Digging a Trench

We ended up working Thurs and Friday evening of this week and all day Saturday, Sept 22. We got a lot accomplished! 

Months ago we dug a different trench. That trench has all of our new plumbing from the street to the kids bedroom that is finished. This weekend plans was to extend that plumbing from the kids room to where it needs to be; the future kids bath and laundy room. So out came the wet saw and Kory cut. One of the kids followed behind with the wet vac sucking up all the water mess. Then out came the sledge and all that cement was broked up. We then loaded it into a wheel barrell and it was all taken outside. Everyone had a job to help these past few days. 

It went all the way from the bedroom, through the hall, into the laundry room up to the farthest wall. 

We glued the pipe together, pulled the water line and re burried it. 

I had nice little piles of dirt that too quickly got tracked all over the house! 

While Kory and I were working on the plumbing Hunter was up in the attic suctioning out the old insulation. I was really, really hoping that Saturday would be the last day of that. But after filling 3 bags full we ran out of bags and weren't quite done. While he was suctioning my brother Matt came by to help. I had him go help Kory and then the the rest of us tore down sheet rock and hauled it outside. When Hunter couldn't suction anymore he went truss by truss taking out all the nails. 

Months ago when we took out the old black fireplace it left a huge hole in the ceiling. Kory hung a piece of sheeting to cover up that hole. We took that down and wanted to keep it since it was basically brand new. Kylie and Emily had the job of scraping off the foam that we had used to help seal it with. 

There were a few 2x4s that we also took out that we'd like to re-use. So Maddie and Brayden took out the old nails. 

The bathroom sink was in the way of our new plumbing so out it came. It's going to be interesting once again in the next few days while we get use to our "new" norm. Not sure I like the idea of everyone brushing their teeth in my kitchen sink!

Brayden took a turn at helping us sweep up all the sheetrock mess.  

When the sheetrock and insulation was removed from the ceiling we could easily see where "one" of the electrical fires took place. Crazy!

 Although I still have a trench running through the house most of the dirt was shoveled/swept back to where it belongs. Our cement guy is in Alaska at the moment on hunt. We heard he will be back sometime this week. Once he gets back we can schedule a date to fill in the trench. I hate how the dirt still gets tracked through out the house so I can hardly wait to fill the hole!

So happy knowing the plumbing for the new bathroom is about done. We ran out time to plumb for the washer, sink and drain in the new laundry room. We are still trying to decide if we want to remove all the cement so we can slope the floor a little bit just in case the washer ever leaks or if we'll just build them up and put them in a large pan for that future leak. We'll have to decide soon!

A Random Saturday

This past week I got super, super sick. Like so sick that I dragged myself to the doctor. I hadn't been to the doctor in 6 years!

After putting all my symptoms together; fever, hot and cold chills, achy body, super bad congestion on top of what the Doctor discovered that I had no idea about ; super super low blood pressure. So low they took it 3 times and kept asking me if I felt light headed or dizzy. Plus he could tell I had asthma which I did as a kid but haven't had an episode since I was a teenager. Not to mention that no doctor in the past 20 years have told me I had asthma. Anyways all of this and then knowing we had taken down 3 brick walls that had dead mice, feces and their nests. We decided that I had the Hantavirus. This is a super scary virus. It has a 39% fatality rate. Oh my! There's no definite test to take to confirm. Nor is their a treatment. People are put in the hospital for breathing treatments. I wasn't super bad yet and could still breathe pretty easily so I came home after my doctors appt. However I knew that if things took a turn for the worse I needed to get myself to the ER pretty quickly. I pulled out our own breathing machine so I had it ready just in case. I went to bed when I got home from that appt on Tuesday morning and I really don't remember much of the rest of that day or the next. Kory took care of the kids and dinner time. Thursday afternoon I was feeling better and have slowly but surely returned to almost normal. It's a little scary to think what could have happened! 

On Saturday, Sept 15th we did a few little small projects. I was still recovering and we didn't have a full day like normal. It was Stake Conference Weekend and Kory only had until about 3:30 before he needed to get ready for his leadership meetings. 

When we get out of the shower we were basically in one big open room. Right in front of you was this window looking into our neighbors back yard. We could often see Bro. Trump mowing his lawn , taking out his trash or just being in his back yard. Not wanting to offer our neighbors a free peep show we hung up some blinds we had ordered the previous week.  

  

Not only did we have the window right in front of us but if you looked to your Left you could see right into the 1st bedroom we got finished and through its window. So not wanting to "flash" the nieghbors across the street we hung that blind too! Plus this will help the little kids sleep longer with the sun not shining into their rooms so early in the mornings. 

We also went ahead and hung some blinds above my computer. It gets so bright over the computer that I have a hard time seeing and working in the afternoons. I'm loving the privacy we've had the past few days.

We were able to frame one wall. The wall that will separate the new kitchen from the old. It's where this island use to be. I must have forgotten to take a picture cause you can barely see it in the below picture.  

Tuesday, Sept 18 Kory framed the outside wall of our future laundry room. Our double oven is still sitting in the middle of the floor. We can't frame anymore walls until we get the new plumbing ran into that room. So that's going to be this weekends plan. It's definetely coming along.....

Tearing out the kitchen

Saturday, September 8

The day has finally come to take out our kitchen. Where the kitchen currently lies is where the kids bath and laundry room is going to be. We can't get that 2nd bedroom done because it currently has our washer, dryer and water heater. We have no where to move them! We can't get another bathroom done either because of the kitchen. So it was time to go......

I made an early morning run to the grocery store and came home to cabinets being removed. 

The uppers came off so easy it was almost scary. Not sure what exactly was holding them in place. 

