Hello to everyone,
Things have been extremely busy lately. I am looking forward to getting our life back on track and getting my blog caught up on. Our house is coming along and we should be in soon. I will not say a time because if there is one thing I have learned from this process is a schedule does not mean anything. The process has been long and here lately it seems that for every step forward we take we take a hundred back. After the wood was stained they moved onto painting. The entire house was painted only then for us to realize that the texture was not right. There were little pinholes all over the house. After having the contractor and texture guy come back and look they agreed that it had to be fixed so 5 guys showed up at our house the next morning to fix it. The house went from looking like we were coming along to looking like a leopard. Every wall in the house had spots that were fixed and everything had to be repainted. It made me sick but nothing we could do about it. (I think it was at this point that I began to break down) One obstacle out of the way and on to the next one is how our past few weeks have gone. Next the tile for the bathrooms arrived after weeks on order only to see that the master bath tile looked nothing like the sample. I tried and tried to convince myself that it would be okay but I couldn't. I knew I would never like it. So I spent another day at the tile store picking out new tile and then driving to the granite store to see which one went best only to find out the one I picked didn't have all of the tile cuts we needed for the shower so after the boys nap I took another trip to the tile store for round 2 of picking out a different tile. Thank goodness the boys are so good because that was a long day. Don't think that things were fine after that, that would be to easy right? Our tile was laid in the kitchen and laundry area. After a close examination we realized that the floors had not been leveled. They did not grind the high spots or float the low spots so our kitchen has a ski slope right in the middle of it. Made me sick. Initially we thought it could be spot fixed but Greg and I agreed that we would never be completely happy unless it was done 100% right so yesterday morning they came in and tore of 450 sq ft of tile and began grinding down the floor to level everything out. I called the tile store and had them ship the tile again. (Sigh.....) It just never seems to end lately. Honestly at this point in time I have just learned to adapt to each obstacle that has come my way. I have spent months now laying awake at night stressing about everything and I cannot do it anymore. I am tired and it is not going to change anything. So for 2 days now they have grinded the floor and hopefully by the 1st of next week we will have the new tile in. Our hardwoods were laid last Wednesday and they are beautiful!! I cannot wait to get the inch of dust off of them and see them shine!! The outside of the house is slowly coming along. They had a lot of prep work to do. The blue is starting to disappear and I am loving our color choice. It is going to look great!! Yesterday afternoon after the boys nap we went to the Lighting and faucet store to pick out under cabinet lighting and pick up all of the faucets. I had to have the faucets there so that they could cut the granite holes. I took them all to the house and labeled and placed them in each room to prepared for the granite installation. Today our kitchen, powder bath, bar and laundry room granite was set. It is gorgeous!! This is the fun part to me of all of this process to see my choices of colors, granite, wood, tile, faucets and lighting all come together. I cannot even begin to tell you how many hours I have spent working on all of it and I am so happy so far!! The boy’s bathroom and the master bath floors were tiled today. Tomorrow they will grout the floors and then Thursday the granite will be installed in both bathrooms. We should have the tub and shower tiled in the master by this weekend (fingers crossed) They are going to acid wash the sunroom floor and regrout it to make it look brand new and then we are hoping to have the new tile for the kitchen in by the first of next week so that they can get that laid. Baseboards will be laid at some point. Once all of that is done we will be ready for all plumbing to be installed and then lighting. I am so ready to be to that stage. I live for the morning that I walk in and the cleaning lady has been there and it is all done.......
I cannot even begin to explain how stressful this house remodel has been. Greg and I have survived numerous fights and I guess it is official we will be together forever. You know the saying if you can survive building a house or going through a remodel together then you can survive anything and we have made it. Ha!!
The boys are doing great! I know they are so ready for this to be over too. They have adjusted so well. They are in bed by 7:45 and usually take a Sippy cup of milk around 4. Once we move this will end but throughout the night if they make a peep I hop up and grab them so that my sister can sleep. When we move I will gradually do away with the middle of the night Sippy. It is a habit now and their little bodies wake at the same time each night. The bad thing is even if theirs doesn't mine does and once I am awake my mind starts thinking about everything I need to do which leads to hours and hours of nights laying awake. The boys are sleeping til around 8 now. I go in to get them and we play for a little while before I get breakfast ready. The boys have continued to be good eaters and they will not ever let you forget about a meal. When they are hungry they say "na na na na na na" or "mmmmmm" which I know means were hungry mom! After they eat I get them cleaned up. Eating is a very messy part of our day. They pretty much get a sponge bath after every meal. They are very independent so it takes them forever to eat now. I probably spend 3 hours a day between 3 meals and 2 snacks standing in the kitchen while they eat. For some reason I am never standing because every time I turn around the dishwasher needs unloaded and reloaded. Oh well, keeps me busy. After breakfast I get the boys dressed so that when they wake up from their morning nap we are ready to leave the house. They usually go down around 9:30 and sleep anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half. After they are up I put socks and shoes on them and we are out the door to run our million errands for the day. The boys eat at 1 so I usually have about and hour to get everything done before I have to get home to make them lunch. Everyday our errands start with checking on the puppies and making sure they have food and water. Both pups have had skin infections so I am having to give them medicine morning and night. While I am at the house I meet with the workers that are there and find out the plan for the day and next couple of days so that if I need to get something picked up like faucets etc. I can squeeze that into the schedule. This is the time I have to go to the granite store, tile store, lighting store, faucet store grocery store etc. Since I only have a short period of time I can usually only make it to one place a day. It would be nice to go once and be done but with everything I have had to pick out I have had to make trips to each of these stores numerous times. Trust me, these boys know how to shop for house stuff!! By 1 I am home to feed the boys lunch. By 2:00 they are fed cleaned up and changed and down for their long afternoon nap. They have been sleeping 2 to 2 and a half hours, which has been great for me. This is the time I have used to look at things online and pick everything out so that my trips to the stores are faster. I LOVE Internet shopping. On top of that I have all of Greg's work stuff to do so needless to say the hours fly by. Once they get up I feed them a snack and get them cleaned up and we load up and make our way back to the house. I feed and water the pups again and once again find out the plans for the next day. By 6:00 we are home so that I can cook dinner. The boys eat at 6:30 and they eat whatever we are eating so I have to have time to get it made. By 7:15 I am changing the boys to jammies and getting them ready for bed. At this point I usually say "Where did the day go?" I have the boys in bed by 7:45 and we do it all over again the next day.......
