Van Natter AUGUST-SEPTEMBER

PICTURE HEAVY! Sorry...
So August, which was quite along time ago now... We were still up to our eyeballs in construction. Men were in and out of the house all day long. Began the month choosing paint colors. Ended the month with nearly everything done! Wood floors. New cabinets. Granite countertops. New appliances. But before that a plastic curtain hung between the kitchen and living room to keep down the dust and dirt. We still had it EVERYWHERE!!

This photo was before John tackled the living room floor. We wanted to use the same wood as the new kitchen and our wonderful contractor, Josh, got us an amazing deal to do the whole area, but John had to pull up the living room Pergo and subflooring, which was a chore. He had a couple of boys from the ward (10 and 11 years old) come help and those boys knew how to work!! We used them a couple of times and they earned every penny we paid them. They were such a big help.

In this photo above you can also see the wallpaper border that had to come down before the living room could be painted. Did it want to come down? No, it did not. It was a major chore and John tackled it in September. He got it all down in one day!

Our plan to have a mini-kitchen set up in the living room (microwave, toaster oven, frig) didn't work out so well. First off, we didn't have electricity in that part of the house for days. The frig was attached to an extension cord plugged into the bathroom! 2nd, did I mention the dust and dirt EVERYWHERE??? So we ended up with a lot of take out food. Especially pizza, which could be eaten for days. I never thought I'd be tired of pizza, but I am!

Here's Josh, our contractor and new member of the family!, installing the wood floor in the kitchen. It was one of the things he did himself instead of subbing it out. The wood is soooo pretty, but we find it scratches easily, which makes John a crazy man! You can see through the doorway to our laundry room, and the stairs up to the family room. The big kitchen window used to be on that wall.

Yikes! Did I make a mistake with that turquoise wall????

Nope! Love it with the cabinets. It's only one wall anyway. Well, an L-shaped one.
Then in the middle of all the mess, Guess who came for a visit??

Emily wanted to help Heidi get ready for school. Their first morning Addie had no option but to be stuck in the computer room because it was a heavy construction day out in the other part of the house. See the mess she had to play in?? She and Emily took off for Provo, which was a good idea!

Addie was cool as long as she had an iPad to play with!

There goes the driveway! (Yes it was taken through the window. It was HOT out!)

Here's silly Addie with my glasses. And a view of the MESS we lived with in the computer room. Wish I could say it was all cleaned up now. It's better, but not tidy. Hall closet doors are leaning up against everything still, as you can see in the background. 

Loved having Emily and Addie here, despite the mess. They stayed about 10 days. 

The day the plastic curtain came down, Josh cleaned the floor and moved furniture around while Emily and I ate our Kneaders sandwiches and made fun of him! He wanted me to see the whole picture so he worked and we ate!

In September, there was more finishing:

Fireplace in the new family room.

The deck. Sorry about all those boxes!

My favorite thing of all: the cherry red washer and dryer in the new laundry room. I am in love!

We've been using the new kitchen for about a month now. It's more roomy and open and easy to get around in. I realized why I hated cooking before - the claustrophobia of my tiny kitchen! No one could ever help with anything because there wasn't room! Now there is lots of room to move around, especially since the kitchen and living room are one big room!

Fewer and fewer workers came as the month progressed until the day when we were finally done and gave Josh that last big check. He was so easy to work with and really bent over backwards to make us happy. He even installed the baseboards in the living room for us because he knew John would struggle since he can't kneel on his new knees. And he had a new sill installed on the living room window to match the rest of the addition as a gift to us! It seems a little weird not seeing him every day! He used to just walk in, like one of the family! I saw him at church yesterday and we had a little catch-up chat!

John is still working on the living room. He painted the baseboards Josh installed by lying on the floor and scooting himself along!! He started the ceiling painting after getting the walls all patched, including the holes in the entry walls where the piano hit as they took it out of the house last Memorial Day! He has taken about one day a week off to work on projects so we can actually get this done!!

Dear sweet John wouldn't let anyone park in the new driveway for FIVE weeks!! And he won't let me park my car there yet since it has a little oil leak!! He wants to paint the garage before we park in there, so hopefully this can all happen before the snow flies!

Ian was hired by 3M. He's worked there for several months, but as a contract employee. Some openings came up in his department and he was the first one hired as a salaried employee. The boss wanted to know how to get everyone else with the same super high statistics as Ian!! He's making a great salary now and is planning to move out, probably into a town home, in a few months. He didn't follow the path we'd expected, but he learned a lot over the years with each job he took and it helped him have the skill-set to be hired by a great corporation. Of course, he'll now get to have On Call days just like his dear old dad!! He caught the flu a week ago and was totally down for 4 days. In October he has to put in 9.5 hour days due to new releases, whatever that means! This is when it's a bummer to be salaried instead of hourly!!

Heidi and I met up at the Hale Theater to see "9-5, The Musical", which was delightful! She gave me this for my birthday and I could look forward to it for months. With Zupa's for dinner, it was really a fun time. Thanks Heidi!!

And that catches up our August and September.
Hope you all are enjoying the first golden days of fall!