The Kitchen and Some Dirt

Though it's not done yet, the kitchen really has come a long way.

Just to remind you of the ugliness, the way it started:



After re-flooring and repainting, Dave ripped out the countertops the day before Home Depot was scheduled to come install our new countertops. About a half hour after he finished, the phone rang. It was Home Depot calling to say because of the storm (I swear this town shuts down at the mere mention of snow) they would have to reschedule.

So as the snow piled up on the broken up countertop pieces and old kitchen sink...


...we lived without countertops for a week.


Except one square of plywood Dave brought in for me so I could use the crock pot.


So our new countertops became the kitchen floor for that week. Crouching down on the floor to microwave something got old fast.


But it was all worth it because now we have nice new NON-TEAL countertops. Behold:


And a fabulous new sink and faucet:



We plan to paint the cabinets white and put in a kitchen island but who knows when we'll get to that. Whenever we do....I'll post the update!

In other news, Dave rented a bobcat to move around the massive amount of dirt we have from all our fall digging/trenches/construction.
He spread around the giant pile of dirt that came from the hole that was dug for the addition.



He used it to rip some tree roots out too.



And lastly, we end with a Moose before and after....the Christmas tree

BEFORE



AFTER

Our lake grows

The day after I posted that last entry, I woke up to find the flooding in our yard grew by leaps and bounds. I almost couldn't believe it as I walked by the window to go feed Clark for one of his early morning wakings and had to rub my sleepy eyes more then once to make sure I was seeing it correctly.

Monday it looked like this:


And by Tuesday it was like this:


I have house renovation updates coming later this week, I promise. One of the projects resulted in Dave head injury #2. Thankfully, this one didn't require stitches.


Like the rest of us, Moose has cabin fever and spends a lot of time staring at animals he'd like to eat - I mean - meet..out the window.

Our Ditch Overfloweth

Yes I have been bad about updating the blog. There is a reason. His name is Clark. He likes to cry. A lot.

Moving on.

We have endured some seriously intense weather here so far this year and I'm glad to hear local people say it's "unusual" because if it's like this every year, I'm not sure it's much better than Chicago's hellish winters!

We started off with not one but TWO ice storms, the second one being far worse than the first. I have never seen ice fall from the sky for such a duration. Our entire yard was a skating rink. Every single thing was wrapped in a hard casing of ice.




The tree limbs sagged down under the weight of the ice and when the wind came, the ice encasing the branches shattered into little tube shapes. The next morning the yard looked like it had been decorated with clear sprinkles.



Can you guess which way the wind was blowing?




Once the ice finally melted, we ended up with a very soggy yard. Mud, mud, everywhere made worse by all of the dirt filled trenches we have zig zagging through our yard. My sister came to visit and got her car stuck in the mud - and managed to paint our mom's car (parked next to it) with mud as she spun her wheels trying to get out. A tow truck was the only thing that could wrench her free.


That was yesterday. Overnight, a massive thunderstorm came through with heavy rains and added insult to injury. We woke up this morning to discover we owned lakefront property!


As a reference, here's the view from our porch:



And here is the view today:


That teeny tiny ditch that had nothing but mice running through it all summer...



Now takes up an awful lot of real estate:


Here are the sewer pipes that run under the road, they are ALMOST totally covered.


Our woods are now swampland.


Let's end with a Moosicle:

Merry Clarkmas

Clark's first Christmas spanned 2 weekends and 3 different houses leaving him a very sleepy boy. He kicked back on a mountain of gifts:


Not only did he receive gifts, he gave out his fair share - mini Clark bars for all!


Moose spent a lot of time trying to figure out which presents were his:


One very special (and difficult) moment was this picture. My grandparents are now great-grandparents to FIVE little great grandchildren, all born between August 2009 and October 2010. That's a lot of babies in a little over a year. They were finally all together in one place on Christmas Eve and this picture was managed:



From our family to yours, we wish you a Merry Clarkmas


and a Happy Moose Year

Deck the halls...

The tree is up and decorated and we put some lights on the outside of the house now that we realized our house can (sort of) be seen from the road.





The nights we light a fire and cozy up in front of it are nice and Christmas-y.


Clark had some quality time with the big man.


We're not sure what he asked Santa for but it probably WASN'T this...I'm sorry Clark. You're a good sport though.



We didn't bothering putting an "ottoman" on our Christmas list because as you can see, we already have one.

A Kitchen and an Addition

So they aren't really 100% done but there's been a whole lotta progress on both the addition and the kitchen so I figured I'd post pictures at this point since it's almost done.

So let's start with the addition, which will be Dave's home office and our laundry room (actually the laundry "room" is a closet with a washer and dryer in it but whatever...) The contractor we hired is Smith Builders and they did a great job (otherwise I wouldn't be plugging them here)

It started with a giant hole in the ground:



Foundation poured and foundation block put in:


Insulation:


A good old fashioned office raisin' (it's an amish joke, get it? Yeah I know I'm not funny):


Walls go on:


Roof structure begins:


More roof work. See that plank in the window? I walked up and down it several times while 9 months pregnant to see inside and take pictures. Smart? No. I never claimed to be.


Inside structure:



Then came the day they chopped a hole in the wall, making the square attached to our house a room instead of...well, a square attached to our house.




The wood burning stove is gone with the huge stone under it. This was under the giant slab of stone...ewwww.


Moose and Miller checking out the new room:


Dave got to work painting every surface in the room (ceiling, walls and trim):


A lovely shade called "river mud"


So then it was time for flooring. The kitchen and addition would get the same 5 inch wideplank hardwood in a "moose" color. I'm not kidding, they came with the wood samples and I told them I wanted it to be the color of the dog. It's a perfect match. (Though now he can hide like an alligator in a swamp in there.)
?Ugly teal and white checkered tile comes up:


Wood floor goes down! Oh no wait..it didn't. The entire lot of wood we bought was damaged. So they re-ordered it and we walked on sub-flooring for a week. (note: this was not done by the builders that did our addition - we hired a separate company for our floors!) BUT with no wood on the floor, we realized we had time to paint the kitchen with out worrying about drop cloths...so...

We started painting:


I say WE but this was the height of Clark's "I will be inconsolable and scream all day long and you will like it" phase so I helped for a cumulative total of 40 minutes throughout the day during ultra brief Clark naps. Dave pretty much did everything by himself:


(doesn't the paint color look great against the teal countertops? gag!)

It's a really dark purple color. I never thought I'd have a purple kitchen but actually, it looks great.

And then...the FLOORS! Dave installed the last light fixture in the kitchen tonight too:


Remember how I said we aren't done? Things to be replaced in the photo below: countertops, sink, faucet, stove, dishwasher and both microwaves. Why do we have 2 microwaves? Because the one above the stove broke about 2 months after we moved in and luckily, we had the stainless steel one you see on the counter from Dave's old condo.


Back to the addition...the floors are the same as the kitchen and the trim and closet doors were installed today:



I'll post photos of the office once it's furnished and some photos of the kitchen once it's totally done...which will be next year sometime.

One last thing! We adopted Moose in May so we didn't know what he thought of snow. Turns out, he loves it. He dove nose first into this year's first snowfall, which was a few inches deep. It's very easy to find him now when he's outside wandering around - high contrast: