Appliances, appliances, appliances, appliances!

Never in my whole life have I been more excited to be at Best Buy than I was Friday night!!! I'm afraid I may have fooled my husband into thinking that I really like that place, when the only thing I really like is the appliances we got for our house from that place! Ohh I just cannot contain the excitement... In fact, I think I sang Happy Birthday to myself because I was so excited about the appliances! Don't ask... if you are a blogstalker, you are just now realizing the blogger on this sight is a little crazy, but if you know me, you know that is quite normal, for me at least! I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE anything that has anything to do with anything kitchen-y! In fact, I am the one who actually uses all the kitchen appliances I got as a wedding gift. There isn't a single kitchen item I own that has not been used. Well, the kitchen items we bought are going to be used, A LOT! Especially the stove... I told Caleb that I think I need to step up my cooking ability in order to fit in with my new cool range. Of course, I have pictures for you to enjoy!

My beautiful range! I am soo pumped to have a gas range!!!

The refridgerator.... SO coool! Haha.. only the nerds got that one!

The inside of the fridge while it is still clean and empty. Don't expect the one in my house to look anything like this!

The dishwasher, the only kitchen gadget Caleb knows how to work. Yay.. if there is anyone for him to learn, this is it.

The micro-hood microwave. Nothing exciting about a microwave. No exclamations. I'm just glad we have one.

Soo, here's the scoop on the appliances. Last weekend we decided to hop on over to Best Buy to measure refrigerators since we had the cabinet-maker over and wanted to verify the measurements we had just given him. Well, when we were there we realized that they had ALL of their appliances on sale so we started to price them out. We found that Frigidaire had the cheapest prices, so we priced them out and went home to revisit the budget before making a move. So, after a week of checking out other retailers, we went back to Best Buy to finalize the purchases. When we got there, we went straight to the first available clerk and told him we had it all figured out and we needed to buy all of the appliances for our house. He proceeded to ask us if we had heard of the deal they had going on... WHAT??!?!? Deal?? Shut up, there is a sale that Katie didn't know about. I know. Shocking. So, he explained to us that they had a deal going on with Whirlpool for all stainless steel appliances for less than the Frigidaire. Shut up again! Never does that happen to us. So he takes us around and shows us all but the range (they didn't have it in stock) and we love them all. Plus, we found a better, nicer range for just a tad bit more. So, then began the negotiating. The nicer range was not a part of the deal, but we fenagled them into giving the deal to us and just adding the extra price of the nicer range. We, especially me, are very very very excited about our purchases.

Still haven't done that Valentines post... sorry all you who are itching to find out how much better my husband is than yours. You'll just have to wait until next time... Happy almost new work week, yuck.

Plumb tuckered out!

That title speaks volumes! We are just that... But good news is in order! We finally got the building permit on Tuesday and as of tomorrow, we will be completely roughed in on our plumbing, hopefully with a green tag from the inspectors. Green=good=the go-ahead to continue work. We love green tags! They will be our BFF's for the next 2 months as we travel down this remodeling road. I have some fun pictures of what's going on at the house! I hope you enjoy! Coming on the next post... My Wild and Crazy Valentine's Adventure!

Elyza came over on Saturday and helped us demolish the kitchen! She started out simple, tearing off wall paper and proceeded to help us tear out boards and sheetrock. Don't worry Emily and Matt... she wore her warming gloves and was under the surveillance of Uncle Caleb. How reassuring! =)

More of the kitchen demolition crew, Geary and Caleb! Geary was a life-saver to have! I don't think I could have helped out with a quarter of what he did. I would say between Caleb and Geary, they nearly single-handedly knocked out all the cabinets in a little over an hour.

It's never been so wonderful to be the garbage lady, huh Nita?? She was our gopher, taking the cabinet pieces to the dumpster for us! We were so glad they all came to help!

And then there's me, the photographer who has to ask other people to take her picture so that she doesn't just look like the one who bosses people around and takes fun pictures! I was a hard worker with my pink gloves that day!

TADA! An empty kitchen!

Another view of the blank slate! And to top it all off, the cabinet guy came by to verify measurements and is about to begin production of the cabinets, yippee!!!

One more picture of the empty room with my stud of a husband! He worked so hard!

Our new windows, minus the cross bars on the top! Soo exciting!

Hall bathroom, bare to the studs. And with all the pink tile gone, I think this is the first time I noticed the pepto-pink blinds. I think I just threw up a little...

The view from the master bath of both bathrooms, now totally demolished! No more ugly pink and teal tile... well almost! I saw a little piece of tile that was not removed, nor will it be anytime soon. I need like a nail file to get that sucker outta the bathroom. It is surrounded by door framing and builtins. Maybe we will just keep that piece in remembrance of the house's former ways!

