Walls, windows and a workaholic!

Here's a big update, one the few of you who keep bothering me have been waiting for! Sorry... I am just so busy these days I can barely keep up with myself! Between work, CARES, the house and my family (husband and 2 dogs at the moment), I have to remember to breathe sometimes. I am really enjoying every bit of the remodel, but will be very glad when this labor of love is complete! This week is my spring break, and since there is no relaxing with this much work to be done, I have been over at my house working my tail off. I have to say, though, that I am very proud of all I have accomplished! I do have to share a quick warm fuzzy story! On Thursday, we had A LOT going on at the house. We had 2 inspections that we had to pass, so I had my framing crew on my job shimming up some spaces in the wood, spraying foam in the holes the electricians and plumbers left, framing out a new window space and installing insulation in all of the open exterior walls. I also had all of the windows being installed throughout the house. On top of that, I had a mason on the job patching up the spot where the new window would be. And as icing on the cake, I was there removing ceiling tiles (156 to be exact), ceiling nails (somewhere around 700 of those) and peeling up what we think may asbestos tile from the old sun room so we can refinish the hardwoods that are under there. Sound busy? It was! Well, around 11:00 a.m. I realized that I really needed all of my workers to keep working through lunch to get everything done that needed to be done prior to the inspection, so I decided to go buy them lunch! Well, you would have thought they won the lottery or just accepted Jesus because there was some serious hollering, excitement and thankfulness in my house! It was such a blessing to bless them with lunch and just reminded me that we can touch peoples lives in even the smallest ways, and even when I think I am doing something to motivate people to work, God can use it in a much bigger way! He just reminded me of how blessed I am and how even the little things can be used to spread the love of Christ by being self-sacrificial with my money and servant-hearted with my gifts!

This is the master bedroom carpet that I rolled up all by myself! I didn't think it was such a big deal, even though it was pretty tough and took a bit of time.. but when I told my father-in-law, Geary, who is a contractor, that I did it all by myself, he was quite impressed! He said that is normally a 2 or 3 person job.

Our windows, woohoo!

The "hopefully not asbestos" and linoleum flooring I am peeling away to reveal the beautiful hardwoods.

New window in the front bedroom. If you come visit us, you could open those windows as you will stay in this bedroom! So fun!

The truck with the windows, and me on the sidelines praying that none of them were broken.. my prayers were answered!

The old front window is gone and the frame is just waiting for the new one.. Aren't they shiny and new!

The master bath with insulation.

The hall bath with the new, much smaller and much more private window plus insulation.

The ceiling, sans tiles. That was some tedious work. See that faint blue chalk line on the ceiling?? That chalk line centered the room for the original owner to install the ceiling tile probably about 50 years ago... Crazy!

Hope you enjoyed the picture walk through our journey in the last few days!

Electricity that won't kill us!

Soo.. whenever we began the whole process with this house, one of the fun and interesting things we found out is that all of the electricity in the house was wired basically illegally! Fun huh? What previous owner, graciously dubbed "Handy Homeowner" by Caleb and me for all of the ways he ghetto-rigged the house, did was take all of the non-grounded wired in the house and put grounded plugs on them. Now some of you may be confused, so let me explain. When wired are not grounded, by putting a grounded 3- prong plug on them does NOT make them grounded. They just look all pretty and grounded. Really, though, it is extremely unsafe and can ruin all of your electronic equipment, kitchen gadgets, etc. And you all know that between me, the kitchen guru, and my husband, who thinks its a sin to not own the latest piece of electronics, we would be out a TON of money if something happened to all our stuff. But even more important than that, we just really wanted to do the safe and legal thing for our home. With that, we now have legitimately grounded wires and plugs in our home, in addition to some fun new can lights for our living, kitchen and porch areas. Enjoy the pics!

Living room can lights

Kitchen can lights

Porch can light

Sorry if these pics weren't as exciting... more to come soon!

Health Alert.... This makes my drinking habits very sad =(

So, you are going to think I am crazy for saying I am broken-hearted over this YouTube video, but anyone who knows me knows that I ALWAYS order water with lemon at a restaurant. AND.. If they bring me water with no lemon, I always ask them to bring me a bowl of lemons. Why?? I don't know, but I do know that lemon always makes my water taste better. Well, from here on out, I am going to be a lemon-free girl in public, and I venture to guess you will be too after watching this video. YUCK!

Funny, funny... Just HAD to post!

Valentine's Day.. Only Slightly Past Due!

