Monday, Monday!

It sure was tough getting up this morning!!

We had a great weekend! The weather on Saturday was pretty nice, in the mid to upper 50's so we were outside all day and did some cleaning up of the garage. We started to gather up our camping supplies, we're taking our inaugural camper trip this weekend! The kids are super excited, Jack wakes up every morning asking if it's Friday!

I bought paint for the kitchen on Saturday, I went with "bone white". If I can muster up the energy, I'll start on that today. I splurged on some new painter's tape called Frog Tape. It is supposed to be non bleeding, it better be for $8 a roll! I've got to take every precaution to not get paint on my new cabinets!

Yesterday we went to one of my aunt's houses. My Aunt Holly is in from California on business so all my aunt's on my dad's side (3 of them) and my parents and me and the kids got together for lunch. I haven't seen 2 of my aunt's since Jan 2006 when my Grandmom died. It was nice spending time together! Here are the kids with Aunt Holly, it's such torture getting them to look at me when they are together!


The kids came home with 2 old toys of their cousin's. Kristen gave Macy a magic set and Megan gave Jack a wooden marble maze set! They were in heaven! LOL

I did a quick layout Friday night. It felt good, it was too long since I've created! Hopefully I can do it again soon! I used the Noggin symbol as my inspiration, can you tell? I used some new Basic Grey and Fancy Pants papers.


Who is watching Rock of Love 2? I'm so happy to see Ambre in the top 2! Daisy drives me a bit crazy! I'm rooting for Ambre (although her name spelling bothers me!) but I'm betting Daisy will win!

Have a great day!

Getting closer!!!

Yesterday they laid the tile.

This morning they hung all but one of the upper cabinets, put in the microwave and stove outlets and wired for the dishwasher.

The custom cabinet for the old stairwell looks awesome, even better than I imagined!! He really did a great job on that!!

The tile guy grouted and now the countertop guy is here getting measurements for the quartz. The countertop will go in 2 weeks from today!

It's really coming together and is so much more homey in there. I think I've decided on a different paint color too. Instead of a rusty color, I think we'll do a tan or beige, keep it in the earth tones. Hopefully we can squeeze that in this weekend!

Here are some pics I just took. Click on it to see it bigger.


I think I may do a mini album with all of this. I'm not a mini album person, but this may just call for one, plus I could put my barely used Bind It All to good use!!

I'm hoping to scrap tonight, it's been abotu 2 weeks and I'm really itching to do it, especially after the trip Mary, Tracy, Mimi and I took to memory lane, pa today!!

Hopefully I'll have something scrapping related to show next post!!

Have a great weekend!

Day 1 done!

The fridge is out, yay!! Our contractor was able to get the wheels off!

The old cabinets are out and the new base ones are in!! The cement board for the floor is in!! The tile guy is coming tomorrow morning to lay the tile! Grout on Friday, I believe!

I can't believe how fast they moved!! It looks a million times better in there already!

All the cabinets and tile are sitting in the living room! The large custom cabinet for the old stairwell looks awesome!!!

Here are some pics. Jack insisted on being a part of them!



That's a skinny 6 inch cabinet there. There will be another above it too, I think. It'll be perfect for storing Saran Wrap, foil, etc. In the old setup, the stove and fridge were right next to each other. We wanted to put something in between them to make it more efficient.

No big treasures to be found although he found a ton of old junky papers and some old dog medicine! He did come across this which I thought was neat! 4 cent postage!! Must be from the 1950's!

Tomorrow is D (demolition) day!!!

Our part is done! The cabinet guy comes bright and early tomorrow morning to demo the cabinets and start on his work! He is hoping to frame all the new cabinets out tomorrow too and wants the floor started by end of week! Wow!!!

Chris and I physically exhausted ourselves this weekend getting the floor out! The subfloor did prove to be stubborn as we thought it might. Many of the screws did not want to come out, so we had to use this big huge red bar to get underneath it and rip it up. Tough stuff!! It was actually kind of fun though, great workout! Once that was out, the old green stuff came up easily! Right now, the floor is black from the old adhesive. It is nice hardwoods like the rest of the house, just very black!

Here is what it all looks like now! Click on the pic to make it bigger!


We thought we were all over the hump after getting all that flooring out, until we went to move out the frig last night. It was too wide for the widest of the kitchen doorways. We knew that, it was a tight squeeze when we bought it 8 years ago! So, we took off the doors, still no go, there was a wheel that was getting caught up. Chris took out those bolts and could not get the wheel off! So, there it sits, still in the kitchen! The contractor is going to try and see if he can figure it out tomorrow. I talked to the appliance store today, all our appliances are in, so I told them of our problem! Our salesman was gone for the day, so he's calling us back tomorrow with more precise measurements of the new frig and how to fix our dilemma! If the contractor can't figure it out, we'll probably have the installers come and disassemble the old one first since the floor will be started sooner than we expected! Nothing ever happens quite how it's supposed to, does it??

On a neat note, while we were taking wheelbarrow loads of tile and debris out to the trailer on Saturday, we got to meet a previous owner of our house! Chris called in for me to come outside and there was a lady standing there. She owned the house 2 owners ago. She told us how they loved it and were sad to have to move, but her husband's job moved to NJ, but her mother lives a street behind us. They had 4 kids in the house. She told us of past owners too. It was once a parrish house. An owner of a wallpaper store lived here, which probably explains the wallpapered closets! I'm thankful we didn't have more wallpaper than we did have in here! The original owner was very wealthy, which we assumed would be, we knew the houses in our neighborhood were wealthy, upscale homes back in the 1950's. We talked for a bit and she loved what we've done to the outside. She was nice, we told her to come back in a few months when we're all finished and we'll give her a tour of the inside too, when it is not all ripped up!!

