Here is the “new” location of the porch you see in the center of our house:

Here is the house as it looked at 9:30 this morning, once the porch had moved to its temporary, new location:

There will be a section in the center that will mimic the original porch:

Our master bathroom is finished!!!  Check out the final product.


The new sink:

Over the Jacuzzi

The shower

And, on the other end of the house, my Jeep now fits in the garage!!  Hooray!

Todd has made major progress on the shower.  We need to get to work on picking out doors…

There is even a cool little seat in the middle there:

Todd also got a new leaf blower a few weeks ago.  It’s the kind that he wears on his back and is much more powerful than the old one.  It has definitely been worth the investment!!

I have planted a few little plants in a patch of the Druid Ruins in our backyard.  I had help, as you would imagine…

I am not sure whether you can see the soil smeared all over his mouth.  He had fun with the scoop and the dirt/mud while I tried to clear the bed of weeds.

Here’s our final result – one jalapeño pepper, one banana pepper, one Roma tomato, one oregano, and one lemon thyme.  Now let’s see whether I remember to water them every day…

I know it’s been a while since my last post.  Things have been a little hectic around here.  Mom arrived to visit us last Sunday and we’ve been having a great time, so far.


Last Wednesday, however, we had a mishap.  Our downstairs toilet took on a life of its own and flooded our bathroom and the entryway to the house.  At about 5:00, I heard the toilet making a few small noises (no one was in the room with it).  I figured I would ask Todd about it when he got home in a couple of hours.  Surprise!  The toilet decided not to wait for Todd’s arrival.  A few minutes after the initial warning sound, I suddenly heard water gushing onto the floor.  I tried to shut off the water valve in the bathroom, but the water kept coming.  I ran outside and turned off the water main coming into the house.  Mom and I did our best to clean up the water and I made a frantic call to Todd to get home *now*.  We used, literally, every single towel in the house to mop up the water.  We are not completely sure that our floors are going to survive, but the toilet has been removed and reinstalled, so we’re optimistic.  We borrowed a dehumidifier from a friend and had it set up for a few days.  It’s hard to say how much water may have gotten past the waterproof barriers, however, since the water was all the way against the wall (where the barrier ends, obviously).  Anyway, I opted to try to save the floors rather than taking photos, so you are spared the visions of our near swimming pool…  Cross your fingers that this will be the last you hear of this particular incident.  I really hope the floors don’t have to come out!!

Todd is still working on tiling the shower, but will be taking a break after today.  His parents arrive this tomorrow and will be here through next weekend, so he expects to take some time off to enjoy their company instead of working.  Yay!  Here’s where he stopped today:

I got to take a bath in my Jacuzzi last night.  In a word:  awesome!!!  I had a book and a glass of wine.  I got to watch the sky darken through the sky lights.  I may never take another shower again because the bath tub is entirely too wonderful.  :o)

The bathtub is finished!  All it needs is a good cleaning and I can use it.

Todd also started tiling the shower.  He is about to change the tile pattern from here on up, so this was his stopping point yesterday.  As you can see, we are each going to have 2 shelves (there are separate shower heads) and there will be a small seat in the middle of the back wall.  We are still debating what to do for the shower doors.


On the right, you can see the red towels on one of my Christmas gifts – a towel warmer!  Last year’s gift was a heating system to go under the floor tiles.  Are you noticing a theme?

There will be at least one other bathroom update within the next 48 hours (I think).  Todd’s currently working on tiling the walls in the shower!  The bathroom counter and sinks were installed on Saturday and they look *amazing*!  It worked out really well for us.  We hired these guys to install our kitchen counters several months ago and were thrilled with the way they turned out.  We were going to use the remainder of the slab from the kitchen counters to install in our bathroom.  Since the kitchen install, the company has moved.  I am not sure whether the piece just didn’t get moved or it broke, but one way or another, they didn’t have the remainder of our slab (which we’d paid for).  The gentleman, Demitri, who helped us before told us to come pick from one of their other remnants and they’d just give it to us.  This was even better than expected!  The counters downstairs are very light and are exactly what we wanted for the kitchen, but we wanted something a little different for the bathroom.  Voila!  Ask and ye shall receive…  To give you a perspective, I’m standing with my back to the shower, the entry to the room is on my left (beside the tub) in this photo.

 Todd got the water running!

 We have drawers under the sinks, as well.  I love it!

Todd’s been working hard on the master bathroom for the last few days.  He’s gotten quite a bit done!  The tile floor is down, grouted, and sealed.  He has cut the holes in the ceiling for the surround-sound speakers.  The vanity is in the room, though not yet attached to the wall.  The counter guy has come and measured, so we’ll have a counter this week or next.  There is a door hung in the door frame to enter the room.  Today, Todd tiled the front of the bath tub and cut the tile for most of the “deck” surrounding the tub.  I think it looks amazing so far!  (Parents:  we are keeping the door closed so that Isaac is *NEVER* in the room unless someone is carrying him).

Several people have asked me what Todd and I are going to do when the house is finished.  I generally just want to laugh at this question.  Todd’s working on the master bath now – including finishing the tile work on the tub and the shower and installing a toilet.  Then he’ll need to put up doors for the master closet and hall closet.  Once that’s complete, we need to finish the laundry room because it is about 5 degrees warmer in there than outside.  There’s still some minor finish work to be done on the stairwell, plus the trim in the nursery and master bedrooms and under the stairs, in addition to installing shelves and a hanging rod in the downstairs closet.  He’s going to set up the whole-house audio at some point since all of the wiring is run and he’s gotten most of the equipment.  I believe we would also like to park our vehicles in the garage someday, too, so we’ll need to sift through whatever is in there after the indoor projects are complete to determine how best to organize it.


My sister is working on designing a new front porch for us.  It’s going to be 2 levels and we’ll be able to walk out from the office and the master bedroom.  We’re hiring someone to do that.  We’re going to have the windows and the siding replaced at the same time.  Hopefully that can be done outside while other projects are still in progress inside.


Assuming all of these things are completed someday, we’re going to begin work on an outdoor kitchen/entertaining area.  We’d like to have a smoker and a fire pit.  Autumn is so nice here in the evenings that we expect to get a lot of use out of such a space.


Whenever that is done, Todd would really love to purchase a small plot of land from the park next door.  He wants to build a nice large garage where he can also have a workshop.  We’re also thinking that someday we might like to build on over our existing garage.


As you can see, we still have several years’ worth of projects in front of us.  This is why I find it so amusing when I’m asked what we’ll do when we finish.  I don’t doubt that this house will continue to keep us busy for many years to come!