Construction - Week 26

Just one more day of both the electrician and plumber to finish their work and we're done. Well, there's still minor things for Joe and me to do, but it will be livable! YEAH! And most exciting is that I actually cooked a meal for the first time in what seems like forever (more like 3-4 weeks).

This week's batch of pictures....

The eat in area of the kitchen. The table will be moved under the lights. I changed the knobs on the cupboards but Joe will need to put the new drawer pulls on.

Alley of kitchen. Everything's still a mess right now but we have running water. Definitely a plus.
Family room. Can't wait to move the t.v. in this weekend!HAPPY HALLOWEEN! I'll post pictures of our little duck tomorrow!

Great Nana's 91st Birthday

Sunday, we celebrated Joe's Nana's 91st birthday. Hannah's Nana and Auntie Sarah came for the celebration. Sarah looking overwhelmed with the kids. Those 3 munchkins are a handful.
Hannah and I stayed Sunday night at Aunt Polly's for some extra time with Nana and Auntie Sarah.
I forgot to bring Hannah toys, but she really didn't need them as she was more than happy to walk around in her Auntie's high heels. She didn't need her Nana's help to walk in them, but just wanted her there for the company as she went around and around the house.

Construction - Week 25

When I started with construction updates in May, never did I think I would still be doing them in October. Even I'm getting bored.

We're so close to be being done, but of course there seems to be one excuse/thing after another stopping us. We still have no running water, lights, or heating in the addition. Minor things. All was supposed to be done Monday or Tuesday. Here we are Wednesday and finally the electrician showed up, only to lock his keys in the car, with his cellphone and tools. oops. Right now he's off getting his spare set while his car sits in our driveway blocking me in. There's always tomorrow for lighting and outlets.

But onto what has been done! Counter tops and cabinets. So exciting. I love, love, love the new counter tops and Wagner did a great job making the existing cabinets work with the beams in the ceiling. I spent yesterday shopping for new hardware for the drawers and cabinets. I never realized how expensive those little buggers are which is why I had to go to many stores to find just the right ones for the lowest amount of money.

Pictures. A view of the biggest part of our kitchen. We moved our table back in. There's a bit more space than we realized but we're leaving it as is until we can decide what to do with it.

Kitchen alley. Wagner built a great shelf where the old hood was. You can't really see it that well, but it's got a lot of crap on it right now anyway.

1/2 bath. Sink is in, just not hooked up. The toilet will be moved back some when it's hooked up (but not much). The great green couch has also moved into the family room this past week. This is the couch that will always come back to haunt me...I thought when I got our new couch for the living room, it would be history, but then comes along a family room in need of a couch. And until we recover from the cost of this addition, the great green couch stays.

Construction - Week 24

We're in the home stretch...supposedly. Most of the major work has been done and now we are doing the "finishing touches", but seriously there are A LOT of finishing touches. Joe and I have been doing our fair share this week too! Joe took out all of the counter tops and remaining sink while I have been filling more nail holes, patching up the old kitchen wall, and painting.

The biggest item of the week....carpet in the family room. YEAH! Our new sinks and counters are going in Friday and the stove should be set up this week too. I probably won't be able to use the kitchen until next week since the sinks won't be hooked up and there will be no heat in the addition until Monday or Tuesday (fingers crossed), but we're getting there. And who knew Trader Joe's had such an extensive microwavable selection?

Onto pictures. Carpet!


Kitchen alley. I took this picture yesterday before I primed the walls for painting.

Kitchen. After this picture yesterday, Eddie did move the stove back to give more room, but the refrigerator is still there...just hanging out.From family room into rest of addition. The toilet has made it's way into the bathroom but is still not positioned. Hopefully next week too!

Robbyn's Park with Nadya

Today, we met Cheryl and Nadya at a park in Arlington (the next town over from ours). We met Cheryl in Kazakhstan while she was adopting Nadya and we were adopting Hannah. They literally live 10 minutes from us and we didn't even realize it for quite some time. When we did we thought it would be great to get the girls together!

They had fun playing together and Hannah just loved the park we met them at. It had the biggest slide she's ever seen (aside from the Super Slide at the fair) and after riding it with me for a few times, she even rode it by herself.

Here are Hannah and Nadya on the teeter totter (or as Joe calls it...a see saw...guess it just depends where you're from...is it a lollipop or a sucker?).


