More 'Old' Renovations

Are you sick of renovation pictures yet?  This is a renovation we started last summer and 'finished' around Christmas time.  I'm just a little slow about blogging about it.  This is a picture of the living room before we moved in.  All the lovely Aztec wallpaper was taken off almost as soon as we moved in, as well as the lovely valances and blinds. (That carpet actually looks decent in this picture.  You should see it now, it's disgusting.  You'll see why soon.)

 We took out the bar area. We were hoping to take out that wall to the left, but found out it's a baring wall.  That's why the ceiling is torn apart - we had to figure out if it could be removed.

Ta-da.  The yucky bar is gone.  There is a closet door inside on the right.  We moved the wall over a little and moved the door to the outside.  Took out the old plumbing and patched the walls.  We also removed the pocket door (left of the clock going to the extra bedroom and bathroom) and moved that doorway over some.

 Then the ambitious project began.  I had this idea a year or so after we moved in, to remove the fireplace (we never used it, and really don't need one here).  We had other projects going on (remember our master bath remodel), so we kept putting this off.  One day while we were swimming, Adam decided today was the day and started tearing it out (September 3rd).  He knows that I would just keep putting it off, because I'm never ready for the mess it will bring.  I love to think up the design, and love the end result, and I really don't mind DOING the in between parts, but the mess getting from point A to point B drives me crazy.  I've actually gotten really relaxed about it now - lots of practice. :)

 We gave the pellet stove to a friend in our ward for his cabin. Then Adam got the faux rocks off the entire thing with a jack hammer.  We invited our friends over to come swimming, and then he ended up helping Adam with the bricks. Nice friends. I had black soot and brick dust ALL OVER.  It was a mess. It's good for me to look back at the process to appreciate where we are now.

 Our house is one big hazard after another.  Just in this picture we have sharp brick pieces, gas line exposed, protruding re-bar, nails, open chimney and an unstable brick wall.......with children in the middle of it.  

 

The kids thought it was awesome to be in the playroom and be able to peak through to the living room. 

 One day while Adam was at work, and Noah and Ava were at school, Grant and I decided to see if we could get the wall to fall down.  We pounded out a few more brick rows and then with one hit, the wall came tumbling down.  Grant was pretty nervous about the whole thing. His narration is pretty funny.

The fireplace in shambles.  We had a few of these piles out back.  We had to haul all of this again out front to a trailer to take to the dump. The kids loved it (especially Grant).  They filled their dump trucks with bricks and wheeled them out front to the trailer.

Aw, nice.  All clean....'ish.  Still had the gas line, re-bar, and chimney exposed.  The kids loved having it open to the playroom.  I think they played in there way more after the wall was gone.

The chimney got closed up and Adam sealed off the opening on the roof, so no water will come through the wall. 

After the wall was removed I had this idea to put in a murphy bed.  We could use part of the opening so the bed wouldn't stick out so far into the playroom/guest room.  The opening was exactly the width we needed to fit a queen bed there.  Seriously, we had less than 1/2" to spare. I also made Adam come up with an idea of how to make this work without having to buy the expensive mechanisms for the bed. I'll post about that another time, maybe when we work on the guest room.  Currently it's being occupied by Eli.

Skipping to the old bar area....... finished texturing and painting the walls.  Still have a few patches we need to fix.  Added a desk top, hung the door to the closet, moved and changed the light, and put on the stainless steel countertop.

 

We really like having the desk space here, and I love how it turned out.  

Still need to add some shelves above the desk, door casing and baseboards, and obviously new flooring sometime. 

Adam built me shelves in the closet. I downsized all my scrapbooking and sewing stuff to fit in there.  We also have all our arts and crafts and computer and electronic components in the closet, so they don't clutter up the desk.  When the kitchen is done, I plan on moving a few things out of there so it's not so packed.

