Well…the remodel is DONE!! Yes I said it DONE!!! 6 moths later it is finished! It did not get to the end product without any hiccups or tears but we got there and in the end it was all worth it. I guess when people say you never know what you are getting yourself into when you start a remodel they are completely 100% right on!

 

List of unforeseen adventures during the remodel:

1.       No real foundation

2.       No cement Floors

3.       Old Rusty pipes

4.       New Windows

5.       New Doors

6.       Ceiling Height

7.       Dishwasher Explosion

8.       Water Pipe Breaking and flooding bedroom

9.       Minor Kitchen Update

 

I know there is more but I think those are the larger ticket items and made us cringe but were all worth it!

 

One of my favorite adventures was when the dishwasher exploded right as we were starting to put up the dry wall. It fortunately missed the dry wall by a few feet and went directly onto the cement floors in the basement which was a miracle. However, this little incident led to us updating the appliances and counters in the kitchen which added another small price tag onto this project that we did not include in the beginning. It was painful but I did get an updated kitchen out of it J.

 

Look for the final photos later this weekend!

We are getting painfully close to finishing the basement! I can see the light it is there…I think. We have floors and walls and lights which is amazing! We have also started the tiling and the painting. Next will be the woodwork, fixtures, and final touches. So hopefully it is within reach. We did however decide to update the kitchen a tad since we had our dishwasher explode on us the other day. I guess when it rains it does pour J

 

 

The house remodel is coming along I am hoping they are pouring the floor today (fingers crossed). But I did want to tell you about a sad story....ok...two sad stories. The first one was that our pipes are 100 years old and have started breaking during the remodel. So every time one gets moved or hit it snaps. So you can imagine last week we spent many hours fanning our bedroom floor because of a major leak that flooded all the way through the top floor the kitchen and then to the basement. So we had all these contraptions that were helping us dry out. Luckily it is ok and we dried out the floors..however new pipes are in our future.

 

So comes the second sad story...We had used some wood to prop open stuff to let air under the carpet and such and now that we were done with them I took the wood to the mail floor fireplace to heat up the house a bit. I opened the door and a small gray fur ball came pillowing out. I thought geez has it really been that long since I opened this door?? Hmm...I peered in only to my surprise to see a poor little squirrel laying lifeless in the fireplace. I SCREAMED and slammed the door shut. The little bugger must have fallen from the top of the chimney and I am thinking died cause it was so cold in our house. Not sure how we missed this chain of events and am just hoping tht he was not their during my buddy's babyshower I had the other day. So besides no heat, flooding, walls cracking, no washing machines, and the dead squirrels things are going great!

Now that the house is stabilized they are starting to dig out the floor so we can add a good 6 inches to the height. They also removed the stairs and took out the washer and dryer. So if you see us at the laundry mat this weekend you know why!

So we are roughly a month into the remodel and the basement looks as if we have found some long lost treasures under our house and they are performing an archeological dig. There are holes everywhere and tons and tons of dirt. Apparently we needed to dig a few inches down so we could get some more ceiling height...which will be nice to have especially since Todd and I are both pretty tall. The other fun thing about remodeling the guts of your house is the period of time when you are changing out the heating! So we are without heat, which probably wouldn't be that bad if we had normal windows but really we might as well be sleeping on the sidewalk. They have made a ton of progress though. All the new support beams are in and it looks like they are getting ready to pour some floor (there has to be a few hundred cement bags). We are almost half way home (hopefully!!!).  

We have started the remodel in the basment and let me tell you...it is a bit scary that this morning I left with a full basement in tact and when we returned there were no walls left. I guess I didn't expect it all to happen so quickly. We missed the opportunity to take the before pictures so we have the post demo-pre clean up phase. I will try and keep posting photos as we make progress. We are so excited to get these updates made! Just more room for visitors! Here's to the next few months of dust and madness!

 

After the wedding in Whistler Todd and I flew off to Hong Kong to visit with my family and to celebrate the wedding with them. My parents and sister and her boyfriend as well as Todd's family came along for the festivities. Why not start the honeymoon off with a few family members??

Hong Kong was filled with great dinners a shopping field trip up to Shen Zen and a traditional Chinese wedding banquet. We were there for five days and loved every minute of it!

