After!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, after you spend this much time, money and energy on remodeling you can put a bazillion exclamation points on your blog title, and fill it with way too many pictures ;).
      Once we started remodeling our living room we did away with our old TV and did without one for the half-year or so of remodeling.  Don't be too impressed, we watched on our computer, but still, it's not the same.  We finished up right before Christmas which was perfect timing to get a TV for our family gift.  

 

 

A very Merry Christmas!!

 

 

And here's the rest of it...

 

Down the stairs to the reading nook, down the hall to the living room and bathroom.

 

     I know this is kinda weird, but I'm so thankful to have these things behind doors!  Since we moved here our furnace, water heater, & water softener have been out in the open.  Loved those closed doors! 

Our beautiful new bathroom with toilet securely installed on the FLOOR!!  Yay! 

 

 

Our beautiful living room finished and ready for our family to play, watch, read & relax. 

 

 



Construction Expands & Continues

 

     Once we got into remodeling it was easy to justify expanding to the living room, hall & extra room (pretty much the rest of the basement that hadn't been recently remodeled).  So we put insulation and actual sheet rock in the living room. We also installed a support beam that had been removed before we bought the home. 

     This one stair is the only picture of our lovely church carpet.  It was painful to rip up because it had been glued to the cement floor.  We were so happy to have it all gone...sayonara church carpet!!
The corner at the bottom of the stairs had a funky "shower," if you could call it that.  It was set on two feet of solid cement...another jack hammer job.  Again so thankful for a hardworking hubby!
One of our main plumbing lines runs right here so it took a little creativity to make it a normal, useful space. 

      Here it is sheet rocked along with the sheet rocked bathroom & walls up the stairs.

      Decisions, decisions....

 

     I really wanted wood floors for our heavy traffic areas.  The top of the stairs is right at our back door where a lot of dirt is brought in.  Come to find out you can't put wood on concrete because of the moisture so we started looking at wood laminates.  We found this one and loved it.  Corey wasn't happy about installing it, but after the biggest argument of the remodel, Stan's help & encouragement and a few days of silent treatment....it was done.  Beautiful!  We had just enough tile left from our kitchen to tile the bathroom, Corey did a great job. 

 

     And then there was paint....

 

     These two were so excited to "help" paint.  After this day of not-so-productive painting the Mom's came to the rescue.  Blyth took the twins and my Mom & I spent the day together painting...I'm so mad I didn't get a picture of us.  It was such a good day to spend with my Mom. 

Before...

     Living in an old house is interesting.  When we bought our old farm house we were able to remodel the kitchen and update the paint and carpet upstairs.  Our upstairs only has two bedrooms so our boys have always been downstairs in our somewhat-finished basement.  It would be familiar to people who have lived in old homes, a lot of painted cinderblock, church carpet (church cabinets, church kitchen, etc.), and an odd layout.  What almost no one would be familiar with is our pedestal toilet.  I'm devastated that we didn't get a picture of it in all it's glory.  This house didn't have plumbing to the basement and was on a septic tank for quite some time.  So in order to have toilet #2, this is what they did. 



 

     Now just imagine a toilet sitting on top of these steps.  The unpainted cinderblock on  the back wall is where the back of the toilet was.  Pretty awesome & in totally working order for the first 4-5 years in this house.  So step #1: take out the cement throne. 

 

    
     I took our "big boys" to a museum one day and came home to this....demo is so so DIRTY!!  We've got all our boys downstairs in nicely finished rooms along with our family room so we had to keep it all closed off.  Corey had this demolished and cleaned up in a day..he's amazing.  The following week the Young Men in our ward hauled it all from our backyard (Corey stuffed everything through a coal shoot in our backyard) to the dumpster in the front. 
    

 

     Step # 2: get a sewer line into the basement. We had to have a cement cutter come cut a line through the basement floor to where a drain is and the future bathroom would be.  Then Corey rented a cement mixer and brought in the troops to help pour it.  Again, a lot of hard work and creativity here. 

 

 

     It was really nice to be at this point in the re-model.  A nice, clean slate felt good. 

 





Let it Snow!

     Well, Thanksgiving is over so I'm officially okay with it snowing.  We had a great big storm yesterday so I ended up dressing my twins in their snow clothes four times.  They loved it!  Brecken especially loves the opportunity to put his tractor to work in the off-season!

Patience

     How cute is this kid?  Who knows how long he waited so that he could surprise me hiding in my pillows?  Love you Breck!