~ My Husband Rocks! ~ reminders . . .

Click here to read about why I started MHR Fridays!

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This week has definitely reinforced for me many of the qualities that I absolutely adore about my husband!

~ We finished our deck, which turned out beautifully: I love that he is such a talented carpenter, and that he takes such pride in his work.
~ He has had a particularly rough week at work, but he has maintained such a great attitude: I am so grateful that he works so hard, even when he does not get the respect he deserves there.
~ I have been somewhat discouraged about some of the hold-ups we've run up against this week regarding BBI, but he is more confident than ever that this is God's will for our lives: I love that he has such strong faith and that he is strong in his convictions and encouraging when I find myself doubting.
~ We began gutting our basement last night, and he was soooo excited! : I adore that he is excited about finishing the very last unfinished portion of our huge re-construction project! One of the reasons he is so excited is that finishing it gets us that much closer to launching BBI, and that brings me so much joy!

Lots of fun reasons why my husband rocked my socks off this week! How about yours?
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I am the only person who has the ability to add blogs to the MHR blogroll. If you are a MHR blogger, and have not been added to the blogroll, plase comment or e-mail me at katylinvw{at}yahoo{dot}com and I will gladly add you to our little group!!!

(if you would like to add the MHR Fridays button to your sidebar, use this code ).

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If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

As always, on Fridays Union 28 will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you Union 28!

Hope you all have a fantastic Friday, and a wonderful weekend!

~ My Husband Rocks! ~ laughter & fun

Click here to read about why I started MHR Fridays!

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2. Tell the story of a memory about your husband that brings you a smile and a giggle every time you think about it!

I picked this topic thinking that it was going to be so easy to come up with the perfect memory to share, but my problem was that there are soooooooooooo many!!! Austin is the kind of guy that makes even the most mundane of situations fun and enjoyable, and he has always been able to make me laugh regardless of my initial mood.

First I was thinking of telling you all about the time that we were driving between college and Colorado, and Austin saw flashing lights behind us. Thinking he was going to be pulled over, he quickly took the nearest exit ramp only to watch an ambulance go screaming past! (teehee, that one makes me giggle every time)

Or, I could talk about the horseback riding tour we took on our honeymoon where Austin quickly befriended the other family in our group as well as our tour guide with his gregarious personality, then enjoyed immensely pretending that he was John Wayne and galloping off into the sunset.

Even when we were doing all the work on the house, we had a blast! I remember one Saturday in particular, it was a "haul-out" day after we had a TON of debris on the floors from the demolition process we would rent a huge roll-off dumpster and shovel the chunks of plaster and lath and drywall and trim and termite-eaten wood into the bucket of a skid-loader and then Austin would drive it around and dump it into the dumpster. This particular Saturday, it was just the two of us working at the house, and it was HOT! The house had no air conditioning at the time, and we were working on the second floor. There were several times during the day where we looked at the mess around us and thought that we would never finish, but when the sun was going down and we were sitting in the bucket of the skid loader, drinking our Vault, we were both so happy that we had gotten so much done! It was not a particularly fun job, but I remember that being such a satisfying day because we had accomplished something huge together!

But one of my absolute favorite memories took place when we were in Switzerland with a group from our college. We had just spent three weeks in France as a missions trip, and one of the girls in our group lived in Switzerland, right on Lake Geneva, so we spent a week at her home before going back to Paris for the trip home. One evening while we were there, her entire family came to her parents' house, where we were staying, including her older sister, and her little niece Klalia, who had to be about 6 months old at the time. Austin spent a good amount of time on the floor that evening playing with Klalia, and making her squeal with laughter. I had never seen him so enjoy a little one, and it was precious to watch. I was able to catch a picture of that moment, and I love it because he has the most genuinely happy smile on his face! :) I love that memory.

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Challenges:

~ Set an appointment with your hubby to have a "goals and dreams" talk as described in the first article.

~ If you already know some of your husbands goals and dreams, be intentional about encouraging him and helping him to reach them.

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Be sure to check in with the other ladies who are bragging on their rocking hubbies today by clicking on the "My Husband Rocks Participants" button in the left sidebar.

(if you would like to add the MHR Fridays button to your sidebar, use this code ).

