What We've Been Doing All Summer...

So there is a VERY good reason this blog has been dormant for these Summer months... We've been tackling some major home repairs and renovations, so tending to that has been taking up all my "free" time! So far we have had a lot of rotted wood replaced around the exterior of our house, and we've had the house repainted (something that was about 5 years overdue!) And since one project always begets another... we've also ended up doing a MAJOR kitchen renovation. This has involved removing a drop ceiling, removing all the old cabinets, etc, taking down a wall, putting in a new floor and replacing much of the old horsehair plaster with drywall. None of the plumbing or electrical was up to code (hello, knob-and-tube wiring!) so all of that had to be updated. This week, the new cabinets have been going in, which is really starting to make it feel like a kitchen again... a much nicer, updated kitchen! Here's a little peak at what we've been up to:

The porch floor boards, and the supports underneath were rotten, and needed replacing.

Birds evicted from eves, and rotted boards replaced

Fixed! 

More rot, waiting to be fixed.

Paint in Progress

 And now... The Kitchen Renovation...

The old kitchen was an odd U-shape... very awkward, and not at all an efficient use of space. We took down the center wall, to open up the space and make it much more usable for our large family.

The Man, working on taking down that center wall

finally broke though the wall to the other side!

One of the many animal nests we found in the walls... ew! Gotta love old houses!

The wall down to the studs... just waiting for the contractor
 to come take the rest down and put up the support beam. 

Noodle made us a sign for our construction area. 

The newly-opened space, with the support beam
 in place.We did have a chimney to work around.

We were able to leave some of the brick chimney exposed.
This gave us a tiny bit more space, and I love the rustic look. 

New floor! Surprised how much the laminate looks like wood. 

Cabinets are going in!

This is going to be an island!

More cabinets.

So, as you can see, we've had our hands full! But... we're hoping to wrap this project up in the next couple of weeks... so we can get ready for Not-Back-to-School! I'm hoping that next post I will be able to show you a newly-renovated homeschool area in our newly renovated kitchen... stay tuned!