As time goes by... the FINAL post

Well in the fall of 2013 we had a sweet baby boy and I thought I would be able to catch up on the blog during the time at home... but then the 6 weeks I was home flew by, then I went back to work and time flew EVEN faster...and then ... Well you will see later in this post the next bit of an adventure we had.

Well enough with the excuses about being lazy :) and now on to finish this blog.

Here are the before and after pictures of each of the rooms in our beautiful home

Front Living Room (east side)

Front Living Room (west side)

Kitchen

Frog Room

Office

Downstairs Bathroom

Staircase

Upstairs Bathroom

Upstairs "Master" room

Upstairs "Baby" room

Backyard

Exterior House View

And after all of that work, we were working on the exterior of the house to re-paint and sadly that is the finished picture that will never be... During the paint removal a screw was heated slightly and caught some old paper in the attic and it caught like tinder (I suppose 100 year old paper is EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE).  That paper smoldered in the attic (from what the Fire Chief could tell) for about 24 hours and then when our attic fans kicked on the flames took over.    There were so many tender mercies from the Lord through this event...

Here's a recap of the events

My baby had just woken up from his nap, I went up to get him but had to go to the bathroom first (which was where I saw slight smoke under the lights)  I didn't think that my house was on fire, it seemed more like some smoke had blown in the windows we had open but I decided to grab my little boy (but left my phone, honestly thinking I would be going back in) and head out to ask my hubby about it... we never went back into the house.

When I was outside with my husband he said all was well, but then someone stopped their car and asked if we were ok, we were confused and hollered to tell them all was well... then suddenly other cars were stopping and we were told all was NOT fine... we ran out to the corner of the lot only to see giant pillars of smoke coming off the top of our house.

I called 911 and stood across the street clinging to my baby..Todd ran back in, grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran upstairs to put it out... once he realized it wasn't something he would be taking care of he ran back and forth trying to think of what to grab, he grabbed nothing.   He ran downstairs grabbed keys and moved our cars, strangers went into our house and grabbed out the entertainment center/TV, jogging stroller, basket of toys, and Todd grabbed our computer.  I stood still, clinging to Finn and not believing what I was seeing.

Firemen came within minutes and checked with me to make sure everyone was out, they asked if any valuables needed to be grabbed (I couldn't think of a thing, at that moment everything precious to me was in my arms and busily moving our cars).  I couldn't tell you any of the names of the firemen, or even describe them, but I can tell you I have never been more grateful for the amazing and selfless work that they do.  The firemen went inside and then when that became too dangerous they grabbed our animals (some snakes and frogs) and then started shooting water in from the top.  Since construction was done so different 100 years ago, it made it extremely difficult for them to put the fire out it kept catching in different areas in the attic and the layers and wood construction of the roof made it nearly impossible to get a good shot at the fire.   During the 3 1/2 hours the fire was burning, I was watching, helpless, and still in shock.  There were SO many strangers, friends and loved ones that came to be there for us; they brought blankets, clothes, snacks, money, hugs, and support.  That was the last night we lived in Logan, that night we drove down to Layton to stay with Todd's brother and his family.  After that it was weeks of back and forth to Logan, trying to get out what was salvageable, and working with the insurance adjuster.  We were then put in a rental in Farmington and life started feeling a little more normal, but we missed our house and our yard.  Since Todd had a job in North Salt Lake and we were planning to move down this way anyways we chose to replace rather than rebuild our house.  We found a house and we have now been here for about 6 months, we don't have a lot of stuff but we have what matters, my family and a safe place to live :)   I am so grateful that I kept this blog - or at least tried to :) so we at least have pictures of our first home, now if you drive by you might not even know there was a house on the corner but sometimes I like to imagine it's still there :)

What's happened since November

So I clearly have lost my "blogging" touch...that is if I ever had that.... We of course had the holidays and didn't accomplish a whole lot, or so I thought, but looking back on it we really have done quite a bit!

Upstairs shower

One of the biggest accomplishments was finishing the upstairs SHOWER!!! It is amazing!

Since it was so cold outside we set the tile saw up in the downstairs bathroom :) it worked out pretty well.

