In.

So. We moved in. We are slowly coming out of a fog. Life since July 3, 2015 has been a blur and these last three weeks are no exception. The last week of March was full of inspections; bank, mechanical and building. Most everything went fine. We went back and forth with the bank, because the on-the-ground inspector signed off on everything, but somehow the report the bank received only gave us 80% complete on HVAC and 95% complete on paint, trim and labor. Something got lost in translation, clearly. Ben called as soon as we received these documents and ended up being on the phone for about an hour with the bank and the inspector. His favorite thing is talking on the phone so this was not a big deal. So totally kidding. The story he got from the lady at the bank was that we could be in default of our loan because it was a six month loan and if the project wasn't complete, well, bad news bears. So we went into panic mode, naturally. We are hard working people with good credit and auto-payment on everything, so we basically never miss a bill. We pay off loans (cars, student loans) early. We live within our means and give to our church and local charities. So the word "default" hit like a dagger, to me anyways. Well, this went back and forth for about two days then I finally talked to a different person at the bank who assured me that we would be fine and it was probably just a miscommunication with the documents, and worst case scenario there was a 30 day grace period to get all of the renovations completed. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, we heard from the bank that they were ordering the final FINAL inspection (which is a good thing) and hopefully we would be all set. The inspection took place, he signed off, bank sent the last draw documents to us this past Wednesday, we all signed and I sent them back. Then I found out late Friday afternoon that they won't release the final funds because there's one permit missing from our file. Oh my word, seriously?! Hopefully this will be resolved quickly and it doesn't seem like a big deal, but we are just ready to be done with all of this back-and-forth nonsense. Trying to remain positive and grateful because without the bank, there wouldn't be a Farmhouse.

After we got everything ready for the end-of-March inspections, the next thing was to get moved in, get everything out of the rental, and get everything out of the PODS. Done, done and done. Our first night in the house was Monday, April 4. The PODS was emptied that week and picked up on Thursday, April 7. We chipped away at the rental that whole week but were officially out on Saturday, April 9. In between all of this we had to say "goodbye for now" to my Grandma Stob. She passed away into glory after 98 years here on, ironically, April 4. This was such a bittersweet day. It was also incredibly gross and rainy, until that evening when it suddenly got sunny. My dad called shortly after I noticed this to tell me Grandma had passed. I think the sun started shining when Grandma saw Jesus face to face and got to hug my Grandpa for the first time in 23 years. That whole week was peppered with happy moments and sad moments; memories made and memories recalled. The funeral brought in family from all over, and it was amazing to see all of my aunts and uncles, nearly all of my 15 Stob cousins, many of their spouses and lots of their kids that week. Grandma was so excited about the Farmhouse, and I'm sad that she didn't get to see it quite finished.

We obviously moved in gradually over the course of about a week and a half. Our moms both helped a lot, getting the house clean and livable. It's a good thing we have kids because that's where their real concern lies. Kidding, I know they love us too. We also got the pre-existing carpets cleaned in the living rooms downstairs and the three bedrooms upstairs. We took help when it was offered and asked for help in pretty specific windows...we do have day (night, weekend) jobs after all. At first it went well...getting furniture set up, packing up one room and bringing it over and unpacking it at the Farmhouse...and then everything went crazy and it was a free-for-all. And that's still pretty much where we are at. Most of what we need to be functional is in place, but we can't walk through the garage and we can barely pass through the family room upstairs. Boxes everywhere. As odd as it might sound, even to me, I am the most at peace about this whole thing than I have been in months. We may be living in chaos surrounded by boxes, but at least we are all together and everything is in one place! That alone adds some semblance of "normal" that we have all been missing.

