea how back logged they were, thankyou Covid-19. Our stove won't be delivered to the store until Oct 28/29 (Wed/Thur). They will call me when it's in and then we will schedule a install day. I'm really, really hoping that they have an opening that next week. I am so, so disappointed we are about 6 weeks out. At least there is an end in sight!  The stove cost us a pretty penny. Hoping we can save up enough money to buy our cupboard and drawer fronts by the end of the year. I've loving my kitchen. I still have emptry drawers and shelves. Love it!