Airplane Races

In the chaos of our world, these are the moments I live for.

Our builders shifted gears yesterday to attack our fireplace.  Two years ago I moved this cabinet in front of it and forgot that it existed (sort of).  If you look really close, you can see the unfinished mess peeking through.  

In the process, they discovered a pair of model airplanes Lily had built one weekend she stayed with my dad.  After putting Julia to bed, I caught sight of Mike and Lily through the (new) kitchen window racing the planes.  I took the basement steps two at a time, stepped on at least four legos, and stubbed my toe on the unfinished landing when I re-emerged with my camera.  If I would just leave it out at all times...

Preserving the Childhood Innocence

When you find out you’re going to be a parent, you prepare yourself the best you can.  Life often throws you curve balls in the most inordinate ways.  We knew there would be challenges to face - I imagined things like back talk, broken bones, sneaking out.  At age 6 I wasn’t expecting the melt downs over what outfit to wear or a hairstyle that was slightly out of place.  

I wasn’t expecting to have to explain why we would never get to hold a baby we were so excited to meet.

Mike and I have always been very open with Lily about death.  How it’s a part of life and how we get together to celebrate even when we’re sad.  It’s “easy” to explain this when it’s a great Grandma or when someone’s been ill.  We’ve prepared her for the fact that Diesel is 10 and won’t be around forever.  Those conversations - in hindsight - have been a piece of cake.  

I was not prepared to tell my 6 year old how unfair life could be.  I was not prepared for the innocent question after question that followed.  And that keep coming at the most random times.  The questions that literally require me to stop and catch my breath, compose myself and think of an answer.  And when there isn’t one, to be prepared again for the never ending WHY?  To keep calm WHY after WHY after WHY when all I want to do is ask the same question.  

So for now we talk about it.  As much as I want to shut it down, block it out, it’s how Lily is coping. We imagine what baby Eleanor is doing in Heaven.  We talk about the angels that came to get her.  How she's probably playing on the monkey bars.  We keep her memory alive through Lily’s childhood innocence.  

Making progress...kind of.

What’s a renovation without issues?  We knew from our experience with the basement there were some quirky things which had previously been done to the house.  Although some of these I just didn't see coming.

As we head into week 6 of the project, I thought it might be time for an update.  I'm starting to lose my sanity.  The progress seemed fast at first - it’s easy to note the changes when suddenly walls are missing and cabinets are no longer standing.  It feels as if time is standing still when we get home and it looks like nothing has been touched.  Mike reassures me on those days electrical and plumbing have made progress or a new layer of drywall mud is in place.  

The original plans we had for the stairwell were to open up the walls to connect our living room and kitchen.  When I first met with our designer, she poked her head around and was fairly confident we could do this without support columns or the existing bulkhead.  To be sure, we confirmed with our builder and got the green light.  At the time Mike wasn’t so sure - he was positive what was running through the ceiling was a support beam and took it upon himself to drill into the “beam” only to discover drywall.  With a mess on our hands we moved forward with this concept.  During week one, the walls started coming down and we learned the electrical to the main floor was all running from the ceiling through the stairwell.  Our options were to rip out the basement drywall or  run the electrical through four columns on each corner of the stairwell.  My obvious choice was to rip out the drywall and avoid the columns but our builders reminded us (ok me) this would create more of a mess (and be expensive).  So I guess compromised.  I requested they rewire everything to one end of the stairwell in order to limit the number of columns to two and have them away from the center of the room.  First crisis averted.

During the process we thought we’d have access to our sink as long as possible - it’d be one of the last pieces pulled out.  As the surrounding cupboards were removed, they discovered the electrical wiring had been run directly behind the cabinets instead of through the walls.  By some miracle, our house is still standing (although as we keep progressing it might have been better if it burned to the ground).  So everything came out in one fell swoop, dishes are being washed in the bathtub BUT we now have completely new electrical.  Second crisis averted.

I did a happy dance when the floors started coming out and drywall got hung. The puzzle was getting put back together!  When I walked through the door the other night, there was a large piece of plywood covering a section of the ground surrounded by some boards that looked as though they were rotting and I had a message from our builder to give him a call.  A quick peek under made my heart sink and Mike was already in the basement trying to determine whether or not the termites got to the floor joists.  We were reassured this was old damage, there was absolutely no sign of anything recent, and the next day confirmed the damage wasn’t as extensive as where my head went.  Third crisis averted.

Week four we got a real glimpse into the final product as a couple of coats of paint started to blend the living room and kitchen into one big room.  You could no longer see the distinct lines between old and new drywall and the ceiling was now a seamless bright white.  Other than a minor freak out when the ceiling started bubbling but seemed to dry, no crises this week.

Last week should have been a week of immense progress.  And for the most part it was - life is finally being put back into place.  Our new door and window were delivered and installed allowing for even more light to stream into the area.  On Tuesday the cabinets were delivered however en route to our house one fell loose in the truck and was damaged.  And of course it is an integral piece of the design, holding us back from having counter tops templated and ordered.  Delivery date of our new cabinet is another two weeks.  I'm hopeful it will arrive from Canada in one piece but I guess you never know.  Insert where my patience is being tested in big big BIG ways.  

Tonight we arrived home to learn the crown molding that was ordered is too wide.  It's rare when I hear the words "I can't" out of our builders' mouths.  I've asked them to do many a crazy ideas and when they told us there was just no way the molding was going to work, my heart plummeted.  So tomorrow I'll be calling the cabinet designer to see what our options are.  It's official.  I'm so over this project.  But if I'm going to be glass half full this evening, part of our new flooring is in place!

So here's a look at what's been done so far!

Walls around the stairs are finally down!  Still looks dark...

Drywall around the stairs is starting to take shape, our house is a train wreck, and washing dishes in the bathtub is starting to get real old...

Finally!  The construction curtain is down and you can see the river from the kitchen!!!

Sweet parquet floors...too bad they aren't the look we're going for....

And you can actually see the kitchen from the entire living room!!!!!

CABINETS!!!!!!!!!!

New door + new window = SO MUCH LIGHT

Oh - and see that B.E.A.UTIFUL sink?  It's amazing.  And was WAY over budget.  But it's the only thing that's gone in seamlessly so it was worth it. 

Ahhh...new floors...kudos to Lily on these.  We had it narrowed down to two samples and let her be the tie breaker.  She went with the one Mike liked the best and I have to say, they made a good choice!