Not everything in the house is fully complete, even from our standards. When we moved in the kitchen floor still needed one coat of poly. The mudroom and pantry needed to be stained and finished, which meant three more coats of poly. The chimney hole upstairs was still only covered with a piece of plywood and needed to have a better, safer patch. The only appliance that was fully functional was the fridge. But we didn't care. We had been there before; that's what normal renovations are like. We picked away at the floors the first weekend we were there, which has now allowed us to get some stuff into place. The island we took from our old house fits nicely in the kitchen and has been really nice to eat around again. Hank came over one day to put blocks under the stove and got it all leveled and working properly. I've mentioned before that the floor has a significant slope and the kitchen cabinets needed to be shimmed a lot. The stove sat too low, even with the little leveling mechanisms on the feet fully extended. So blocks and extra trim pieces it is. He also came to install the microwave which is so much nicer than the little college dorm room type micro we bought for the rental. Ben got the washer and dryer working, so we are up and running with all of the appliances. We have temporary rods in our closets until we decide how we want to organize them for real. I personally got so tired of making decisions that I think I might live with my temporary rod for a year. It works just fine. Well, it did fall down once, but Ben reinforced it so I'm back in business.

The entry doors we want are not in yet so we still have temporary ones. Sounds like the person who took the order initially has since quit and something got lost in the shuffle. There's no record of the order so they placed a new one last week. The high cost of turnover, I tell ya. The list of to-do's is slowly growing again now that we're coming out of the haze of actually moving. But nothing seems overwhelming, and nothing will require us to get a sitter in order to work together, or spend evenings and weekends in separate houses, or prevent us from dropping everything to go play outside with the boys, now that it's finally so nice out. So we are very thankful and relieved to be as far as we are.

My dad and brother Matt helping Ben move this beast upstairs to Colt's room.

Guys from our small group at church helped get some big stuff in one night. Bed, couches, etc. There was also a lot of downtime.

Deep in thought...

View of the Farmhouse from the rental on our last night there. Beauty.

My grandma packing up my kitchen stuff.

My grandpa helping Ben unload the PODS.

Playing with cars and trucks the first morning they woke up at the Farmhouse. No different from anywhere else they have ever lived!

This is so common it's barely notable. Yes, someone is on the toilet.

Why wouldn't you wear your Colombian cowboy hat to poly a floor at 11:00 pm on a Saturday?

Our dog is no longer allowed inside the house. In case it's not clear, she's a yellow lab.

Boys playing atop of the clay with their cousin Brett.

Ben and my dad hanging plywood in the garage. More durable than drywall in Ben's opinion. I don't know and I don't care. 

Yellow

Another holiday has come and gone and we are still chillin in limbo. But we are in the home stretch. We had a bank inspection on Monday and everything that was on the original budget/bank loan needed to be complete. We were nervous about this. Me especially. I've been nervous about all things bank related since July. But the inspector signed off on everything, so we are just praying that everything gets processed okay. It's at least a step in the right direction! We still have one final bank inspection/appraisal and then the final building inspection. We hope to have closure by the end of this week! Once the work to get the house ready for inspections is done, the work will begin to move in. That's a whole different animal I'm not quite ready to deal with. Didn't we JUST move?!

Things have been coming together quite well, I would have to say. It's scary waiting to see how things you picked out in October actually look in the house. I feel like my tastes have changed a little even in the past six months. Overall I think everything is working out and not displeasing to the eye. But there have also been some definite hiccups these past few weeks. Full disclosure: it's not all fun and games in the renovation business. 

- I previously mentioned that Ben and my dad had painted all of the new drywall/addition areas back in February. Then we had someone come in and paint the trim. He did, and it looks great, but he over-sprayed a lot in the process, not realizing that the walls were done. He assumed they needed the second coat yet. When we walked in one evening and saw this, our hearts just sank. We felt like we were in a good spot, and then it felt like we took two steps backwards. He made it right and fixed all of the walls over the course of the next few days, though there are still some spots where it looks like the wrong sheen or maybe even color was used. Not noticeable enough for us to address right now. In general, the walls, doors, trim, etc. all look great.

