Home Improvements

We are still busy unpacking and organizing our house- we'll be at this for awhile, I think. But thanks to some wonderful family members, we got a TON of the repairs done this week! James' sister Wendy and her husband Tom came up for a visit with their little 16 month-old daughter. Tom is a general contractor and man, he really knows his stuff! James and Tom worked for probably 15 hours on this house. The boys followed them around for a good portion of it. Uncle Tom has some awesome tools like the "torcher" and really big saws!

Here's a quick run down of what these men did: fixed our second shower, finished our toilet, hung my new kitchen light fixture, built a new floor under my kitchen cabinet, installed a new toe kick (the base of our cabinets that run along the kitchen floor), fixed a couple holes in the wall, and installed a new fluorescent light in the garage. Everything looks great!

Before: No floor and that big black spot in the back left was a gaping hole.

New floor, no hole!

Missing toe kick.

Voila!

They spent about 5 hours just on this shower! They had to replace a bunch of the pipes and valves through a hole they cut in the wall. Then they made an access door to cover the hole.

Savanna is very excited to have a shower now downstairs!

This house was built very cheaply we've been finding out. From the plumbing to the fixtures, they just did not install quality anything. There are a bunch of exterior light fixtures in my home. This is one that was over my sink.

And here is the new one. One down, several more to go!

We also finished the boys' "Harry Potter Closet" this week. We have a long closet that runs under the stairs. We've made it a reading room complete with couches, lights, and bookshelves!

Yes, that is Light Saber night light!

I also finished my laundry room. It's the little things that are exciting sometimes! But with four kids, I have a LOT of laundry. Nice to have a space like this!

We hung the rest of our curtains in the front room too!

We are eventually going to put this little love seat in the office. But until we get something bigger, at least we aren't sitting in our lawn chairs anymore! It's coming together. :)

Here is our new garage light- we are hoping to add another one too down the road.

James has been working on the garage a lot this week also. He has set up his workout, "man" space complete with TV, DVD player, weights, and a fridge. Nice!

This is our little niece Aubrey. She loved to sit on Brad's air hockey table. We realized several things during Aubrey's visit: 1. Our porcelain tile is NOT going to work out with a toddler and 2. We need to seriously baby proof!

I love how she is reading her book upside down! :)

Thank you Iacona family! We love you, and really appreciate your hard work and support! (Thanks to my other family and friends who gave us Home Depot gift cards to fund all of these projects- we love you all)!!

January 19- 21, 2011