Remodel Central

Andrew is a miracle worker. After being gone for a few weeks, he has been home to work on our house. It's like living in a new house!

Changes include new paint, new beadboard, new crown moulding, and voila! It's a new house. We're rather pleased with all the changes! My favorite changes include locking doorknobs on the bedroom and bathroom (helps with the privacy here...) and the full size bookshelf in the living room!

Anyway - for those of you who have been here, prepare to be amazed. For those who haven't, well... you'll see an amazing change anyway!

BEFORE the remodel...

This is our living room... before the woodstove (will be in the corner where the pictures are...)
Looking toward the kitchen - from where the wood stove will be...
Our dining room... we don't spend much time at the table here... it's too distracting.
The entry way area... and the living room. Taken from the dining room. 

After the remodel...

The view from the corner towards the kitchen (this is taken standing behind the wood stove...)
Our new favorite room in the house! 

This used to be the wallpaper wall... and the view down the hall.
The entry way. Changes include the coat closet and taking the door to the stairs off. It has opened the area up immensely!
Looking toward the woodstove - installed in January, and already worth its weight in saved heating bills!
Our dining area... note that the chandelier doesn't seem to be the only thing in the room anymore! (Or maybe it's that people were looking for a distraction from the rest of the walls... the floor doesn't seem to be as hideous either.) 

Count for me, Mom!

This is Savannah running through the sprinklers as I counted... "run around 4 times, Savannah, I'll count for you!" I will freely admit that for each time she ran twice, I counted once... Hey - anything to wear her out so that she'll be tired enough for bed at night! It took her only 7 times around to realize that I'd passed 4 a long time ago... and then it was back to lying on the deck so that she could dry off... 

Sprinklers!!!

This was truly the first HOT day of the season, and it demanded that we turn the water on so that Savannah could run through it. This is her standing in the water and counting to 10... She loved running through the sprinklers - quite a change from last year when she would only run if Dad was running with her... 

Mom's Flowers

This is my arrangement. I kind of prefer the originality of Savannah's... 

Flowers, anyone?

Savannah's centerpiece... she did this MOSTLY by herself, I didn't help her at all - she enlisted the help of some of my young women... 

Girl Time...

Having some time to spend one on one with Savannah and Margaret has been interesting. We've had a good time (and some hard times, but mostly good...) and done some fun things!

One of the most memorable has been running through the sprinklers (that was a Savannah only thing - Mom still doesn't like cold water), and doing some floral arrangements with the Young Women in the ward. I won't claim to have any sort of flower talent, but it was fun to see Savannah figure out how to stick her flowers in to make them look good. Her arrangement is still on the table two weeks later! (I forgot to water mine, and it's gone the way of all dead flowers...)

Margaret continues to grow like a weed - she's put herself on a sleep schedule that allows me a bit more time to clean the house and prepare for the move... it's nice to be able to plan around something that I can depend on (like Margaret going to bed sometime between 9 and 9:30 PM...)

We are looking forward to many more wonderful sunny days (today being 7 May isn't one of those) and more times running through the sprinkler... perhaps the next time Mom will run too...