Kitchen Remodel Part 1

This summer we tackled the remodel job of our lives. When reading all the books on kitchen remodeling to prepare, this title stood out, "Kitchen Redos, Revamps, Remodels, and Replacements: Without Murder, Madness, Suicide, or Divorce." I'm happy to report that we are all alive and well in our family. It's been a little touch and go. 

 I had the brilliant idea to rent a dumpster to dispose of our cabinets, old chimney bricks and linoleum all at once. We bought a large pvp pipe that we put through our window to slide the bricks down. We had 2.5 tons of junk. Awesome!

 Here we are taking all our our things out of our old cabinets. These cabinets had un-moveable shelves with small doors. I understand that many Western kitchens aren't planned to accomodate a large wok, but these cabinets didn't fit my regular pots or skillets either.

But who would have thought they were a perfect fit for Carl? Note the black tile counter tops. The grout was coming out of the cracks and the protective film on the tile was flaking off into our food. Ultra-gross.

 I talked Ryan into letting the kids and I take off all the doors and pull out the drawers. They had a great time.

 Things got really messy once the chimney started coming down. This was the messiest job with all the plaster powder and cinders suspended in the air. I have never seen such dirty boys. Thanks to some determined scouts and a great EQ President, we were able to get it all done in one day.

Ryan still looks for the chimney when he walks into the kitchen. I think he got attached to it after spending so much time planning and executing it's removal. Note the old fancy wallpaper. There were 10 layers to take off under what you can see and it felt like taking a trip in time back to 1940. Our kitchen smells so much better without all that old paper and paste. 

 The plaster wall here was so cracked up from the house settling that all the plaster had to be taken off and replaced with drywall. The smartest thing we did was to cover the doorways with plastic. It kept Carl out of the action and the mess out of the rest of our house. Although that did mean we had to come up with alternate routes to the laundry room in the basement. Option #1 Walk laundry out front door facing our busy street and around the house in 90* weather. Option #2 Squeeze through my bedroom window into the back porch. The kids liked option #2 the best.

NC Arboretum

It's so good to have rocks in our yard to play with. We do have a no rocks in pockets policy. 

I include these pictures as a study in animal behavior. Watch the bunny and note how much more nervous it gets as the fox approaches. It pretty much ends up at abject terror.

 Amber is tapping into her Olympic spirit here.

They had some good building ideas for the kids next fort.

Watagua Lake and 1st Day of School

We live a mere 20 minutes from this beautiful lake. Once again I would like to mention how great it is to live so close to vacation destinations. How Carl can pick up rocks that weigh more than he does is a mystery to me. 

 They had free canoe rides and I couldn't resist. Maybe the kids need to grow a little more to fit into the life preservers. We did review the first rule of canoeing which is "Don't fall in the drink."

 Here is the other half of our crew. Carl's less than happy face is most likely due to the wet britches he had from sitting at the bottom of the canoe. That really is the safest place for a two year old.

I made the girls these summer dresses which they love.

Helen's first day of 3rd Grade!

Jane's first day of 1st Grade!

Summertime fun

Sometimes I am good at keeping up with pictures and sometimes I am not . . .

Roan Mountain has a Rhododendron Festival in June, and that's where these pictures were taken. We only live about 45 minutes away. We've never lived so close to a vacation destination. :)

You would not believe the crazy faces Ryan was pulling to get this picture.

Carl discovered some pipes Ryan had bought for installing sink in our basement. They turned out to be the best toys ever. In addition to being protective arm-wear, they could be made into all sorts of "instruments."  My favorite was the two 90 degree angles - you would think that singing straight into your own ear would encourage you to lower you volume, but that was not the case. Here he is with the alpine horn version complete with arm protectors.

We got to tour the Bristol Motor Speedway with the summer reading program at Amber's library. The kids had a great time, and I was only slightly nervous (white knuckles gripping handles) when they took the 15 passenger van for a spin on the steeply sloped racetrack.

It is so good to have the summer off.  I think most of our yard's rocks and sticks have traveled over 5 miles and still end up at home.

We have a great train park near our home that we discovered this summer.

Who can deny the fun of cousins and a slip and slide?

Apparently Ryan had this same park growing up and got a little teary eyed when he saw it.

What faces! What a life!

Helen's Baptism

 Helen was baptized on June 4th.  It was a special day for her, and we were lucky to have family from both near and far celebrate with us.

The Finches and Calls came down from Bristol, my mom and Warren flew all the way from St George, and my brother Nate rode his motorcycle over the mountains from Charlotte.

Every big event needs a big meal, and this day was no exception.

