I Was Lost and Now I'm Found...

Hello?? Hello?? (tap, tap,tap) Is this thing on???

Hmmm....where were we?? Oh, right...new kitchen and bath. Just for the record, here's what is going on 13 weeks later........................

the living room

the dining room

looking at the front door

the front foyer

the family room

the game room (note the buried pool table)

even the indian can't find his way out of this

Seriously...this is still going on. A few changes along the way and an unfortunate series of mishaps have pretty much put our entire lives on hold. See...when we started all of this we were going to renovate the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. Then move to the 2 bathrooms upstairs. Well...the kitchen and downstairs bath turned out so beautiful that the rest of the downstairs looked like part of another house! So, instead of doing the other bathrooms (which are fine, just ugly) we decided to finish the downstairs. That included new doors everywhere, new carpet, new paint and oak floors in the foyer and family room. Let's go over some of the events that led to the pictures you have just seen...

Of course, who could forget our girl Fay...Tropical Storm Fay?? We were very lucky...our only outside damage was some screen panels blown out on the porch.



But...the new doors were installed a couple of days before the storm and they weren't caulked in. The rain came in and the humidity inside the house was about 76 %, so the drywall is now peeling in the freshly painted living room.

The super duper 2 drawer dishwasher wasn't installed properly so during a "come and see our new kitchen" bar-b-que everything being put in the garbage disposal or mixed with the water running into the sink drain was backing up in the shower. The plumber came out the next morning and fixed everything! Except now the dishwasher won't drain...into the shower or anywhere else. Waiting on that...

The shower door in the new bathroom was clicking...clicking so loudly that we were afraid to open the door in case the glass shattered. And, when you ran the water in the sink, it emptied into the cabinet below....something about "not enough epoxy".

The wood for the floors was delivered and the installers came and started to pull out carpet and spread glue. I went upstairs into my own little world and didn't go back down to check on anything. The Hub came home early from work so that I could go to work (oh, yeah...also started a new part time job) and all I heard was, "That's not the right wood". You got it...the wrong wood was delivered and using a crowbar they had to rip up all that had been installed. They walked off the job and left wood everywhere and we don't have any idea how long we will have to wait for the stuff we ordered to get here or when it will be installed. That helps to explain all of the furniture that is spread out all over. And the coats and towels are from the guest closet that we had to empty so they could put wood on that floor, too.

And that leads us to the fact that the kitchen is not yet put together because all of the family room furniture is now in the room where the kitchen stuff is and we can't get to any of it.

Heard enough?? Nah...let's keep going....

Thinking that all of this would be finished, I opted to take on a part time job for two reasons, really. One, Real Estate sucks and gas prices don't make me want to drive around and show property to lookers. And, two...after being trapped in this house for over 12 weeks, I am just a little cuckoo. So, when I got a postcard in the mail from Coldwater Creek announcing the opening of a new outlet and clearance center just about 15 minutes from our house and asking for interested parties to join their sales team, I jumped at it! Of course, the 40% off outlet & clearance prices sealed the deal for me. I am now an official "Creeker" (no comments from the peanut gallery about age) and so far it's been fun to meet and work with some very cool ladies.

These are just the highlights...there's been so much happenig in the last few weeks and I was just absolutely swallowed up by it all. I felt like there was nothing and too much to share all at the same time. I haven't read blogs or visited anyone and I know that sounds selfish in some ways, but we all have different ways of coping when life starts spinning and you just can't step off. On a good note, my Mom is doing well and so is the rest of my family, so in the big picture, messed up paint and renovation delays don't mean a whole heck of a lot...but, Holy Crap, it's driving me crazy!!

I have gotten messages...both comments here and personal ones from my extended blog family and I find it so incredible the ways lives intertwine and just how small our world is. To my friends, I can't thank you enough and it's good to be back! :)

Love ya....