- Lighting fixtures turned out to be one of the bigger headaches to date in my opinion. I completely stressed over this. Anything I loved came at a steep price. We finally got to the point where I had waited too long to pull the trigger and the electricians needed fixtures. So we went to Home Depot one rainy Sunday on the way to a birthday party and got what we needed. We ended up just getting inexpensive fixtures that we didn't hate, knowing it was nothing a can of spray paint couldn't fix. My sister-in-law actually once called me the spray paint queen, so I'm always good for a project. Sometimes I just walk down that aisle at Menards to imagine what I can re-fresh next. Did I just say that out loud? Spoiler alert...I actually really like the lighting fixtures now that everything is in place. My favorite fixture might be the one over the kitchen sink that cost $13. Winning. 

- There was some major miscommunication around plumbing fixtures. I had picked everything out back in October for the downstairs bathroom, December for the master bath and January for the kitchen. I didn't give anything a second thought. Then Greg called last Friday morning when I was at a conference in Grand Rapids. Apparently about half of the fixtures were missing at the house and the plumbers were there waiting. I called the showroom and they only had part of the order. They were going to look into it. I never heard back, so when I was finally back in Holland I drove right there to see what was going on. I ended up taking several things back to the house with me and they ordered everything else to be delivered on Monday. Everything is now installed and looks great, but that was frustrating. When I filled Ben in he said "wow, bet you're mad huh?" and I said "yes, but I don't know at who! Seems like there's an unnecessary middle man here and I don't know who dropped the ball. I might actually just be mad at you." And Ben will concur that most of the anger and frustration does end up directed at him. Poor guy.

-I mentioned before that the boys wanted yellow bedrooms. They were also, for a time, arguing with each other and with me over who was getting which room. So my genius plan was to pick one "yellow that's not really yellow" and paint all three original bedrooms the same so that which boy ends up in which room could be a game time move-in decision and all would be happy (except Mom. Because yellow). I hemmed and hawed over swatches and narrowed it down to three. I took those along with three boys (I had our nephew Gavin, Colt's age, as well that day) back to Repcolite to make a decision. I told the lady there what my plan was and she said, "Let me show you 'Straw'..." and it seemed fine to me so I bought three gallons. No sample. Just three gallons. No risk no reward. In this case, minor risk, zero reward. I started painting that night and HATED it. Just hated it. Ben tried to make me feel better about it but I was not happy. I looked again the next morning and still hated it. It has now kind of grown on me. I wouldn't say I love it, but the boys do, so I guess I just need to get over it. They've also come to an agreement on who gets what room, but I give it about three nights before they want to share a room again anyways. Whatever. They've been sharing at the rental and it goes really well. In fact, the past few nights I've had to put Ellis back in his crib because he keeps trying to sleep in Colter's bed. Who am I kidding, it's kind of adorable.

- Most of the windows were replaced in December and January. There was one window that came in wrong, so we needed a new one. The new one was also wrong apparently, so there has just been this one window that hasn't been replaced. The opening was framed and covered with foam board and they were able to side around it. They were FINALLY able to get the last window in a few days ago! Yesssss...check that off the list. Only bummer is that the painter is done and gone and we don't have time to wait, so I just painted the trim myself. It doesn't look near as good as the professionally painted trim, but good enough for Ellis' room I guess. It's just going to end up covered with cars and Fruit Loops anyways. 

Most everything else has gone very smoothly. Plumbers are done, siding is done, electricians are done, HVAC is done, driveway/garage approach is poured...we are pretty much down to some interior things that need to be addressed before the inspections. One thing not covered by the bank but that we wanted done before we moved were the original bedrooms. My dad took charge of these, patching and repairing all of the water damage, crumbling plaster, etc. Then, they needed to be primed with oil-based primer, since we found remnants of wall paper and if there is any glue, it would just smear around if you tried to paint. The stuff you learn when you listen to your dad. My dad and I primed the rooms, including ceilings, one Friday morning. We were a little wobbly by the end. That stuff is nasty. At one point, Corey (Countryside) was on the roof right outside the bedroom window and he popped his head in to check on us to make sure we weren't going to pass out. Thankfully it was a nice day and we could open all the windows without freezing. 