And that's all for now folks! Look for a post on Valentines Day, and some fun stuff we're buying for the house!

Another hurdle...

You know... as I think of this project and how it is refining me, I think also of how Christ refines us as believers, through the "bumps" in the road that cause us to lean more on Him, trust more in Him and lay this project continually down at His feet. It truly is His, He graciously entrusted us with this new home and new ministry of our neighbors and it's just funny how frequently He reminds Caleb and me of that! God works in marvelous ways, ways that are so blazingly obvious sometimes that are like flashing lights for His direction and sometimes in smaller ways that cause us to appreciate how He desires to be involved in even the most tiny yet precious ways in our lives! Praise God, regardless, that He has chosen us as His children and that He is allowing us in this season to experience Him in a very real way!

On a different note, here's the latest hurdle..ahem..blessing regarding our house (call it what you'd like....). On Monday our plumber began the completion of demolition. It was kinda funny because when I talked to them prior to the project, they seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing, like it was no big deal. Well, Caleb and I knew otherwise having spent two weekends of dust boogies, and sore bodies but we thought, "Maybe since they are laborers by trade, it won't be the pain it was for us to complete." Haha... Well, I spoke to the plumber on Monday after they had demo'ed the rest of the bathrooms and the tired was obvious, even in his voice. He told me they were exhausted and that it was really hard work. That takes one of two things for him to admit that: he felt quite the pain and suffering through the project and he's an honest guy, or he's a pansie. Well, I choose to believe the first because I met the guy and his crew and they weren't small weaklings. It made me feel proud that I actually did some of the work that these big burly men found so complicated! Those pink gloves did me good! And that's about where the good, pink and lovely things end... On Tuesday morning the plumber met with the City of Richardson to pull the necessary permits to do the work and that's when lowered the boom on us. The inspector told our plumber that he could not begin work, nor could anyone else because we were going to have to pull a general building permit that would take 3-5 business days to process. Basically, the inspector decided that they wanted to be all up in our business for our project. So, we got on the phone with the city and found out it wasn't going to be AS BAD as we thought when we considered having to do this from the get go, but it is still going to be a thorn in my side.

Kinda fun though, that I get to add General Contractor to my resume as I am the acting person in charge! And everyone who reads this who knows me knows just how happy I am when I get to be in charge!! WOOHOO!! Katie, The Boss. Perfect. Well, so far, as the boss, I am very nice and thoughtful, having bought my crews cookies. I will continue to buy their love and low prices with all things edible as long as their prices stay low and their work stays quality. The mean side of Boss Lady Katie will hopefully stay far away on this project. It's not hard: keep me happy, I'll keep you fed and paid. Simple.

Soo... back to the topic of the general building permit. I applied for that today and hopefully it will be processed SOON so we can get back in business. Pray that they don't have any questions so that we can at least get the ball rolling and get the plumbing done! That's about it for now. Within the next month an a half, we should have these things done: plumbing, kitchen cabinets, walls moved, new windows, gutters on the house and maybe a few others. Very exciting times!!! Pictures coming soon of the completely gutted bathrooms. If you want to tear out some kitchen cabinets, maybe you didn't have a date for valentines, maybe you're in the doghouse for not doing anything for your honey for valentines, or maybe you want to be our valentine by helping us... let us know! We will be doing this on Saturday! Happy early secular holiday, money-scheming, excuse for a date, don't forget to make-up fun conversations with the candy hearts Valentines Day!!

Finally some action...

Soo... I just wanted to apologize to my 2 faithful blogword readers for being so lax, but there just hasn't been much action on the homefront. Well, I am happy to say that tomorrow, all will change! We have found and hired a plumbing company that we LOVE and feel is a total answer to prayer. They start finishing the demolition tomorrow and plan to have the rough-in (all the under house plumbing) done this week at the very least, possibly even the top-out (pipes in the wall)!!!! Say a prayer that the inspector that comes out will not require us to gain additional permits for the house because that would mean more $$$. The plumber and inspector are meeting tomorrow at 8 a.m. to go over everything and then work will begin promptly thereafter. I will give you an update soon! Also exciting, we are about to book a cruise for the month of August with wonderful friends of ours, Shane and Laura Seiferd, to the caribbean!!! We figure once all the work is done, we are going to need a vacation! Once it's booked, I'll give you more details on that! Sorry the update is short, but I will post more info. on the house once we're over the hump of meeting with the inspector! I'll leave you with a fun pic of Caleb and me almost 2 1/2 years ago, on our wedding day! I love my honey and couldn't have hand picked a better one myself!