Work in Progress (Tons of pics!)

I was going to wait until the work was all finished to share this, but I'm too excited!! For the last 5 days there has been some pretty serious work being done on my house, and its almost finished!! By the end of today (or tomorrow at the latest) my kitchen will be FINISHED (2 years after it was started!) and I will have a brand new bathroom!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!

I have wanted this all to be done for a long time. The kitchen would have been finished a while ago, except that the bathroom leaked into the kitchen whenever someone showered, so finishing the kitchen didn't make sense until the bathroom could be completely redone. I honestly wasn't sure if that would ever happen, but it finally is!! And it really came out of nowhere...

There is a guy, M, that Frank Hinson has been working with for several months on addiction recovery. He is VERY talented with construction and last Wednesday Frank asked me if I would be interested in hiring him to do some work at my house. He and Frank came over on Thursday, looked at everything I needed to have done and then gave me an estimate. It was VERY fair (and now that I see just how good he is, I realize that it was more than fair!), so I jumped on it. I will be struggling financially a bit to make up for spending this money when I didn't expect it, but I don't care! Having all of this work finished relieves so much stress that tightening my budget doesn't seem like a big deal at all! (I will need to reread that statement over the coming months, haha).

One of the best parts, for me, is that I am paying someone to do the work. I don't feel like a charity case and I'm not taking Frank away from his family for hours and days. I can see God's hand in this, taking care of me once again in a way I didn't expect, (but that's how He works!) and I feel SO blessed.

At the same time M has been working on my kitchen and bathroom, I have been hard at work on the basement. So, my house is getting a mini overhaul!! Like I said, things are still in progress, but here is where we are so far!!

The biggest project has been the bathroom. (Yes, I realize that it is a very small bathroom! Everything about my house is pretty small, which works great for only 2 people. I still don't know how we did it with 7!)

It's still in progress, so stay tuned for the final pictures later tonight, or tomorrow!

Here is the before picture. Please note the pink tile (yuck!), the lack of mirror or electrical outlet, and the open area under the sink where I could store...nothing. Also, you can't see in this picture, but the "tile" floor was all cracked and being discolored by the leaking toilet.

A closer look at the tub:

The disgusting drop ceiling:

So, everything but the tub (because its cast iron!) has been ripped out and slowly replaced. Its not finished yet, but here is what it looks like right now!


No, the toilet will not stay in the tub, haha. But, that's where it is for now!


The kitchen is getting there too. I don't have a ton of pics because most of the kitchen work is small cosmetic stuff. One problem that suddenly arose, however, was that my sink broke for no apparent reason.

Thankfully, Frank heard about it and quickly fixed it for me! (No pic of the fixed sink..but it really is fixed!)

The main kitchen project was the ceiling. Here is what it did look like (for 2 years!):

Here is the new ceiling!!! There is still some finishing work to do, which you can't see in this picture. But, this is what the ceiling will look like!!
M is doing such an awesome job!

I haven't really done any construction, but I've still be working hard on the basement! :) I have literally ignored the basement for months, only going down to throw junk somewhere. Here is what it looked like:

The view from the other side. All junk (except Gizmo and the treadmill)...

The girls room was full of remnants from moving them upstairs:

My only storage closet, full of Frankie's stuff:

Once everything was bagged up...there were a lot of bags! :)


It took a lot of time to get all that stuff together and out of the house. It looks much different now though!!

The treadmill will move to the other side once I get the chance to scrub the floors and clean it up more, but this is the basement clean without all the trash and junk in in!!

The girls old room is now a whatever room with bunk beds, haha. I still have a lot of cleaning and scrubbing of the carpet (thanks to the kittens!) to do, but it at least looks clean!

The few things that were mine in the basement are now neatly stored away:

And finally, I actually have a little bot of storage space, that will be filled soon as I spring clean my house in the coming weeks:

YAY!! I am so excited, and feel so blessed by all of this work!! My house has the ability to stress me out like you wouldn't believe, so all of this is absolutley amazing!!

The work should be finished today, though some things might not be dry until tomorrow. I CAN'T WAIT!! (Actually, I have to admit I'm most excited about being able to use my own shower and toilet soon, haha).

I will post final pictures as soon as its all finished! Stay tuned!!