Ben installed the yellow pine flooring upstairs this weekend, which was really the biggest thing left on the list. He got as far as he could before he ran out of wood. Somebody mis-measured. And it wasn't me. We still need a railing/banister at the top of the new staircase, which is built and just needs to be installed. A few door knobs need to be installed, a little painting needs to be done. Other than that, we should be in good shape for the bank. Then, before we move in, we need to clean. I've been tackling this a little the past week, with the help of our moms. It's amazing what a difference a few hours can make. So so good for my mental health. In one of these cleaning sessions, The Moms successfully talked me into trashing the monstrous sectional sofa we had been storing at the Farmhouse. We got it out of our basement in Zeeland and brought it right to the Farmhouse. There wasn't room in the PODS or at the rental, so this seemed logical. Maybe it would have been, if we had somehow covered and protected it. Instead, it ended up with months worth of drywall dust, insulation, maybe asbestos, maybe lead paint, embedded in the fibers. I was still planning to get it cleaned. Well, The Moms talked me out of it, I convinced Ben, and we tossed it in the dumpster. We bought it used from Ben's coworker about six years ago, and it was several years old by then already, so it had lived a good life. But old schmold, that thing was comfy. Oh well. Bye bye big guy

Biscuit jointing the downstairs bathroom vanity top. This was about 11:30pm on a Saturday. 

Dad patching the walls

He was on ceiling paint duty...what a guy.

Finishing up the siding. Looks safe.

Grouting the shower

Ready to make fast decisions on lighting

Luckily for me, the trip to Repcolite with three little buys included a stalled train across the street. Kept them occupied for minutes.

Ellis' legit reaction to the yellow rooms. Jumping for joy. This picture actually seems okay now that I look at it. Much different in person.

My poor Acadia has some hard miles on it from the past 8 months.

Concrete guys prepping for steps and driveway

The last window...I was so excited. Hank told me they charge extra for photos, so if this blog ever makes money I hereby promise to give him five dollars.

My man...working hard to give me the floor I never wanted. I actually do really like it a lot now that it's in. One might call it a leap of faith, since all of the professionals warned us against it and we never even saw a sample of the stuff we actually ordered. I do love those knots though...

Big helpers. Uncle Mike happened to bring over a bunch of hand-me-down toys that morning, including new tools. 

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Do Nothing Small

Ben came down with something last weekend, so I suggested he have some Thieves Tea. I drank this many nights this winter and generally stayed pretty healthy. If you know anything about essential oils, you probably know more than I do. But I do buy into the health benefits of Thieves. So anyways, the tea is hot water, a drop or two of Thieves oil, some lemon oil or fresh lemon, and honey. Ben knows this. I've made it for him before. I reminded him this was the recipe. What he did instead was to fill a glass with cold water, add four drops of Thieves (which is A LOT), lemon juice, and honey. I went crazy bug eyes on him when he told me four drops, and he replied, very seriously, “do nothing small”. Ain't that the truth. 

The plan is to be done by the end of March. In fact, the bank says we HAVE to be done by the end of March. “Done” means Phase I plus the kitchen will be complete. This doesn't include updates we want to do to the original rooms, the front porch, the barn, the landscaping...but done enough that the bank will sign off and give us the rest of our money, and we can move in. The way this loan has worked is that 10% of every draw is held back until final inspections, when the inspector, the contractor, and Ben and I all agree that the project is complete. So the 10% differential between what the bank gives us and what we owe the contractor is out of pocket for now. So move in day will technically be kind of lucrative, even if just replenishing the savings account. But four-ish weeks!! This is both incredibly exciting and daunting. In four weeks we might be living at the Farmhouse. But that also means that for four weeks there will be no sleep.