Did you ever watch the show "If Walls Could Talk"? It's on HGTV and is about hidden treasures that owners found in their houses. I was hoping we'd find something really cool, but my only treasure was a wheat penny!

Hope everyone's having a great week!! Hopefully I can get back to scrapping soon!

I will update with new pics probably tomorrow!!

Let the demo begin!!!

We started ripping out our ugly ceramic tile kitchen floor on Wednesday! I am so glad to see that eye sore go!! The guy who lived here before us seemed to thing fake marbly looking white tile with black grout was the greatest! He did the same thing to the kids bathroom!! Yuck!!! I much prefer how it looks now with the tile out and the white adhesive covering the subfloor!! I am SO glad to get rid of the white kitchen!! It really is not nice especially when you have 4 little hands living in the house!! White cabinets, white floor, white countertop = YUCK!!!!

I've gotten really bad the last few months about caring for the cabinets and countertops! I've been cutting right on the formica (which did I tell you how much I hate white formica - it soaks up everything spilled on it and many times doesn't even come clean with a magic eraser!), not wiping down the cabinets, even tried to not mop the floor, but I had to stop rebelling against that!

So, we got the tile layer off except for under the fridge and stove, we'll do that tomorrow. Next up is the subfloor, then the circa 1950's lovely green and red floor. After that is up, we should find our hardwood floors. I won't say it was easy, I think we have the hardest part ahead of us yet, but it is a good stress reliever and thankfully our kitchen is only 11x11 square! Here are some visuals.





How I long for my lovely quartz counters, deep maple with a cocoa glaze cabinets and lovely beige glazed porcelain tile (which will not show a chip if it does somehow get chipped!). Ahhhhhh . . .

We bought all new appliances yesterday!! We got mar-proof stainless steel so they don't show the fingerprints! I'm amazed at the cost of appliances these days! Did you know it costs an extra $200 to get stainless steel sides (rather than black) on a refrigerator? Yep, it does, and we did it, it'll look SO much nicer!

We got all Professional Series appliances except for the stove as it had a warming drawer on the bottom (which I never use) and didn't have the warming burner.


We hope to have the floor all done by Sunday evening, then our part of demo is done!! The rest is for the professionals!! Kinda wish we would've had them do the floor too! LOL

Monday we'll go shopping for lighting, new faucet and a new garbage disposal!! Fun stuff!

Coming to a close!

Easter break is coming to an end!! Tomorrow morning is back to the grind!! 7:15 sure is going to be tough considering we've been getting up at 10 and 11am the last six days!

What fun we had though!!

We painted eggs:


We had real bad winds here again. This time it managed to rip off the lattice trellis we have around our back patio. So, we'll have to replace that as soon as it warms up so my multiple clematis have a place to grow up!

Daddy gave Jack a buzz after the Macy beauty parlor incident! Now the two of them look exactly alike! Forgive the horrible pic!


We hung out with some of the mlpa gals and their kids:


Upon arriving home from Mr. B's, this was sitting in the driveway!


Chris went and picked it up while we were gone!! Here are the twins enjoying the interior! Jack brought out his toy level and tools to help Daddy get it set up!


Then, of course, yesterday was Easter!! Jack woke up at 7:15 and went downstairs and found Macy's basket, she heard that and had a breakdown, so I had to re-hide it! We went to Grammy and Pappy's for Easter dinner and the kids did an egg hunt there.


Jack now has a respiratory thing going on with a low grade fever. Poor guy, he slept most of today. Looks like he'll probably be missing school tomorrow.

We got word that our kitchen remodel is starting next Wednesday as long as there are no problems!! Our cabinet guy is working on putting the cocoa glaze on our cabinets right now!!! We now need to get our ceramic tile smashed out of there by Wednesday, we'll probably work on that this weekend during the day. I'll work on getting everything out of the cabinets this week! We have to go buy the new lighting, faucet and garbage disposal! Appliance shopping must be done too!! Woohoo!! Very exciting!

I managed to get one layout done during break too. I just LOVE the new Daisy D Wonder Years line!! It's so me, nice and bright!!


Thanks for reading!! Have a great week!!

Random nothingness!

Not a whole lot going on here! Looking forward to 3:10pm today when school is out for a week!! We've got some fun plans for the days off!

We got a pancake puff pan last week. Have you seen that infomercial? The kids love it and have wanted one, so when we saw it at Boscov's, we had to buy it!

It does make a yummy puff, but definately better with plain batter!! The blueberry ones didn't get totally done all the way through.

My favorite Tastycake of all time is in the stores right now!!


I feel bad for the parts of the country that don't have Tastycakes!! Hippity Hops are to die for!!! Dangerous, I tell ya!!

Jack and I made Irish Soda Bread yesterday for St. Patrick's Day. I can never get a smooth disc out of the dough, so it's always lumpy on the outside but oh so yummy on the inside!


Here he is testing it out!


Notice his nice haircut? Yeah, that's courtesy of Macy's Beauty Salon! She takes walk-ins and is free of charge!

Jack had a modified preschool day today from 11-12:30. Chris and I went out for lunch while he was there.

Friday we are hopefully going to pick up our camper! Yay!! Then we can start planning our first long weekend in April! Super exciting!!

Still waiting on a kitchen start date!! This is such a long process!! I just want it to be done!!

I'll leave you with this layout. Didn't turn out quite like I hoped, kinda blah feeling to me so I'll probably end up scrapping these pics again in the future!


Have a great week!!