Day Six

I went to the house yesterday after work and saw the mess that the guys have been making! Ben is so tired and worn out....and I know Brian is too! Brian has been such an awesome help for Ben (and Anthony too after school is out)! The guys took all of the carpet out of the basement, replaced the toilet on the main floor with the toilet from the extra bathroom upstairs (now NO MORE LEAKS!!), completely gutted the extra and master bathrooms upstairs, took the sheetrock out of the pantry in the kitchen, and took all of the sheetrock off the wall in the dining room (where the mirrors had been hanging). They have done so much!! The demolition is pretty much done (today should be the last day) and then we will begin the remodeling process. Hopefully we will get quite a bit of help this weekend and we will be able to make some noticeable progress. Ben and Brian are both AWESOME and I am SOO thankful that I have a husband who can and WILL do this kind of work!!! There are a few pics from Day 6 in a photo album under the Photos tab---I have pics of the washroom and the boys' bathroom in the basement because I have never shown pics of those two rooms yet.

Day Five

I don't have any new pics for today because I didn't go to the house after work. I know that first thing this morning Ben had the Roto-Rooter guy out. For $300 he ran a camera down our sewer pipes so he could see what the problems were. Then for another $200 he fixed the problems...lots of tree roots blocking the pipes. We should be good for a while now. After Roto-Rooter he finished pulling the plumbing out of the upstairs bathrooms. They created a huge mess, so I heard, but only have one more day of demolition before the remodeling will begin. I will go over to the house tomorrow after work so I can get some pictures and I will hopefully have more to write about then.

Day Four

Yesterday was Day Four of work on the house, and it was filled with lots of trips to the store for plumbing parts. Ben had to cap off several water lines and fix a leaky toilet on the main floor. He also tore all of the old shelves out of the huge pantry so I can have more counter/cabinet space in the kitchen and a smaller walk-in pantry. At the end of the day he found out that the main water line coming in to the house was leaking, so we left and went again to Home Depot for some more parts so he can fix it today. I don't know if I mentioned it, but on Monday Home Depot came out to measure for carpet, and they can install it within 72 hours of us calling to say we are ready. We are going to run wires for lighting and paint the walls before we tell them we are ready for the carpet, though. Also, just to clear things up for those of you who are thinking that we have torn down every wall in the house....we have only torn down two walls so far (one between the Master Bedroom and the extra bedroom upstairs so the Master Bedroom can be one large Master Suite, and one where Annalisa's closet was so we could give her an extra 3 or so feet on that side of the room). Also, Ben did take the closets out of the basement, but those weren't any walls torn out. He is also tearing up the existing Master Bathroom so I can have a tub in there and a bit bigger of a bathroom. So, we aren't tearing the entire house apart even though it may seem that way in the pictures!! Right now the work is going a bit slower, but we are still making progress, and one more day of work is one more day closer to us moving in!!!

These are the only 3 pictures from Day 4 of work!

Day Three

Yesterday was Day Three!! It was the first day I wasn't able to work with Ben....I had to go back to the real world of an office job. When Ben got to the house, he found that we had been the victims of our youth group....they put tons of political signs in our front yard and made a sign for us to keep....It says "Welcome to your new house. Hope every day is a New Day"--our church is New Day: The Church...so that is where that sentiment comes from. Ben was able to work with Brian (our youth minister) all day on demolition, then when he got the kids from school they were more than willing to help break down some walls! What kid doesn't want to swing a hammer into a wall and see it break into pieces? It was super fun for them! Ben also got the water turned on, and the electricity is now in our name. We have been advised to have Roto- Rooter come out before we start using the plumbing consistently...mostly because the house has been vacant for a year and a half, and there are lots of trees in the yard....we don't want to flood the basement with pipes that are blocked off from tree roots. So, I will try to get in touch with them today and see about getting them out there. Ben is moving the plumbing in the master bath and the extra bathroom upstairs....so I can have a bigger bathroom with a TUB, not just a stand-up shower. We are combining two of the upstairs rooms to make one big master bedroom with a walk-in closet and bigger bathroom. Annalisa's room is being rearranged a bit too....we broke out the existing closet to add area to the side of her room that will back up to our room....then on the other side of her room it is shaped a bit like an "L" and it is the perfect place for a walk-in closet for her. Mostly the guest room will stay the same. He also got the closet torn out of the basement to open it up more for the boys and he will be adding some shelving and half-walls for their clothes. All in all the work is going pretty quickly right now....when he has to run the wires for lighting it might slow down a bit though. There are no lights in the ceilings in the bedrooms or the living room. For some reason the contractors in CO think everyone wants to buy lamps and have those for their lighting purposes....what idiots!!

Be sure to check out the pics from each day under the Photos tab at the top of the page!

Day Two

We started the day off with Believer's Baptism at church. We had 6 people baptized, and it was awesome!! After church we changed into our work clothes, grabbed some tacos at Taco Bell, and headed over to the house for WORK!! Today we met some more of our neighbors who were very full of information about our new house. For instance, the house has been vacant for about a year and a half and the lady who lived there had 10 dogs that she kept locked up in the fireplace room. NICE! She also liked to feed any animal that would come around, so her yard was always full of raccoons....again, NICE! We got a lot of help from the youth group in the evening time. They are serious about demolition and they got quite a bit done in just a couple of hours. We worked upstairs and got all the ceilings scraped, all the carpet removed and wallpaper pulled off of walls. We also demolished a wall and downstairs removed tile from the bathroom and entryway. The students also began scraping the ceilings in the basement and that will probably be finished by Ben today. He will be working hard every day for a few weeks...until we can get moved in. Cole worked hard all day again and he is probably very sore today. I am sure he has some fun stories to tell his friends at school, though! Again, there are pics in the photos tab.