Extreme Makeover: Kitchen Edition

Let the renovation begin! Last weekend, we started the kitchen transformation, beginning with a "lighthouse blue" coat of paint. But first, we had to do battle with the dust bunnies, scraps, and screws on top of the unfinished laundry room ceiling (the construction workers never cleaned up any surface too high up to see when they built our house). Then, we moved the furniture and laundry baskets into the living room, instantly turning them into accessible pet beds.

This weekend, we needed all the help we could get from Cortney's parents and Curtis, as we tackled the major work of ripping out the tile down to the subfloor. We tried every tool we had in search of the most efficient way to get it done in time: sledgehammer, crowbar, even hand axe! The chips were flying, and we didn't make good headway until Dad H went out and bought a masonry chisel which, when combined with the crowbar, finally lifted out major sections at once.

At the same time as this destruction was going on, constructive work was getting accomplished as well. Jon learned how to install a new faucet from Dad H, and Curtis and Dad H engineered a brilliant solution to the challenge of mounting a long string of three lights from a single, off-center electrical hole. By adding a board and running the wires along it to the middle, they made it look like it was part of the lamp all along.

Meanwhile, Mom H put on her green thumb and trimmed back our garden for the end of the season, including our eight-foot-tall coneflower. She even took care of the last lawn mowing of the year. Thanks for all your help, family! We couldn't have done it without you.