I have to brag BIG TIME on my husband for making this Valentine's Day an extraordinary one! Caleb and his friend, Trog, got together and planned an unusually special evening for Trog's wife, Mendi, and I. It all started when they told us to meet at the Trogdon apartment at 5:15pm. Through the lies of both of our husbands, we thought the boys would be joining us there but were soon instructed over the phone to open Trog's dresser drawer. There we found a green envelope that contained a puzzle with OUR FIRST CLUE! We were about to partake in a scavenger hunt, yippee!! Our first destination was Starbucks where the cashier granted us gift cards and another green envelope. After solving a word puzzle, we were led to Barnes and Noble at Stonebriar Mall to receive a book and another clue which sent us off to Victoria's Secret.. or at least someone's secret, so we thought! Little did we know it was the V.S. at a different mall! We learned this important little tidbit of information only after walking back to the car to get the camera, then around the wrong mall for more than 30 minutes, asking every store that seemed like a "secret" (about 10 total stores) if they had a green envelope. Needless to say, we got lots of "what are you talking about?" looks! We faced the reality that not only were we at the wrong place, but we also were not donning the proper shoes for the occasion and had the bloody heels to prove it! After finding the right mall and the right V.S., we obtained our next clue and another little gift.... Sorry folks, Victoria said this gift was a "secret"! We then found ourselves at Bath & Body Works for some bath essentials (and band-aids for our heels!) and a clue leading us to Whole Foods. No gift this time, just our next clue hidden under a jar of Oregano! After solving a Sudoku puzzle and talking to my mom on the phone for directions (she asked if we were cheating... we didn't care at that point because we were starving and our feet were killing us!), we were led to a flower shop on Beltline where we were each given a beautiful red rose and another green envelope. It was now off to the Marriott Hotel in which we had a hunch that our hunt was coming to an end and that we were about to spend a romantic night away from home. To our dismay, the front desk hostess handed us an envelope not holding two room keys but a piece of paper saying "text NOT STAYING HERE to get your next clue"! Our last clue landed us at our apartment for our final surprise......a candlelight dinner! Little did we know that as we were scavaging the entire North Dallas Metroplex, Caleb and Trog had been grocery shopping and cooking (actually learning to cook) a meal for us! The table and mood were set and we were served a full course meal including bread, salad, chicken, veggies, and cheesecake. It was absolutely perfect and was the best Valentine's Day a girl could have. Mendi decided we wouldn't mind celebrating the Day of Love together more often... and really anytime our husbands decide it's a occasion worthy of cooking up a good meal!! Thanks for all your hard work babe! It was well worth it! 143!

You must tear down before you rebuild.. I guess that's our motto!

Soo for all of you who are itching for an update, here ya go! Here are pictures of our house with some serious demolition going on! Basically at this point, everything that needs to be torn out of the house, barring the carpet and the load-bearing studs that have to be redistributed, has now been torn out! Yippee! Starting tomorrow, the rebuilding process will begin! We will begin to see new walls going up. Our space already looks so much more open with all of the walls opened up in the kitchen and living room areas, as well as the bathrooms. What an exciting time!

View from the 3rd bedroom into the kitchen. Currently the space is open and you see pipes coming through the floor. Where the pipes are is where the washer and dryer will eventually be, with access from the kitchen. To the left of the washer and dryer is where the refrigerator will be inset. This room used to have the built-in seat and bookshelves, which are now gone gone gone!

View from the entrance of the house into the dining room area. Notice from the ceiling, the fur-down space separating the living and dining area has been shrunk to almost nothing (it couldn't be completely demolished because we cannot replicate the ceiling texture-records!). Also, one of the biggest transformations is the removal of the wall between the kitchen and dining area. Eventually, there will be a 4 foot wide roman arch walk-in to the kitchen and a 7 1/2 foot wide half-wall with a roman arch to keep the space looking really open!

Straight-on view from the dining room into the kitchen. The framers removed all of the fur-down above the old cabinets and the walls so that the new arches could be put in! The space looks HUGE now!

View of the dining room from inside the kitchen. WOW... what a different 8 hours of hard labor will do for ya!

View of the hall bathroom from the hallway. That big pipe with the orange cap is where the toilet will be and the tub-shower combo will be under the window, which is going to be smaller.

View of the master bathroom from the master bedroom. The opening is where the hot water heater used to be and it will be walled off. The big hole in the floor is the piping for the garden tub!

View of the master bathroom from the current hole in the wall where the hot water heater used to be. The orange pipe in the floor is where the toilet will be and to the left of that is where the sink and counter will be!

Used to be the closet in the 3rd bedroom... future additional closet space for the master. 'Nuff said!

My best attempt at getting a picture of the first snow at our new house... its really fuzzy!

Well, that's all for now folks.. I hope you enjoyed your stop at the Morris blog and were filled with lots of prayer requests for us, haha! We need lots of it as this is the time where the schedules are really starting to fill up and we are starting to feel the pressure! It will be a neat home when it is finished!

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!