Back to the fireplace wall.  After quite a few nagging phone calls to our cabinet guy, we finally got this installed (the day before Christmas Eve).  We told him it needed to be in by Thanksgiving, but of course it wasn't.  We really just needed the hole to be closed up, so Eli could have a little privacy.  It was like this (no drawer fronts or trim for awhile longer). We also finished up texturing and painting (walls and ceiling) in here.

 

This is how it looks now (well not NOW, the kitchen is no longer there), but the computer area and entertainment center looks like this. We finished these projects around January.

 I planned on putting all my DVD's in those drawers, but then Eli moved in and made us a cool computer that holds all of our movies.  I was able to put the movies outside in a bin and use the drawers for toys.  I was able to fit the majority of the toys, books and games in the cupboards and drawers.  We still need to add handles, but I'm waiting to see what we pick for the kitchen.  We LOVE that it's pretty much done down here, and love how it turned out. It really opens up the living room a ton. 

Funny Stories about my crazy kids

I have to put these stories on here so I don't forget them, and they are pretty funny.

First story involves Granty.

First off, I need to explain something.  Whenever I open the garage the babies think it's funny to hold on to the garage door until it pulls their arms over their heads.  Usually by that point, I'm yelling at them to let go, and explain EVERY TIME how that is so dangerous.  They don't get it, of course.

So.....one day we were on our way to pick up Noah (naturally we were cutting it close on time), and I told the babies to get in the car.  I pushed the button to open the garage and went back inside to grab my purse.  Anyway, as you probably guessed, Grant grabbed onto the garage door as it was going up. I honestly thought it would stop going up when it recognized the pressure on the door (we actually replaced our garage door openers when we moved in, because they didn't have any child protection lasers on them).  Well, it didn't come back down and up, up, up went Grant.  I heard him screaming and I went running out the door.  There he was hanging on with 1 hand!  Yeah, not only did he take a ride to the top, but he wouldn't drop his chap-stick that I had just given him in the other hand.  I yelled at him to hold on as I was running toward him.  Crazy how all this happened within seconds, because it felt like slow motion. I was about 5 feet away from him, when he let go.  My heart sank, I thought for sure he was going to be hurt really bad.  When he landed he hit his hip/bottom first and then hit his head.  Amazingly (someone 'upstairs' was looking out for him), he walked away with just a goose egg on his head and a sore hip.  He limped around for a few hours, and I was planning on taking him to the doctor, but by dinner he was running around.  NOW, whenever the garage goes up, both Ava and Grant don't touch it, and once in awhile Grant will retell the story of his 'incident'. 

The last two incidents involve both Ava and Grant.

While I was in San Francisco with my mom and sisters, Adam called me and told me what happened at home.  So, I didn't see this all go down, but the picture in my head was pretty funny.  Adam said they just got back from lunch and picking up chlorine for the pool.  The babies were in the house and Adam went out back to put some chlorine in the pool.  He said they both came out back with tears running down their cheeks, sobbing.  Apparently, they went looking for Adam and went out through the garage door.  Adam was unloading stuff from the car, so the garage door was open.  Nala ran out the door and started running down the street.  Not sure if they went after her, or they immediately went hysterical.  (I'm laughing just typing this) They told Adam, through tears, "Nala ran away.  She ran out of the door and ran away."  Luckily she only went to our neighbors house, and came home when Adam went and called her.  The babies were so scared they had lost their dog. 

Next story is somewhat similar to the previous one.

A few days ago I was unloading a few groceries, and we still had a few more errands to run, so I told the babies to stay in the car while I put the groceries in the house.  Of course they didn't obey and got out of their seats (I'm awful, and have been too lazy to put their car seats back in my car after taking them out a couple days ago) and started messing around in the car.  Ava found the vallet key in one of the compartments and put it in the ignition.  She turned it just to the first spot when the radio comes on.  I promise I was only in the house for like 3 minutes putting the milk and fish in the fridge.  When I came back out, both babies were sobbing and Grant was frantically trying to pull the key out of the ignition.   I opened the door and Grant immediately starts ratting Ava out, "Ava turned on the car, and we almost drove away."  I was laughing so hard inside, but tried to keep a straight face.  Grant just kept saying, "the car almost drove us away".   