The bathroom floors are tiled, grouted and sealed. This was kind of a bummer for Ben, because it was very time consuming and he was very critical of his work. Apparently cute little hexagon tiles are kind of unforgiving when laid without spacers. Snobs. I still really like the floors and will probably spend the next 15 years convincing Ben of the same.

brand new master bath

downstairs remodel

The ceilings in the new family room upstairs and our bedroom are finished with tongue and groove pine paneling. There were a few reasons for this. First, Ben likes wood and didn't think he already had enough on his plate. But more seriously, installing these ourselves would save enough in drywalling costs to cover all of the new drywall in the kitchen which was an unanticipated expense right now. So, it seemed like a good idea. Ben's mom also pointed out that we still have an old house that will continue to settle, and wood ceilings won't crack like drywall will. Seems reasonable. We are going to paint these white, ultimately, but there was no space to do that right now before we hung them. We did prime all of the tongues and grooves so that once they are hung we can quickly (hopefully) run over them with a roller. Funny thing about the partially primed boards is that when up on the ceiling, they kind of look white washed and somewhat cool. Like...we might be so sick of projects that we might just leave them. We had a lot of help with these. My brother Matt helped paint one evening, my dad helped a lot with hanging, Ben's cousin Chris helped hang, and I helped hang. I asked Ben if I was the worst assistant and he said I definitely was. I think it's just because I panic sometimes when I'm afraid he's going to tumble down the stairs to serious injury. He did also say that I was the hottest. I will take it. 

Oh yeah, and Ellis helped too.

The tub/shower surround in the main floor bathroom is tiled and just needs to be grouted and sealed. This was a solid day's work and really, REALLY, displays the slope in the charming edifice. Old house problems. The bottom row and the top row are both pretty janky but the REST of the rows are perfectly level. I promise. This sloping issue is why Greg talked me out of kitchen cabinets going all the way up to the ceiling like I wanted. I should have applied the same reasoning here, but oh well. Guess I better keep my day job.

Speaking of kitchen cabinets, the uppers are in and look great even though they stop six inches below the ceiling. I'm over it, really. They need some crown molding and hardware yet, which we need to re-think a little. Ben was set on getting cup pulls, or half moon pulls, like a good old farmhouse should have. However, the top drawers don't have much space on them due to the shaker faces so I don't think those will work. It's alright, we'll (I'll) figure something out. It's about time I get to make a decision. I've started keeping track and right now, I think I've only won on the garage door. He has somehow weaseled agreement out of me on things I still think are a mistake. Like wood floors in the mudroom/laundry room and MORE pine flooring than we already have upstairs. Not only that, he talked me into natural yellow pine floors. I don't even know who I am anymore. I digress. The kitchen counters are also in and I love them. I guess I technically chose these too...at least going with polished side over the honed side. I'm so glad we were able to get past our little miss-communication on those and that the guys didn't strike us from their schedule. 

Delivering the counters. Nice bird's eye shot, Ben.

Countryside has been back the past few weeks and most of the interior doors and trim work is finished. We're having someone paint all of the doors, windows, and other new trim. This will save us a ton of time and will look a ton better, likely. They should also be finishing up siding next week. Things are really starting to wrap up! There's a bunch to do yet this month, including a ton of cleaning. Aside from the new stuff, we'd also really like to get the boys bedrooms painted, but they need a significant amount of patching first. Recall that Ben took the old radiator runs out so there are several inches of walls that haven't seen the light of day in maybe forever, and a bunch of plaster also came off with the runs. There's also water damage and other cracks in the plaster throughout. My dad has been working on patching the bedrooms this week, which we are so thankful for. He knows what he's doing, and it's one less thing to worry about. He's retired now, which works out pretty great for us.

Both of the bathrooms need some vanity work. Like any good dutch people, we can't pass up a good retro-fit project. For the downstairs we found some cool black cabinets at the Habitat for Humanity restore, and Ben is making a counter top out of reclaimed wall studs pulled from the house. For the upstairs bathroom, oh wow, I found a gem. I had wanted to find a dresser or buffet, something vintage to paint and drop a sink in for a unique and old feel. I found a few pieces at local thrift stores that I thought could work, but needed some color inspiration. So I went to R. Lucas Scott one day, a fine retailer of Annie Sloan chalk paint. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a fabulous piece of Victorian gold. Sold. It was of course a nasty snowy day in December and Ben was too busy working on the house to help me. Normally something like that should fit in my Acadia, but not with car seats in the middle row and it was time to pick up the boys. So my dad came back with me and the boys and a trailer (I was too chicken to maneuver the trailer myself on an icy day) and we hauled it home, but not before the boys spent 15 minutes chasing around the shop dog. This thing is the perfect size, already painted and sealed, and adds a pop of color to the otherwise white and gray bathroom. Don't worry, Ben has watched the “This Old House” video of how to make a vanity out of a dresser about 8 times.

