Progress...

For the past week and a half we have been staying at Korby's mom's house and this is why:

Here is what has become of our master bedroom. Not pictured is the non existent wall that now opens up directly into the hallway and directly into the bathroom (minus the sink that is now currently residing in our bedroom).

Here is our combination laundry room and storage room with no access to the dryer. Notice the hanging blue light switch~ my kids think that is the coolest thing in the world! Oh.... to be 5 years old again and impressed by a light switch!!!

You might think we didn't really need to go through all the hassle of moving out for just that. No master bedroom, that's okay we still have 2 other bedrooms not being touched. No washer and dryer, that's okay too. I hang dry most of our clothes anyway. But here is what is left of our kitchen..... not much but a lose sink pipe that is so old and rusted that it doesn't shut off all the way. The solution~ shut off the water to the house until the new sink is in. As it turns our running water is something that is very inconvenient to live without these days!

Out the doors you can see the framing for the new outside kitchen walls!

Here is what it looks like from the outside right now~ a compound! I promise that we are putting in lots of beautiful windows and new French doors.

What do you get when you are "living" in Lehi (about 20 minutes away from our house) but have swimming lessons, karate lessons, singing lessons, art classes, gym classes, baseball games, doctor appointments, swimming, soccer games, dentist appointments all in Sandy?

Three completely exhausted kids and one equally exhausted mom!

I hope your summer has NOT been as crazy as ours :)

Start Framing

Today they started the framing. You can see where the bedroom window is going to go along the new back wall.

Yesterday they came and back filled the dirt around the foundation. As the bobcat started pushing the dirt in I thought the kids would be as excited as they were when the dirt was being dug out. However, this was Tanner's response....

"Ahhhhhhh (with a sigh and a shoulder slump). There goes Mt. Everest."

They also took out the wall between the laundry room and storage room downstairs.

Let there be Light

I don't know if I will be able to explain this correctly (I have already typed/deleted/retyped this a couple of times and I don't even understand what I am talking about) so good luck!

With our downstairs addition we had the existing foundation walls to deal with. Since concrete is so heavy it is very expensive to break up and haul away. So, instead of dealing with all of that, our contractor cut out the area of the existing foundation wall that would be the door ways to the new rooms and pushed it outside. They are then going to pour the foundation flooring on top of the slab (essentially burying the slab under the new foundation). I don't know if that made sense, but here are a couple of pictures that hopefully help......

There is the slab of existing foundation wall laying flat in the ground with a big piece of plywood covering up the hole in our house.

Here is the view when you walk into my laundry room now. Since they only needed to take out the concrete part, the top half of wall is still in tact.


It sure does let it a LOT more light! I am afraid that it is also going to let in a lot more bugs, dirt and let out a lot more children and cats! So, thank goodness they put up the plywood to cover the hole. It is going to stay like that for at least 2 more weeks I think.

Foundation Walls

We now have the foundation walls! They came this morning at 6:30!!!!!! Sorry to anyone within the sound of all the hammering, sawing, nailing~ not to mention the cement truck with its diesel engine. Korby had the day off and was going to take the kids to let me sleep in. So much for that plan......
I just have to keep telling myself it will all be worth it in the end~ that is going to be my new mantra!

Day 2 of Construction

I don't think that anything will be able to top Monday's excitement for my kids! Tuesday we dealt with power issues and they got it ready to pour the footings.

Here is what is left of our deck~ a pile of rubble.

I had no idea that rebarb (sp?) was so colorful!

We'll see what tomorrow brings.....

Let it Begin

We started bright and early Monday morning! Jackson wouldn't even let me finish getting him dressed he was too excited about watching the tractors :) I think they were more excited about this then they were about Christmas!!!


Our kitchen proved to be a perfect spot to watch the whole show. It began by excavating our backyard for the addition. Notice the soggy bowl of cereal on the counter~ they were too excited to even eat breakfast!
By the end of the day we no longer had a covered deck. The kids got such a kick out of watching the workers cut, rip, pound, and tear up the deck piece by piece.

Here is our yard at the end of day 1. A giant hole, mounds of dirt, hammers, nails, ladders, wood scattered randomly around~ a backyard that is no longer kid friendly!

Let the fun begin!!!!!! We are really excited to be doing this. We know it will be a long and frustrating process at times, but the end product will be so worth it!!!! We are just about doubling the size of our kitchen and we are adding another bedroom and full bathroom down stairs.

A New Beginning

For the last couple of months we have been meeting with architects, talking with general contractors, getting bids, going to Parade of Homes, checking out Lowes and Home Depot more frequently as we finally made the decision to add on to our house!!!!!!