Putting Our House Back Together, Part 2

It's been a month since I last updated you on our house remodel, and a lot has happened since then! We're still staying with my in-laws, but we're over at the house almost every day working on something. Our contractor, Van, and his crew have been fast and efficient, in spite of having ten other houses to work on in the area as well, and we're hoping to move back in next week! Let me catch ya'll up to speed.

After the carpet came out, all the old particle subfloor had to be ripped up and replaced with plywood subfloor. It was a mess when it all came out, but now the floors are stronger than ever!

The kitchen and pantry have been especially difficult. The water damage was so extensive that the floor had to be pulled out in places and completely replaced. So the guys pulled everything out--cabinets, ceiling, walls, and floor down to the studs and joists.

Once the middle of the kitchen floor was opened, Jimmy and his dad went to work, repairing and strengthening the joists and running new air conditioning ductwork into the kitchen, since there was no AC vent into the kitchen (and boy, did it got hot in the summer!). I suppose I should mention here that my husband teaches HVACR at the career tech school in our county, and has been helping his dad on AC jobs since he was a boy. So they not only know what they are doing, but they are also licensed to do it. Handy! 😉

The best part in all this work (for me, at least) was that the kids are finally old enough to be left on their own in the playroom for short periods of time, so I was able to help Jimmy as his go-fer and make the extra work a little easier for him. (If you're not familiar with that term, it's the assistant to the carpenter, plumber, whatever, who "goes for" this, or "goes for" that, saving the technician a lot of legwork.) I hadn't been able to do that since Monkey was born; it felt good to get my hands dirty again!

While Jimmy and his dad had been doing all this work in the kitchen and pantry, the new flooring was going in the bedrooms, bathroom and living room,

molding and baseboards were going in those rooms as well,

all the interior doors were repainted,

all the cracks and holes in the walls were repaired, and every room was repainted. It's looking so good!

We started getting the cabinets for the kitchen last week, and hopefully the rest of them will arrive before this week is out. I'm a huge fan of open shelving in kitchens, so we're only replacing the base cabinets, but somehow the cabinet company got mixed up and sent us two of the kitchen cabinets and two of the pantry cabinets, so we're waiting for the rest before they can be put in.

Meanwhile, the crew is here this afternoon, finishing the flooring in the kitchen, dining room and pantry, just a step behind Jimmy as he puts in the new subfloor in the dining room! They're keeping him on his toes for sure!

As for the addition, it's moving along more slowly, with all the work Jimmy's had to do in the other rooms. The electrical's almost done, and I think the plumber has finished his work, so hopefully we'll be ready for flooring and drywall in there soon.

Jimmy did get the old French doors between the playroom and the addition removed and replaced them with a wall and single door. We need the wall for coat hooks and shoe storage--otherwise the mudroom would be just a hallway with a mop sink in it, a.k.a. a big empty space--but the playroom side we plan to cover with corkboard, giving the kids an awesome place to hang their artwork. Monkey's really excited about that! (She's my artist.)

So we're getting there. Honestly, I thought it would take a lot longer than this to get so much done, but I'm sure the moving in process and all the finishing details (not to mention, the rest of the addition) will take up the rest of the summer. This is Jimmy's last week at school (teachers always go longer than students), so next week he should be able to devote more time to things around the house, which will relieve a lot of stress for him. Meanwhile, I've got enough to do just keeping our 3 Stooges out of the contractors' hair. (They've recently learned knock-knock jokes; it's not pretty! 😆)