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If you're not a blogger, but still want the world to know about your amazing husband (or wife, or husband to be, or wife to be, etc.) leave a shout-out in the form of a comment! If you're unable to comment, e-mail me at katylinvw [at] yahoo [dot] com and I'll add your shout out to this post!

As always, on Fridays From*me Tees will refund your shipping on any order of two or more items if you mention the great adventure and ~my husband rocks! Fridays~ in the "how did you hear about us?" section of your order form, so run on over there and check them out, too! Thank you From*me Tees!

Hope you all have a wonderful Friday, and a fantastic weekend!

Property Ladder - Living Room, Entryway, Staircase & Upstairs Hallway Reveal!

Property Ladder

The final rooms on the main floor are the living room and the entry way. It may seem that I did this little tour backwards, starting at the back of the house and moving forward, but it is the most logical progression for us, as we always come in the back door, and spend most of our time in the family room. :)

This is what the living room looked like before/during the renovations:

And today:




The piano came with the house :)


Eventually, the pocket door that is leaning against the wall will be installed in its place - it was built into a wall, but all of the hardware and pulleys are still there and working!

The way that the house was laid out when we got it, you could not even access the main floor after you entered the front door. The house had been divided into apartments, and the area where we now have our entryway was jury-rigged into a bathroom! When you walked through the front door, you walked directly into a royal blue wall, and the only way you could go was up the stairs. I cannot for the life of me remember why we failed to take pictures of that monstrosity; however, I do have some "during" pics:

The wiring was a virtual spiders' nest, as each apartment had one, or more, panel and box!

And after:





Staircase before:

And after:




On the landing, we keep one of my favorite decorations. This beautiful piece was a wedding present from my coworkers, and I set up the inside with one of our wedding invitations, my gloves, and Austin's boutennier. :)

Because the house had been so chopped up, we had to re-work a lot of the upstairs layout. In fact, this is what was sitting in the middle of what is now our hallway:



After shots:

Looking North:

Looking South:

I apologize for the doggy rear in some of these pics, she likes to follow me around :)

Generation Renovation - Dining Room & Library Reveal!

Generation Renovation

~ Dining Room ~
~ BEFORE ~


We decided to turn the previous owner's kitchen into our dining room (since we were moving the kitchen back to be closer to the family room). In this picture, we were in the midst of removing the cabinets:

~ DURING ~
Then we really opened up both rooms by tearing out the dividing wall:

~AFTER~
This is now what you see when standing in the dining room, looking where that wall and the furnace, used to be:



We kept the bay window, added hardwood (laminate) flooring where they had had carpet and voila:

~ Library ~
~ BEFORE ~
The above picture was taken while standing in the library. The library was the former owner's dining room:

Note the walls the color of aluminum foil:



~ DURING ~


~ After ~
This room is going to serve as mainly Austin's office/work space (I have my own office upstairs), and we have not finished configuring the furniture exactly how we are going to have it, but this is the stage we're at now:



This next picture was taken standing in the window bay looking towards the dining room. As you can see we kept the built-in shelving on both sides (I'm not sure why the walls look so blue in this one, they're really closer to the green in the other two pics):

And this picture was taken standing in the living room facing the large desk/shelving unit:



There you have it! We're getting close to wrapping up the main floor! Thanks for joining me on our extended tour!

Weekend Warriors - Laundry Room & Downstairs Bathroom Reveal!

Weekend Warriors

The bathroom/laundry room section of the main floor was one of those areas where we looked at what had been there previously, and then did it completely differently, lol! The previous owners had a full bath (sort of) which we shrunk to a half bath. So, we moved the wall over a little bit, and put the laundry room in what had been a tiny, tiny office/hallway - I know, it's hard to understand - I saw it and I still don't understand it!

I have kicked myself over and over for not taking good before pics of this area, so the best I can do is "during" shots:



Note the lovely jungle green walls complementing the foam-carving rock work - for the feeling of bathing out in the wild.



Rather than install a pre-made tub, they had constructed the shape of a tub out of plywood and covered it with a thick plastic material to serve as the tub. The thing was solid as a rock, but not exactly water-tight, so the floor underneath it was rotted away.

