Heat Exhaustion

Ok, not literally heat exhaustion...I'm being just a bit dramatic. But ever since we knocked down the wall and had to disconnect the A/C thermostat, we haven't been able to get it working again. We connected all the wires properly and just couldn't get it to turn on. That was almost 2 WEEKS ago. Now, our whole marriage we haven't had A/C, and one of my least favorite things to do is blowdry my hair and put on makeup while sweating...just not one of my favorite past times. I dreamed of the day of having central air...and now that I've had it and have been spoiled, it's misery to not have it...not only because I'm hot and lethargic every afternoon, and not only because I don't have to add salt to the dinners I'm cooking because the salt in my dripping sweat onto the food is enough (ok, again a bit dramatic), but also because Jake's naps only last a half hour until he comes out of his room as if he's just been in the bath...and his naptime is my prime time to work on house stuff. But I kept not calling a guy to come out because I kept thinking we could figure out where we went wrong in disconnecting it. I even said at one point..."I wonder if it's as simple as a switch got tripped on the furnace that we just have to reset." Sure enough...we had a guy come out tonight, he took off the cover and just had to flip a switch. I've been suffering for 2 weeks and just a switch needed to be flipped?! ! Crazy. Oh well...I am back to happy afternoons at home:)

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day! Jake sure loves his daddy. We are lucky to have him. Here they are on the rocketship ride at Disneyland.

House Update:

This week we started to build our wall back to how we want it. We framed in the old opening that was in the entry and it will have a rectangular recess in it for a picture...it should look really nice when it's done. And we got the pocket sliding doors and frame installed too. So now we will be drywalling again, texturing, and painting to get this wall put back together.

Here's with the doors closed...

Here's with them open...that's what our opening will look like.

The t.v. is up! And the next project has begun...

The t.v. is up!! We actually got it done on Thursday. Well, technically it was EARLY Friday morning:) We were up til 3 am. We finished drywalling, I textured the wall, painted it, and then Marc and Chris got to work on mounting that sucker up there.
And...drumroll please....here it is!It was really weird at first to see our t.v. up high like that. And, knowing how heavy it is...like 80 lbs...it was a little nerve racking to trust that it won't be crashing to the ground. We got a t.v. mount where we can pull the t.v. straight out. It is so crazy...it looks like it is floating in mid-air. I should take a picture of that at some point. But I think it would be really cool to watch a movie that way.

Well, you know me, I didn't waste any time starting right into the next project...Saturday we opened up our wall that separates the family room from the dining/kitchen area. Our friend Kenneth has renovated lots of houses and he really knows what he's doing...so we enlisted his help. Here's after the demolition. They had fun dropkicking the drywall and seeing how far they could make it fly.

Here's getting the 10 foot header up since it's a loadbearing wall. It was a tense few minutes while they were getting this up...that header isn't light...

And here's where we are at now. After they got the header up, they worked on getting the electrical running properly. Our plan is to close the opening on the left that was already there, and move the opening to the right (as you can clearly see:) haha. But we aren't leaving it that open. It will be a 4 1/2 foot opening with pocket sliding french doors. So that's why we had to open up the whole wall, because you have to put in a huge frame for the pocket doors to slide into. So, wish us luck on getting it all closed up again...

Can I request an extension?

All of you that bet against me finishing by Wednesday...were right. Dang it! Our renovation reality over here went slower than expected (of course). I thought we were on track last night until Marc told me he needed another day to do a second layer of mud on the drywall. So...maybe by tomorrow night?? Definitely by the end of the week.

But, in the meantime I have been working on Jake's dresser and finished that last night. So I do have a picture to show. He has a Cars themed room, and so I decided to refinish a white dresser that I made to look like a tool chest cabinet.

Pictures to come by Wednesday

We've been working on getting all the wiring we need for the t.v. behind the wall...and so as of now nothing looks different. But, we are planning on drywalling tomorrow. Then we just need to texture the wall, paint it, and mount the t.v. And then I'll take a new picture. I'm taking bets on who thinks I can have that all accomplished by Wednesday:) And, Jake's dresser should be done by then too so I'll take a picture of his room too.

The fireplace is done!

So this is the before...
and here's the After!

I am so happy with how it turned out. It made all the days, late nights, and weekends of working on it worth it...(I think..haha:) Let's hope the rest of my house projects don't take as much time and thought as this one did (although I'm sure they will). I spent several weeks bringing home samples of stacked stone because that was my original plan. Then one Friday night Marc and I went to Home Depot and bought everything we needed to do the stone fireplace. We were there for hours. We got home and were watching a movie, and I saw a picture online of a fireplace and changed my mind on the spot. You should have heard me telling that one to Marc:) Anyway, we got the tile and mouldings and everything we needed to do it like this. Who knew you could actually spend an ENTIRE Saturday and only accomplish putting up one piece of moulding??! Pathetic, but very true. Another holdup was that I actually had grouted the tile with a different color first and didn't like it, and then chipped it all out. So anyway, we had our share of setbacks on this, but it all turned out in the end.

So I'm thinking I might do more frequent updates on the house, since it's pretty much my obsession right now anyways. It'll make it more fun to chart my progress. So now our current projects are mounting the t.v. over the fireplace (we had to open up the wall)...and I'm painting. I painted Jake's room over the weekend and am working on setting up his Cars bedroom (more pics to come on that.)

More updates to come!