Banisters, trim and such

Probably the hardest part of this whole renovation has been all of the "finishing touches."  For some reason neither one of us care to do them... so it's really quite an accomplishment when we actually do :) We had some motivation to start working again at the end of January, when we found out we would be having a BABY join us this fall! The day we found out Todd went to the lumber store and picked up some banisters for our steep scary stairs! (I've only fallen down them once... but he wasn't about to risk it happening again and hurting our precious little baby).  He did a great job and I really like how they look, and of course there functionality :)  Todd also put up all of the old trim, we used that on the main level and have new trim upstairs (upstairs only has a few more pieces to go!!!)  but of course it all needs to be patched and painted... my job... :) one day it will be done!  I also refinished the old hutch (or whatever you would call it) that was built into the wall in the front room.  it looks pretty nice!

Sprinklers

One adventure we've had in the past few weeks (May 4 - May 20) is putting in a sprinkler system!  We had originally decided that we weren't going to install one... but then after hand watering for a couple weeks and our grass seed not really growing all that well... we decided to heck with it and started a sprinkler system.  Luckily my handy hubby knows what he's doing ..or at least he seems to :)  so he drew up a plan and then got started.  I realized after looking through pictures the real reason he wanted to install a sprinkler system was so he could rent some big boy toys ....

we started with a trencher...

and then a mini hoe...

And a lot of good old fashioned digging :)

and finally it was all done :) But I'm not sure how to take a picture of the sprinkler system so .. use your imaginations :)

Trying to catch up :)

well since I slacked on updating the blog forever I figured I had better get caught up... so here's ANOTHER post to get a little closer to catching up, actually I think I am caught up at this point..but I feel like I've missed something so we shall see :).

At the end of June I had a conference for work and while I was gone Todd re-did the front door! It looks amazing :)  He did forget to take a before shot but luckily I found this one from last Halloween that shows what it used to look like.   Then below you will see the new door, notice it has leaded glass in it from our old big front windows :)  I think it turned out pretty nice.

Old Door

And then a month or two ago...it's all a blur really :) we painted the door! We aren't sure what color we'll be painting the outside of the house so we just used the same green that we had left from the "frog room" so that it is more protected on the outside.  And we painted the inside of it white to match the trim :) I like it!

And then a couple weekends ago Todd started building a SHED :) and I had some painting projects :)

Isn't he just handy! :) the overhang is where he is going to build
an area for our fire wood! ;)

And then I wasn't much help with the shed since he had his dad and my dad

and a friend help with it :) So I worked on a couple of projects of my own. 

I re-finished an old dresser I got from my friend Leslee :)

And I "antiqued" a surround for the fish tank stand that Todds dad had made :) 

And Todd and his dad finished our BEA-Utiful entertainment center! it looks soo good:)

they also used some leaded glass for the doors on this! We will be able to take a 

little piece of the house with us when we move :)

Finally...another POST! :)

Well it's been awhile...much longer than I thought...since I last posted.  We have been working slowly but surely on the house and in my opinion it's starting to look REALLY good!  There is still a lot of work to go but considering we've only been here just a little over a year...we are making some great progress :)

This summer, we have worked a bunch on the yard! There were lots of pavers, rocks, and random "landscaping" things that made for a very weird backyard. So we removed all of the rocks, all of the pavers, and all of the other random things (for instance a tire planter box...)  We also removed about 14 trees that were dead, or too intertwined with the other trees, it really opened up the yard, but we still have LOTS of shade which is nice :)   One of the trees we removed was FULL of carpenter ants...it was awful...but we took care of all of that and then had 14 yards of dirt dumped in our backyard so we could attempt to level it out a bit.

Cutting down trees

Pile-O Dirt.....

Rock (this wasn't even all of it...)

See... more rocks

Pavers

We kept these pavers, and used some of the
others to clean it up and make it look nice:)
see picture below as well :)

We tried to use as many of the rocks and pavers as possible so we didn't have to haul as many to the dump.  So we got rid of the wood boxes around the planter type areas and Todd landscaped them with rock around instead.  I think he did a great job!

We moved all of the rose bushes that were randomly around the backyard and
planted them in the planter area next to the drive way! ...Some survived :) haha

This area had some rocks already, but Todd cleaned it up and made a larger
planter area, and cleared the access to under the house.

More planter box areas we replaced the wood with rock.

We also planted some TREES! :)

We ripped out the sidewalk that went in-between these bushes
since it will never be used... 

We trimmed the bushes :)

Took a lot of loads to the dump...

And enjoyed every minute of it :) ....maybe not every...