Monday, September 30, 2013

Hole Lot of Change!

That white awning, huge bush covering the window, and hedge row were the first things to go!

Friends, I am so very sorry I've been absent recently. Good things are happening and I've just been so busy! 

After three years, the hubby and I have finally gotten down and dirty with some house upgrades. When we moved in, we knew that our small ranch had small claustrophobic rooms and accepted that, due to a load-bearing wall, we would just have to deal with that. 

Oh, how wrong we were! 




















We started talking about knocking down a couple non-load bearing walls... anything to create a feeling of open space. But when we asked hubby's cousins, who happen to be architects, they told us to knock down the "load-bearing wall"! Turns out the house is so small (there is no second floor), that the outer walls and the ceiling joists in the attic are carrying the load, NOT the center wall - can I say yippee?!

Hubby jumped right on that and less than a week later (we got lucky timing-wise) we were living in construction chaos!

The agreement, however, was that if we moved forward with the wall...we HAD to continue and deal with those rugs! If you read the early house posts, you recall the rugs are about as old as the house (50+) and caterpillar-puke green!  I kid you not!

When the wall was done, the hole was a total of 10 feet-wide, opening the house up and making it much, much brighter! 


The rugs came out of the living room in one quick afternoon!  And, we were SO happy with the amazing wood floors and the new open concept feeling, we decided to have a...wait for it...

HOLE-A-WEEN Party! HA!  


We are known for parties amongst our friends, but haven't done Halloween since we moved. Its gonna be great, but there is sooooooooo much more to do before that can happen!

The living room needed to be set up, the dining room and hall need to be painted, and the rugs in those rooms removed as well... and lots more! Needless to say...I've had more than one late evening after a long day at work. I'm pooped!  But after three long years of trying to get the hubby to stop seeing this as his great aunt's house, I think he may finally be feeling some ownership and motivation to make it his own!

And I've agreed to stop calling it "The Pit" while we do so. Fair trade, no?!

My weekends are chock full of Purely Vocals gigs (we're playing the Topsfield Fair this weekend!) and painting and a billion other things.

Sadly, very little reading is getting done... But, I will get back to it eventually, while sitting in my brand new living room, with nice clean, germ-free floors! For now, I'll just have to keep you entertained with pictures of the transformation.

Bear with me...

0 comments: