Remember this scary place? Check it out now - totally redone!

Back of the house
Lucky is almost finished building the storage shed.

Front of house

Master bed/bath

Upstairs
Guest bath Guest bedroom

The beginnings of a sweet little boy's room

Old stairway New stairway

Living Room

Dining Room
This beautifully restored table was a gift from Lucky's aunt.

Half bath downstairs
(There was not a bathroom downstairs in the original house.)

Wow - it's been a long time since I've posted on this blog! We have been so busy! I am proud to say that our hardwork has paid off and we have made this place into a home we love. The next few posts will include lots of pictures.

Kitchen before
Kitchen after

Today's Project

We have this woodchipper for 24 hours. Go, Lucky, go!

Meanwhile, the painters are hard at work inside and I am the official, "Go get this..." girl. I'm pretty sure the employees at Sherwin Williams know me by name. I am also sure I could drive the route from the condo to the house with my eyes closed. Don't worry, I won't try it.

I am back at the condo quickly to make some dinner to bring out to Luck (we are getting EXTREMELY sick of Wendy's - never thought that could happen!) and then I will set up shop on the front porch and paint some interior trim pieces that Lucky will need to put down this week. We're machines, I tell ya!

Landscaping progress

Oh, how I wish I would have taken before pictures of this flower bed. It has been an enormous amount of work, but the results are well worth it. I am so happy with this progress, and too tired to do anything more than post the pictures! Big thanks to my parents for a lot of help these past two days!










Fin is very helpful. (Sarcasm.) But he earns lots of points for dashing good looks and excellent behavior. Yesterday, a lady was driving by and pulled in our driveway just to meet him! He loves watching us work and the VERY loud noises coming from our house don't startle him at all. (As proven by the picture above.) Let's hope the loud noises of table saws, wet saws (for tile cutting - obscenely loud) nail guns, etc. will become fewer and more far between. Flooring will be finished tomorrow and paint will begin immediately after. Granite goes in Friday. Plumbing, electric and HVAC should be finished somewhere in between.

Drama, drama, drama...

Oh boy, where to even begin?!

Well, if you ever are in need of some remodeling work, we would love to be able to recommend S&Y Remodeling. After all, our home looks beautiful and we could not be more pleased with the work completed. We'd love to recommend them... but we can't.... because they no longer exist. Whaaaaaaat?!

Let's just cut to the chase. We found out early on Thursday morning that "S&Y is ceasing all operations due to insufficient capital." When Lucky called me with this news I was sure he was playing some kind of practical joke, but no - there is no joking going on here. Basically, this means that all remaining work left on the house falls on us to complete and fund. Ouch. The bigger ouch is the subcontracted work that went unpaid though we were paid up with S&Y throughout this entire process. I'll say it again - we paid S&Y for subcontracted work, but S&Y never paid the subcontractors. Ouch. Ouch. (For the sake of being accurate in this dramatic tale, let me stress that SOME of the subcontracted work had been paid, but not all. But not even close to all. Okay... moving on.) Anyway, this post comes four days after the blow because it's taken that long for me to not want to puke talking about it.

Here is the silver lining: My husband is so, so amazing. I'm sorry for the schmoop, but it's true and he deserves the acknowledgement. While most people would go off in a freaked out rage about this kind of thing, he quickly put on his "contractor" hat and had totally taken over the organization of our project in a matter of hours. We are fortunate that some of the former S&Y employees are still willing to work with us, as are many of the subcontractors who still have work to finish in our house. We will work with them directly from this point on, organizing their work and payments ourselves. Much of the remaining handiwork will be completed by our now contractor/superintendent/foreman - Mr. Joe Nixon. Anyway, this could have been a complete disaster but in the end the house will be completed, and perhaps the extra elbow grease from us will just help us bond with our home even more. And, like in any bad situation, you learn and grow and hopefully come out a little better for having gone through it.

We would like to thank those S&Y employees who were just as shocked as we were to hear this news on Thursday. Many of these people have now lost their jobs and we are deeply sorry that happened to them. They were always enjoyable to be around and very professional, and we wish them nothing but the best as they move forward. To those still helping us, THANK YOU! And to all of our friends and family who have offered support, thank you too! We apologize in advance for likely being completely MIA for the entire month of July. We have a house to complete! But let me tell you... it will be one awesome party when we're done!

Attached are some pictures of Lucky's completed deck, along with a before pic of the old deck. I told you he is awesome!

Old deck


Tear-out

New deck

Side view of new deck

Interior Updates

We've seen lots of changes over the past few days. Doors are in, trim work is nearly complete, and my fancy bead board ceiling in the dining room has been installed. We are very happy with the progress and are having such a blast watching it all come together.

Exterior Updates

Lucky's fence on the north side of the backyard.


Backyard is looking much better! Still lots to do but SO much improvement already. (Again, thanks to Luck.)



New porch! The wood has to sit for awhile, but will eventually be stained.



Siding is underway. These are the shakes on the north side of the house.