The girls spinning on a tire swing.
After the park, we met Cheryl's husband and went to a cafe for coffee and a muffin. Unfortunately, Joe was stuck at home ripping out our old counter tops and hood vent. No rest for the weary.

Apple Picking

Autumn time in New England means lots of apples ripe and ready for picking. On our drive to Grandpa's today we stopped at Shelbourne Farm to do just that!

There were tons of trees and types to choose from. We filled our "peck" of apples and of course sampled one along the way.

Apple picking is very serious business... It's almost bigger than her head.
Really, it was a big apple. And little Miss Hannah had her fill of it after this picture!

Waiting for Game 1

Two Red Sox fans waiting for Game 1 of the ALCS to start....

Construction - Week 23

Not too much work has been done this week...Monday being a holiday and Tuesday calling in sick...and yet still I call Eddie every day a few times a day just to let him know I'm here! I'm sure he loves that I'm a stay at home mom! : ) In my defense, I did tell him that once he took out my functioning kitchen, I would be in bad mood until it was running again! Who wants to eat out every night? OK, some people do, but not me!

On a brighter note, the end is in sight. The electrician is coming today to hook up electricity to the new stove, one of the plumbers (long story) is coming Friday to hook up the gas portion of the stove along with the granite guy to take the template for our new countertops (which are scheduled to be installed next week). Of course, I left out a lot of other steps that need to happen, but that's where all the calls to Eddie come in.

Here are the pictures.

The alleyway of the kitchen. It was once a butler's pantry that was converted by the last owners into part of the kitchen. We moved the stove and replaced with cabinets but left the main sink and dishwasher. Have I ever mentioned that our living room has a servant's call button in the floor? It no longer works! And besides even if it did, no one would come.


From alley of kitchen into eat in area and mud room. Was so excited for the tile to be laid. They are in the process of grouting it yesterday and today. And yes, the green is bright. I'm somewhat skeptical, but will wait to post judgment until all is done. I can always re-paint. Of course, Joe loves it! The brighter the better.

Family room that is literally the biggest mess...now with a toilet, a stove, and functioning refrigerator in the middle
Mud room with the tile being laid.

Big Foot

If I haven't mentioned before, Hannah has a serious shoe fetish....for everyone else's shoes but her own.

How she navigates in shoes that are much too big is beyond me, but she definitely does...and I thought she looked so cute!

On a different note, we were finally completely kicked out of our kitchen on Friday. The old stove was taken out, tile was laid (on Friday and Saturday), and we were left without a bathroom or sink on the first floor and a whole bunch of crap in the other rooms. Here are a few pictures of the chaos that is the rest of our house because of the construction.

Well, actually this is a picture of our alleyway in our kitchen. It is looking from the dining room into the kitchen. You can see the gate blocking us since we couldn't shut the door (I have yet to paint this part as this was the last of the functioning kitchen).
Here's our dining room in all it's chaotic mess! It is serving as everything right now. Sammy's food is on one part of the table (thank goodness we have a long table) along with a bunch of crap and we eat at the other end. We put all of our snacks and temporary plastic ware in/on our hutch and you can see our temporary stand for our microwave and toaster to the right.
Here's a picture of our living room with the extra couch, Hannah's toys, and oh yeah if you look closely through the door, that is our refrigerator (still plugged in) in the family room (under construction)...right next to the toilet! : )

Construction - Week 22

How much fun are we having? So last week, Eddie said he'd be "done" by this Friday...right now, I'm thinking we have different definitions of done.

Here's the latest round of pictures! There must have been something on my camera lens because all of the pictures have blurry dots on them. Sorry....I'm too lazy to actually retake the pictures. Plus, every single nail hole in the trim and windows needs to be filled in with wood filler and apparently, that is the painter's job....FUN! Did they really need to use so many nails?

Here's Wagner working on the door to the bathroom. We reused the old door and odd how close my yellow in the family room matches the old color yellow in the kitchen/bathroom! The door will be painted white eventually.


From family room into eat-in area of kitchen. Family room. The original paint color I chose matched too closely to our living room, so I lightened it with white paint....I like the final color.
Here you can see the carnival effect I was going for with my paint color choices! Nice, huh? And yes, those are actual cabinets coming into the kitchen (the old ones that we are re-positioning!)
If you look closely at our "floating floor" you can see Sammy and Charlie's paw prints. Sammy snuck past me last night while Charlie walked over it this morning when it was supposed to be dry. oops...tile will eventually hide the mishap.