I don't know where the middle drawers are. If you've been in the house since we took over you understand why.

A few weekends ago the boys and I made work of cleaning out one of the bedrooms upstairs so that I could vacuum and they could have a safe space to play and hang. I put them to work collecting nails and screws and they were actually quite helpful. Also, they have their own Mickey Mouse work gloves thanks to Lowes and Ben. Having this space has worked out well for weekend afternoon rest time. We set up our laptop with DVDs, bring blankets and pillows and tons of snacks. They are happy to be at the house and we are happy to both be there getting work done.

Acid washed jeans went out of style in the 80s, right?  I don't know, I was only 5 at the turn of that decade.

We've got some sitters lined up for the weekend so we can keep working, thanks to nieces who live nearby and Grandpa and Grandma Reuschel. Last weekend they went to Tim and Tiff's. A few afternoons they've been by Grandma Stob. They've spent extra time at daycare. We've been trying to keep things as stable for the boys as we can, but we're kind of at the point where we just need to push through and finish. At least when we offload them on someone else they have lots of fun!

Ellis loves to pretend he's "working". But he has to look like Ben to do so.

We may or may not let the boys "drive" between the Farmhouse and the rental sometimes. Maybe. But don't tell the cops.

Now's the point in the HGTV show where everybody scrambles to get everything done in the last 5 minutes. But to us, 5 minutes will feel like 30 days. I think maybe we will be able to relax a little in April. That is after we take care of a diabetic dog for a neighbor/friend/co-worker that needs insulin shots twice a day. Why not. 

The struggle is real

You know how you can tell yourself over and over that you knew what you were getting yourself into, so none of the hard stuff should be a surprise? Yeah, me too. It doesn't matter though, does it? I mean, maybe some of my crazy planner friends (you know who you are) would expect most of this, but I certainly did not. It's a daily struggle for me trying to keep the big picture in mind. The hardest part of all of this is just feeling disconnected as a family. Most of Ben's "free" time is spent at the house. I'm working more right now thanks to what we refer to as "year-end" in the biz. Normally I'm fortunate enough to have Wednesdays off with the boys, but for about 7 weeks in the January through March timeframe I'm a normal working woman, in the office five days a week. This is extra hard right now as we are already living in chaos. It's not lost on Colter, who has a better handle on our schedule than I do at times. He's very aware that Wednesdays stink right now (even though an extra day at preschool/daycare is fun for him), so we have this deal where I bring him (and Ellis) candy from work on Wednesday nights. Part of me is sad that I'm so easily replaced with sweets, but the other part of me is very thankful for the tears it saves.

A few other funny snippets before I give a house update.

- Anytime we can't find something, the resounding answer is "it's in the POD". Ellis even knows this now and takes it upon himself to remind Colter quite often.
- I asked Colter, our almost four year old, what he wants for his birthday, and he said "I just want all of us to live at the Farmhouse together." Oh my heart. Me too kiddo, me too.
- They both know the difference between the Farmhouse and "the house we are living at right now because the Farmhouse doesn't have a toilet." This was the most visible reason I could come up with about three months ago to explain why we couldn't live there yet. And yes, it's still true. In fact, there is no water at all. The drywallers had to bring their own in 5-gallon buckets. They also brought their own weed, but apparently I'm the only one who thinks this is notable.
- The boys love to go to Padnos with Ben to recycle copper and other metals. Ellis always asks where Louie is. Well...
- The boys are both absolutely set on having yellow bedrooms. The paint swatches they keep taking home from Repcolite are brighter than the sun. This will be a battle, but I promise, I will win. And by win, I mean probably paint the rooms yellow but like the dullest, "this is basically tan" yellow I can find.