Dyersburg or Bust

Over Memorial Day weekend we went to visit Craig and his family who are on the entire other side of Tennessee. As we are 30 minutes from the Virginia border, they are 30 minutes from the Arkansas border. We discovered that there is a lot of Tennessee in between.

 Above, you can see, the kids working on one of their current favorite outside activities - making clover chains as long as they can. They are getting so good that we measure them in body lengths instead of feet.

 After giving Heidi the slip by sneaking into the reptile room, Craig embraces some snake time. I am just going to mention that my kids do so much better with snakes than dogs. When we see dogs on our walks the youngest two kids climb up to my head using fingernails and sheer grit in 15 seconds flat. Whereas with snakes they are more than willing to touch them. I think it has something to do with size differences and quickness of movement.

Here we are on our boardwalk hike under the cypress trees. What a cool hike!

I'm pretty sure we doubled their branch size all showing up on Sunday.

Here we are remembering soldiers on Memorial Day. Ryan forgot to put the flag in the picture. I don't know why, since it was a giant Confederate flag. Then we took the kids downtown for a Memorial Day service. I wish I could make it through one of those without tearing up. In fact, I didn't even make it through the opening prayer. Oh well, remembering sacrifices can do that to a person. Everyone's favorite part was the, "Can I get an, 'Amen'!" shouted half way through the keynote speaker's address. I think Craig is enjoying his time in the South.

Helen agreed to ice cream for her birthday. It's so good to turn 8 on vacation. Although to say she  doubted she could even be happy away from home on her big day does not even begin to capture her trepidation/angst/sadness. She really did manage to have a great birthday.

Remodeling Fun

This winter and spring we finished up two bedrooms and a bathroom. I really wanted to take off these dark colors and put up some lighter wallpaper.

 I made great blackout fabric for the kids bedroom window so the kids have an easier time falling asleep in the summer. We also learned that even though the wallpaper on the bottom looks random, it is not, and required great eyesight to line up the pattern.

We were a little worried to only have a half bathroom upstairs. To say nothing of the sketchy carpet patterned with all kinds of mysterious stains. One day while sitting up there I realized that if we took the closet wall out there would be plenty of room for a shower. In fact, it would be much bigger than many of the bathrooms we've used around the world. Luckily in Tennessee building codes are mere suggestions and we ran with it. 

We had a great contractor who came in an helped us take care of everything except for the wallpaper. This was the hardest room to wallpaper to date. Something about only having one night to get the job done (Ryan assured our contractor that we could do it in a few hours) and a sloped ceiling.

I am particularly proud of the slanted shower curtain I sewed up. That's a bendable curtain rod that can be used for bay windows. We just attached it upside down and it works great. In fact, this bathroom is so nice that Ryan and I started using it and let the kids use the downstairs one. It's kind of like going to the spa.

We finished redoing our last upstairs bathroom last month. Choosing the wallpaper was more tricky because they had to match my curtains. I made these black out curtains for our last home and by some modern sewing miracle they fit perfectly in this room.

Alice would rather take wallpaper off the wall than anything else during quiet time. Probably because it gives her a chance to use a squirt bottle and chat my ear off. And just in case you were wondering we painted over the mysterious letters and didn't put new ones up. Although it would be fun for the next homeowner to find a bunch of Ms and As.

 Our last room upstairs got a new closet with the bathroom remodel. We are really happy with it and the inside is slanted to match all the other closets upstairs. 

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Note the wallpaper in the hall that's safe for the time being. It will be coming off, but not until after summer and fall are over. It's hard to find time to wallpaper with a garden and yard to tend to.

Happy Birthday Jane!

Jane turned 6 this spring. We were having really warm weather, but favorite foods must be honored. Hence we enjoyed hearty bowls of chili whilst wiping the sweat from our brows. A shout goes out to Hannah for making a triple layer purple velvet cake with purple flowers. Just what she wanted!

The whole gang made it!

The other day we had a double rainbow out our front porch. Although beautiful, it is merely a backdrop to show the differences between the girls and boy in our family. Let's be totally honest, it could be age related. 

Which reminds me of a funny story. Ryan had gone up to wake up Carl from his name and asked Carl if he wanted to go shopping with him. Carl agreed and came downstairs and with sleep still heavy in his eyes he said, "Dad needs a new tool." Ryan swears he didn't suggest that, but I'm suspicious. 

Friday was the last day of school. I am not sure who is the most sad, we just all love school (even the two who aren't in school). I got to teach nutrition to the kids classes this year and that was a fun change of routine. The girls were tickled pink to call me Mrs. Hackett (giggle, giggle) and give me a hug (giggle, giggle).