After Hong Kong we headed over to Thailand for six days to relax in Phuket. It was a beautiful trip and very relaxing. We stayed at an amazing resort called the Banyan Tree. It is by far the nicest place I have ever stayed. We took a speed boat tour of the surrounding islands, went snorkeling, visited Monkey Beach and we took a ride on an elephant.

A few interesting things about Phuket is that they all drive mopeds all over the very curvy and steep roads (very frightening) with their children of any age in tow (no helmets)...the driving there was insane. No rules and not to mention you have hundreds of these little mopeds swerving in and out. The other amazing thing about Phuket was that there was not too much visible damaged left from the Tsunami. We talked to a few of the locals about their experience and it was just crazy what everyone went through there. So many people completely lost their homes and family. They all told us where they were when it happened and would stress how lucky they were not to be on lower ground. It was so interesting to hear about this huge tragedy and then see how this community has come back from it and rebuilt so fast.

It was a great trip...I wish that it wasn't over so quickly!

So, I know a lot of you are going to give me a hard time about "All I Write About is My Wedding." SOOO...I decided to not let you down and I am going to keep on keepin on writing about it until it is over then I am deleting this space and starting a new one with my new name (EEK!!).

 

OK, so tonight is the big Bachelorette party A.K.A. a Hen Party. Since I have ventured to a few of these in my past and they all have ended up with absolute absurdities we are taking the more casual route and going to a cooking school and cooking dinner! I am very excited to get the girls together and chat and just hang out a week before the big day!

 

I am sure I will have some interesting stories tomorrow and all please cross your fingers that I do not burn myself or this place down!

 

 

Probably those that know me would say “of course you did” after they read this story….

So as you know my wedding is just a few weeks away. Things are going great…no big hiccups this far. Until last weekend while we were vacationing/attending a wedding in Montana I had a slight mishap.

I was getting ready on Saturday morning to go out on the town and do some shopping/walking around and I was blow drying my mane of hair. I have a TON of dark brown hair that I can never seem to tame, when all of a sudden I smelt a slight burning smell. It is pretty normal for me to smell a small amount of burning when I am doing my hair so I didn’t think much of it until I looked at my brush and there was a huge amount of hair in the brush…I looked at my hair and without a doubt I had sizzled about an inch thick of hair right off the right side of my head!

There in the sink laid frizzled pieces of hair and in the brush were the remains of what was sizzled off. So of course I panicked a little and thought about if this would effect my wedding hair style…then I thought maybe this was a blessing in disguise and maybe this was a good way for me to thin my hair a bit. So, I went out to the front of the house with hair chunk in tow and showed the family all of my hair and the sizzled hair ends that remained on my head.  No one was too amused but was trying to figure out how I did without noticing sooner? I am still wondering the same thing J

I asked for some scissors and headed to the mirror to try and fix this minor catastrophe and was soon told that if I could do that with a hair dryer I should let someone else handle the scissors so for fifteen minutes my soon to be mother-in-law cut the ends of my hair while I sat in the chair. In a way I felt like I did when I was five and I had gotten the sticky pink bubble gum stuck in my hair and my mom had to pick it out with butter, peanut butter and ice. Luckily the damage is not noticeable but a great story for the kids one day.

One of the wedding projects that I decided would be a good idea to tackle two weeks before the wedding is to have framed photos of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. etc. on the guestbook table.

I thought it would be a nice touch to honor the people that brought us into this world and those that shaped our family history. I also thought it was amazing that between the two of us there are no marriage separations out of all of them.  It is also amusing to look at our lineage and try to pick out where we got certain features from.

Now it is just trying to get the photos copied and framed…this morning I was tearing apart a wall hanging and ripping apart the photo mat that was in there…I guess there is nothing a bride wouldn’t do.  J

There are only 19 days left and I have just sent the programs to the printer. We are finalizing the ceremony specifics. Luckily we have been to a few weddings this summer so we know how long and what we want the ceremony to consist of.  I bet if you ask him he would say the shorter the better…basically….”yes”...”yes”…”I do”…”I do”. But I am not thinking that would fly to well with the parentsJ

I am hoping to get a large chunk of the final preparations done this week. We still have the menus, seating arrangements, music selection and final menu to approve. I am trying to cross off two to three things everyday so my goal is by Friday of next week I am completely done!

These next few weeks are going to be insane! Wish me lots of luck!

We have come up on the one month mark before the wedding and I am getting nervous about the details...my manager would laugh that I am a planner by nature but still have a long check list of things to do...let me know if anyone has any advice or tips!