Remodel

So in August we bought a new house. It happened fast and we weren't sure what we'd got our selves into but we were excited for a new adventure. The house was built in the 80s and while well maintained still looked dated. The one big thing was the kitchen/living room area. It was three separate areas. I like the newer open designs where it doesn't feel like you are being banished to the kitchen. Luke talked about remodeling but honestly I didn't really believe that my frugal husband would start such a project. Little did I know he was dead serious. Here is what it looked like before:

Like I said, nice but dated, and brown, brown, brown!! Brown has never been my favorite. This was my first sign that Luke was serious. He said he just wanted to see what was in the wall. 

Next he said he was just going to tear down half the wall and I was definitely still going to have a kitchen.

And this is what I'm left with.

So he hooks up the oven from the ceiling for about a week.

And I still have some counter space and a sink and dishwasher.

...and then I don't. :(

The boys thought it was a lot of fun playing around all the construction.

My Dad came up to help us fix the hole in the ceiling.

Things were a little better once we got the debris and old cabinets moved out.

It took me forever to pick a paint color. After six samples I was ready to get painting.

It mostly happened at night after my little helpers went to bed by lamplight since Luke was adding lights.

The longer I painted, the more pink the previous wall color got. I had to build a baby barricade to keep Ryker out of my tray.

We had no kitchen for about six weeks. Our eating area was downstairs in the storage room and we were eating microwave dinners on paper plates forever! Finally our cabinets came. We had a few that had to be replaced so that took a little longer and it was still another few weeks before the counter tops came. Jax had a great time climbing the mountain of boxes that all the cabinets came in.

We ended up sticking our old sink, counters, and oven in while we were waiting for everything to arrive. Jax loved being able to drive his bike around inside while there were no floors.

Our beautiful counter tops.

Our old floor was a nightmare to tear up. It took forever and was so hard. Luke and I both ended up bleeding several times and we all got slivers at one point. The new floor also took a long time to lay down mostly because we did it ourselves, so pretty much when Luke got home from work and I made him stop when the kids went to bed. We have the cutest little "helpers". My family was coming for Thanksgiving and we finished the floor the day before they came. 

All of the big stuff is done and now we need to finish up the little stuff but it feels so great to have it mostly done and it looks amazing. Proud of my hubby and all of his hard work!