Speaking of paint, we finally have color on the new walls! This has been a monumental week. The drywallers finished up last week and a painter came to prime all of the walls and finish the ceilings. Countryside has been off on a different job all week, so Ben and my dad have been busting it getting everything painted. Tiff and I took our turn one evening, so we can take some credit. We'll still have a lot of painting to do once we move in, but at least all of the new stuff is covered. I'm half expecting to repaint some of it eventually because we did the "let's choose one color and paint everything the same" plan. Technically two colors. From the same swatch. Right next to each other.

My dad in the new upstairs family room

Tiff in the new master bathroom

Other progress includes siding on the back of the house, the garage, and some on the South side. The garage door is installed (I think it looks good...remember this was a contentious decision), we have some doors on the addition, though they are temporary ones.

Ben totally patched in the kitchen flooring, which only took 40 hours or so. Kinda not kidding. It looks great, but it was pretty obvious what was new and what was 100 years old. He took some new stuff to Repcolite and they mixed up a stain to try to give the boards a weathered look, and it worked quite well. There is now one coat of poly on, so there is no turning back. Ben hopes to get another one or two on yet this weekend then call it good.

Patching in the squared off entrance. This door used to be angled and you basically walked into a wall. Now it's squared off and totally open.

I was definitely freaking out watching my dad teeter on an unsecure board, saw in hand. He and I spent about 3-4 hours in this section. The guys had glued and screwed down subfloor initially, before we knew we were going to use the maple. This had to come off so that Ben could lay the new boards directly on the joists. Someone had to rip up and sand off the particle board...and turns out that someone was my dad. And me.

Chisel got Ben a little.

Fully patched in kitchen, prior to the final sanding. Hey Phoebes.

After the first coat of poly...looking good with those white cabinets and 'Seattle Mist' walls!

Base cabinets are installed in the kitchen and they look great. They are shimmed an inch or two in some spots. Old house problems. The countertop guys attempted to make a template this week so they could start fabricating the granite, but when I stopped in their shop to check out our slab they realized the template wouldn't work when I casually mentioned the farm sink we were getting. Suddenly you could hear a pin drop and I was like whoa, what did I do? Apparently that has to be installed before they can make an accurate template. Oops...maybe next week?

Our little slab of natural stone. It's amazing to think at one point this was in a mountain or canyon or something, somewhere in India. Really makes you marvel at God's creation, and man's God-given talent to extract it.

Ben has all of the cement board installed in the bathrooms, which we are going to cover with some cutesy white hexagon tiles. With dark grout so I don't ever have to clean. Kidding. But also, not kidding. We still need to decide on flooring for the upstairs and the mudroom. Still leaning towards pine upstairs. And we have enough maple left from the kitchen patching to put in the mudroom, but I hesitate to do so. I kind of want an indestructible vinyl or something, but we haven't really shopped around yet. The "purist" in Ben would say to avoid something that wouldn't have been there before, but then I think about how we're not outfitting the laundry room with a wash basin or the kitchen with an ice box or anything so...it's all about balance.

Colt watching Ben spread the mud to install the cement board in the master bathroom.

Just hanging out with Zeke in his soon-to-be bedroom.

All of the electrical plugs and switches are in, and Ben scored a sweet deal on light bulbs at Menards one day. Apparently these bulbs are $10 a piece and he got them for $4. And the lights the electrician would have used were $23 a piece. Or $32 a piece? So he saved us like $600. This is exactly how this conversation went, by the way. I couldn't really tell you what a good deal is for a light bulb, but Ben will talk your ear off about it. At any rate, the house is now lit up and it's amazing. It's just the best being able to see everything and not freeze your buns off. We're really thankful for heat and electricity again. Even if that means we spent the entire $600 in light bulb savings on our utility bills last month. Robbing Peter to pay Paul.

There's still an overwhelming amount of work to be done before we can get the bank's sign off and get moved in. At least we're to the point where the house is generally safe (if you don't open the door to the stair-less basement or pull the cover off the chimney), so maybe we can start hanging out there more as a family. As soon as we get a toilet.