They are both in that stage where they try to get the other to do something naughty.  Grant usually isn't brave enough to do it, but he will even try to convince Noah to do it.  He is also the first to come tattle on Ava and Noah for their bad behavior, and he's pretty good at keeping their spanking tallies. :)  He does conveniently forget about any spankings he racks up.

Grant will hate me later for this picture. 

Shasta Caverns and Camping

 

We went camping at Lake Shasta for Easter weekend.  We decided to check out the Shasta Caverns while we were there.  It was pretty awesome.  Noah is still talking about it.

 

Some pretty amazing views from the top of the mountain.  Lake Shasta has 4 'fingers', and this is a small portion of the McCloud finger.

The babies thought this huge stuffed bear was pretty neat.  It was inside the visitor center just before entering the caves.

 

It was hard to get good pictures in there, but it was pretty amazing.

 

 Kind of blurry, and the guy we asked to take the picture missed the lake entirely, but at least we're all in this picture.

 By the time we were done at the caverns, we went up/down 850 stairs.  It sounds impressive (for tiny tots it's really impressive), but it really wasn't that bad.

 After we set up our tent, we let the kids (and Nala) play in the lake for awhile before the sun went down.  We didn't take the boat this time, thinking the water would be too cold to ski, but it really wasn't that cold.  I mean it wasn't warm by any means, but we've definitely skied in colder water than this.

 I didn't pack swim suits, so the kids just stripped down to their undies.

 

Trying to stay warm while their dad builds a fire.

 Learning the basics of fire building (teepee fire).

 Cooking dinner over the fire - hot dogs.

 Best part of camping.........S'MORES!

Grant's marshmallow just caught on fire.

 We used the Easter marshmallows, so they were extra big.  Yum!

The next morning we took a little drive up one of the mountains to check things out.  This lake really is beautiful.  It's surrounded by mountains and mountains of evergreen trees. 

 Right now there are a lot of these rose bud trees in bloom, so there are splashes of purple everywhere. 

We had a great time.  The kids love camping and playing at Lake Shasta.  We miss going 'Eastering' with my family, but we're having fun coming up with some new traditions.

Egg hunt and Easter

 After we got home from camping, we decided to throw together an egg hunt for the kids.  We tried to round up some friends, but to no avail (it was last minute).  Sad that our cousins couldn't join us this year. :(  I made the kids stuff the eggs with candy, and then while they bathed off their stinkiness from camping, Adam and Eli hid the eggs.  Weird that Ava is in clothes, and not the boys; it's usually the opposite.

 Charge!!

 Eli thought it was great when the eggs were just out of reach.  He will make such a great father. :/

 Eli laughing and documenting the fact that Ava can't quite reach the egg through the fence.

The kids ate too much candy, and then went to bed.  In fact, I think candy is what we had for dinner.

 I really procrastinated this year, so their Easter baskets were filled with whatever I found on clearance at Target, at 10:00 the night before.  I try to do their swimming stuff (suits, goggles, towels, etc.), a book, and a small trinket for their Easter baskets, but because I was too slow the swimming stuff will have to come later.  They did each get a book, a kite, bubble wand, and a small trinket (slinky, ribbon wand, pincher toy).  I hid the eggs my mom sent, so they got those yummy treasures as well.  They loved it.

 While the kids were looking through their baskets and doing their egg hunt, Min was sleeping through it all. We even hid some eggs on that couch. :)

 It was fun having Min here.  My kids are so comfortable with him, and love to bug him for attention (can you tell, I'm still struggling with them moving).

We have 9:00 church (Adam goes even earlier), so Easter morning was pretty quick.   

Church was really nice.  Adam sang a beautiful song in sacrament meeting, and all the lessons were really good.