Our house is a very, very, very fine house....

Well, it is on it's way to being a very fine house.

For those of you who don't know, Sy and I bought a 1870's -ish farm house last May and in July ripped half of it off and started rebuilding. Let me just say, going without a kitchen for 4 months with an 18 month old is not something I would recommend. Unless you're crazy, like us. What we ripped down was an addition to the original house (22'X16' one floor) that contained a kitchen and dining room. As we were tearing down, it amazed us that it was still standing.

Bye-bye kitchen/dining room. Hello all-in-one bathroom and fridge in my living room!

Throughout the monsoon-like rain of last summer we had a new crawl space excavated, new foundations poured and Sy (almost single-handedly) built a 2 story plus attic, 22'X24', addition containing my kitchen/dining room, mud room, new stairway, laundry room, and master suite.

It's a start. The foundation is actually concrete on this one!

Getting there. Sy doesn't have to worry about the rain anymore.

In early November 2006 I had a functioning kitchen back, and by December I had a dishwasher and washer and dryer installed (HOORAY!!)

I just love a blank slate. So much potential. I've never ever had a kitchen this big.

Now, more than a year later I can say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. It's a dim light, for sure, but it's there. The master bedroom is done, except for some trim and small touch-up details, the master bath is perfectly functioning, but the walls need to be finished, trim put it, and permanent vanities built. (Sy is custom building almost all of the cabinetry.) As of a couple of weeks ago, I have all of my upper kitchen cabinets installed (except doors), the base cabinets are almost all built, my double wall ovens are in (and work like a dream) and the best part of all....MY HARDWOOD FLOORS ARE IN, UP AND DOWNSTAIRS! Until you've lived on plywood sub floors for a year, you will never appreciate real floors as much as I do. I can finally sweep and mop and make a difference. BubbaLou will not go through the bottom of slippers quite so fast!

This weekend Sy built the roof on our front porch. No railings yet, or "real" stairs, but they're coming....hopefully before winter. At least with the roof I won't have to shovel the entire porch off! We're also hoping to get the siding on before winter, but we'll see. With Sy going back to school and me going back to work, there's not a whole lot of time to get things done. I'm really hoping that within the next year we can call the new addition "done". And then gut the original house. Hey, I won't have to give up my kitchen again! And since we're just gonna gut it, we can do it one floor at a time (in theory.)

Today. The porch will be stunning when it's done. And the barn has fallen down. And the original house isn't yellow (we're going traditional white, red doors, sky blue ceiling on the porch.)