The wall on the right with the hole in it is the one we moved slightly to make room for the laundry room. My mother in law (who is partially visible through the hole) is standing it what is now the laundry room.



Our toilet now sits beneath the window that was above their bathtub/cave.



Since we opted for a half bath on the main floor, just the pedestal sink, no tub or shower :)

Smaller bathroom meant we could have laundry on the main floor which is such a HUGE blessing! I love it!

There you have it! Another small slice of our home! Hope you all have a fabulous Monday!

Home Transformations ~ Kitchen Reveal!

Home Transformations

Good morning and happy Wednesday everybody! Today we're in the kitchen, and I'm kind of cheating. Since I've already posted about the kitchen, and my camera is still not clicking, I'm going to do a . . . re-post :S

Our Kitchen!

The way that the kitchen turned out completely exceeded my expectations! Not that I did not have every confidence in Austin & Bryce's ability to make it fabulous, but the odds were definitely not in our favor. You see, we had measured for new cabinets and purchased them (on an amazing sale at Menard's) when there was no drywall on the walls, and we had just the most basic of ideas about what we wanted the kitchen to look like. As often happens with remodelling projects, every step takes much longer than you expect it to, so once the cabinets arrived, they had to live in the garage for just shy of a year while we finished framing and leveling and repairing termite damage (another LOOOOONG story for another time) and having drywall installed, taped, textured, and finished. Needless to say this is not the manufacturer-recommended process for installing kitchen cabinets and having them actually fit the way you had envisioned. Old homes are also not known of their plumb and level lines and surfaces.

This is what the kitchen (well, the spot where we ended up putting the kitchen) looked like before we started:

Remember, this house was divided into 5 apartments when we purchased it, so this space was being used as a child's bedroom/hallway between a family room and the dining room. The walls were covered in chalkboard paint (all 4 of them), and the carpet was really as red as it looks!

Behind this door (above) was the main floor furnace. There was also a furnace on the second floor. And this corner (right) is where our kitchen sink now sits.

Even with ALL of this craziness, and the odds stacked against them, my wonderful husband and father-in-law gave me the kitchen of my dreams! Come with me and we'll take the tour :)

This (above) is looking into the kitchen from the dining room. There used to be a wall between these two rooms, and the main floor furnace used to sit directly to the left of the exposed chimney. (This is the rear view of the 2nd before photo. The chimney was inside the wall, and we decided that it looked nice exposed. We still need to clean it up and seal it.) Every surface in this kitchen is perfectly level, and we could have a party inside the top cabinets without them even coming loose!

This is the corner in the third before picture.

There you have it! I am truly spoiled :)

Thanks for reading!

Renovation Realities ~ Family Room Reveal!

Renovation Realities

Okay, I know I said that today we would be revealing both the family room and the downstairs bathroom today, but my camera crapped out after the family room pics :S

We moved the door on the left back about 5 feet, and made it go directly into the kitchen. It's funny, I didn't realize it until I was looking at the pictures side by side, but the place we have Diddy's kennel now is almost exactly in the same spot as it was when we first got the puppies :)

Before:


After:


The television now takes up the entire wall. We decided to go with a projection system (you can just see the corner of the projector, mounted to the ceiling, in the upper left hand corner), so Austin found the biggest screen that could fit there (92 inches) and we actually saved a lot of money compared to what a normal television would have cost!

Before:


After:


I know the animal print is super sexy, but it just didn't work with our decor. We did almost keep the forest scene wallpaper with the life-size deer that was underneath the animal print - j/k! That big round window was really massive, and boy was that sucker heavy. We decided to remove it and put in the four square windows sometime in the middle of winter. I remember standing outside on a platform helping Austin support one of the windows on the left (the very back of the house) while snow was drifting into the family room, luckily that was before drywall and carpet, lol!

What you cannot tell from this picture is there is a hidden door in the animal print that led down a tiny little staircase into what was the master bedroom for the main floor apartment (the house had been divided into 5 apartments at one time). The structure and foundation of the bedroom addition was so disintegrating that we decided to remove it all together, now that is where we will put our deck, eventually (see this post)

(Aunt Geri! - Look how I've used the birthday present to decorate our coffee table :) )


Thanks for reading!