This was an ALL day project. We started a little after 7am and we didn't stop until 11:30 that night!

Once again we had to be super careful because we had plumbing running through the brick walls. 

Once the long wall was out we started on the kitchen sink wall. 

Our floors were super, super messy!

 It was a "all hands on deck" kind of day. Everyone helped!

Once all the cabinets and brick were gone we had the littles start taking out the wood floor.  

 Then we swept, and vaccumed and swept and vaccumed again! 

Once everything was cleaned up, we had to make up a kitchen again. We can live without bedrooms, we can live with one bathroom with no electrical outlets but we can NOT live without some sort of a kitchen! 

So Kory and Hunter went to the shop and built just a real quick and simple base cabinet. He was able to use up three of his "mess up" drawers.  

He also cut out a melamine sheet to be used as our counter top. Once that was on the sink was glued down and the plumbing put back together.  

Dishes from the night before and breakfast that morning sat in a pile by our back door. We had the water shut off most of the day so I had a nice little mess. 

We had our old drawers of
"stuff" just waiting to find a new home. 

The kitchen and master bath shared a wall. So when that brick wall came down we had a 100% open bathroom! As a temporary (probably a few weeks) solution we placed more insulation sheets around the bathroom. At least this way we can "pee" or shower and not have the whole house be able to see. 

No more open toilet!

From the toilets point of view.  

At 11:30 we called it a day and went to bed. We delt with the "mess" on Sunday after church. This sweet pea offered to wash all the dished. This girl loves washing dishes right now. 

We tried finding a new home for everything and welcomed our new and temporary kitchen. We've got our kitchen sink and dishwasher up and running.  

I don't have a stove top nor do I have an oven. So our camp chef will have to work for my stove.  Kory says he'll set up our oven out in the garage or he'll find another a spot in the next few weeks. 

 We don't really have a lot of options so we are making the most out of this crazy remodel project we're currently stuck in. We'll learn to manage!

More Brick Walls

Kory worked on Monday, Sept 3rd even though it was Labor Day. So the kiddo's and I took out 2 more brick walls. They were the brick walls that went around the master bathroom.   

We started with the yellow one. It went super easy and we were done in just a short 45 minutes. 

The teal wall was a bit harder. It had all the plumbing in the walls from the old kids bathroom. 

It took more than 2 hours! But we eventually got it done and cleaned up.  

It feels so good knowing more brick walls are gone! 

The gray box next to the red ladder is our shower in the master bathroom. 

The rooms pretty open and we've lost a lot of privacy but we'll get through this!

Another wall down!

Monday, August 27th was a short day at school for all of my kiddo's. I mentioned to them that morning that I'd like there help when they get home to help me tear down another wall. This wall is the only wall in the house that was NOT brick so I knew it would be easy!

I forgot to take a before picture. Ughhhh. So this wall we removed was separating the future master bedroom from the existing bathroom. The wall went between the middle window and the right window in the above picture (can see where it was on the floor, looks like a shadow). Anyways it went across the room to the light purple spot on the wall between the yellow and green paint of the picture below.  

Hunter had knocked 2 holes in the wall when I realized I had to go pick up the 2 youngest kiddo's from the bus stop. By the time I got back the wall was gone and they were just finishing up sweeping. Hunter, Madelyn and Emily had done it in less than 45 minutes! 

Now we can finish laying out the master bedroom and make sure it is big enough!

Hunters Room Complete!

Tuesday Kory brought home the closet inserts and we got those bad boys installed!

The kids are so excited! They have never had drawers this big in their entire lifes. They kept telling me they aren't going to have enough clothes to fill them up. They are absolutely right! But that's o.k. 

All we're waiting on now is the drawer fronts and closet rods. We're going to do that once the drawer fronts come in. Kory's ordered them. They were suppose to be here last Friday but they didn't come with the delivery.  Being it was Labor Day weekend we really couldn't do anything about it. Hopefully they will come later this week and we can move their clothes in. 

This room is going to be Hunter's. We were going to move him and Brayden into it. However Hunter said he was fine sleeping in the front room with the older girls until we get the next room done. So I moved Kylie into the room with Brayden. These are the two that still play with toys, make messes and go to bed at the same time but earlier than the three oldest.  It's going to be so nice!

Kory had some of the drawer fronts so we went ahead and installed them. 

It is super, super nice having the toys out of my front room. 

This is absolutely awesome to have a room done and two of my kids back into one. Brayden and Kylie that night acted as if it was Christmas Day. They could see all their toys and books that they haven't seen for quite some time. 

Roof Part 2

Saturday, Aug 25th

We were really hoping to finish the roof today. But it didn't happen. 

The valley (more brown piece running up the crevice of the roof) was installed last week but we didn't get the very top part done because it still needed felt and it got to dark and we knew we didn't have the "right" sheets to put up anyways. So this morning Kory, Hunter and I started by laying the felt across the garage roof and then the ice shield. Then we began laying out the sheets over the garage. When we got to the valley Kory didn't want to have to cut the diagnal ends quite yet so we went to the other side. 

It didn't take us to long till we got to the valley, had to install the valley and then started cutting the diagnol pieces. But we got this side completely done! We do need to put the ridge cap on the top but can't do that till we finish the other side. We've also got to put the roof on over the back of the garage that is also the garags back door overhang.  It's pretty small and shouldn't take that long. 

We went to finish the front of the house and realized we were out of the "valley" piece. Ugh.... So frustrated with this company! So Kory and Hunter then spent the rest of the night putting the screws into what we had alread laid out. 

I really, really hope that we can get the rest of the roof done in one more Saturday!