And the walls come tumbling down... as well as the ceiling... and the floor.

 The walls in the kitchen are coming down day by day...  As is the ceiling and the flooring is taken up...
We have the stove, sink and diswasher, and the refrigerator.  Everything else is gone from the kitchen.

 This wasp next was in the ceiling.   Luckily, the wasps are gone or poor Rudy the carpenter, would have had an awful day!  and we won't have been able to come in the house.  The wasps would have been angry!

Our garage is FULL of our old cabinets, as well as boxes full of our new cabinets.  

 Our vanity in the bathroom, with plywood top.  Our real counter top is back ordered and will be delivered in 3 weeks!  They can't put in the mirrors or lights until the sinks are in, so they get them in the right place.  

Rained out, home early!

So the camping trip to the Adirondacks did not go as planned this weekend.  Mother Nature had other ideas, mainly cold weather (about 40 degrees), and constant rain.  So after a day we packed up everything wet and headed home.  When the forecast mentioned snow, we called it quits.  In our absence, the kitchen is starting to be demolished.  At least we still have the stove and the sink, but no counters or cabinets nearby.  It is challenging to cook without anywhere to put things.  Now we have spent the rest of our weekend home emptying the remainder of the kitchen cupboards.  So everything is on shelves in the basement.  This will give me lots of exercise.  I have to plan out what to cook, what food is needed and what bowls, utensils, pots and pans I need or else I am up and down the stairs constantly.
I do like the open wall though.  It gives up a start of an idea of what the end will look like when the entire wall is down and you can see all the way through the rooms.  That will be nice.  Every once and a while we need a glimpse of the finished product for encouragement!
Since this work was done and things were removed from the kitchen, something funny is going on with our electric upstairs.  Some things will now only work if the night light in the hall is plugged into the right socket and on... hmmm that is strange... Something more for the electrician to check out!
As for camping, we had two very disappointed boys, (not to mention the parents). So we are going to do a short make up trip this weekend, close to home.  It is forcasted to be in the upper 80's.

Camping Bound!

The new toilet is in, and the wall paper in the hallway up the stairs is off.  Thankfully!  I hated that wallpaper the entire 6 years we've been here.  With the walls smoothed out and paint on, its going to be sooo much nicer!  We are heading out to go camping in the rain soon and leaving the house for a few days.  We have been going at about 100 mph everyday that even with the rainy weather, camping will be a nice break.  When we are camping, things slow down to about 20 mph!  Life has to slow down camping, that's the beauty of it!
Have a  great Memorial Day weekend everyone!

And the week goes on...

The new floor is in...  and there is no more pink toilet!  Yea!  I was happy to see that in the dumpster!

and this is our dining room wall.  This wall is being taken out and a counter only will be there with in all open in between the kitchen and dining room.... I guess they wanted to see what is in the wall they are knocking down!  Nothing really... 

Monday, Monday, Day 4

Well, Monday Monday. .. what happened on Monday?  Well the shower head did NOT get put back on.  I am not happy about that!  After not getting a shower over the weekend, that is the one thing I was hoping would get done.  Instead it was lights and the bathroom fan and outlets so obviously the electrician was here.  Also the walls that were opened for the plumbing were patched, but nothing too exciting.  Of course the boys love to run and see what new changes occured.  As we pulled in the driveway, Kaedan said we could tell what happened by the new garbage in the dumpster (which is really a trailer with an open end so they can see the items inside).  But much to the disappointment of the boys, there was no new items to be seen really.   
Today should be the flooring maybe and the painting I think.  Once the floor is in, the new toilet can go in as well.  No more pink toilet.  That is something to look forward to.  Hopefully this new one won't get clogged as easily by little boys!

Builders website link...

As promised, the contractors website is Otterbeck Builders,  this will take you to our work in progress photos.  So far there are just the before pics.  I will let you know when new pics are
 up!

We have a new window in the dining room and the tub minus the shower head was installed on Friday.  We can use it for a bath, but not showers over the weekend.  Interesting.  I am going to pretend we are back in the old days...  wash my hair in the sink or something.  oh well just a few days.

Tomorrow the shower head and more of the bathroom should be done.  We've spent the weekend emptying the kitchen and moving furniture for the start of downstairs soon to come.  Oh my!  The house is chaos.

Day One...

Well at least I have a toilet still! 

No sink, vanity, large mirror or flooring for that matter.  All of it is gone.  At least we can still use the shower and the toilet if needed.  Luckily we have a 1/2 bath downstairs with a sink for brushing our teeth and washing up etc.   It was interesting this morning getting ready for work with our toiletries in various room.  Though I did get a compliment on my hair this morning, so not being able to see into the mirror in the bedroom when I blew dry my hair turned out OK.  Maybe I should do that more often! 

Tomorrow!

Everything will start tomorrow.  At 7:30 the project head will be at the house to do a walk thru and decide where to put the important things like the dumpster and the port-a-potty.   Yea,  a port-a-potty on my front lawn!  But just a small price to pay I guess.  I have to say, we have been very impressed with how considerate the contractor has been so far.  On our last meeting he asked about pets, wanting to know what pets can go in or out.  We just want to keep the dogs out of their way and not have the workers going crazy because Samurai is barking in the basement all day.  (We crate him in the basement where it is cooler, but you can hear him barking all thru the house, even on the second floor where the bathroom is.This is more of a house issue rather than the dog having a super loud bark.)  Our contractor really tries to make this process go as smoothly as possible for us, the homeowners.  We will be able to use the shower and toilet most of the time they are working in the bathroom.  This is only because they don't want to inconvenience us any more than they have to.   Let's hope in the end we still like them all as much as we do before they started two months of work at our house!  Next post will have demo pictures.  I wish I could be there to take a sledge hammer to the pink toilet and sink!  The contractors will also post pictures throught the process on thier website, so I will include a link as soon as they do that.