The importance of Drains.

Dear People Who Built Our House (Oh man if I knew who these people are the angry letters they would receive from me!),

Why? Why on God's Green EARTH would you build a LAUNDRY room (you know, the room with the washer=water, shower=water, and sink=water) withOUT a DRAIN!!? WHY? WHY? WHY?

Our washing machine has worked perfectly, without a problem (except that one weird incident where it quit working, we got a part to fix it, that didn't work, put the old part back in and magically it started working again) for TWO years, two years of working great. Like I do many days, I started a load of laundry, then Dietrich, the dogs, and myself headed out for a lovely walk in the rain. We get back and I leave everyone in the garage so I can go inside and get a towel to dry off the dogs. I walk in to step in a huge puddle of water, I am certain bad words were said. I called Bryce "you are not gonna wanna here this but the washing machine emptied itself all over the house." He told me to remove the filter and I started using the shop vac to clean up. Thank goodness Dietrich was accommodating and watched from his stroller in the garage. I was able to finally get the water up off the tile in the hall and the laundry room. Dietrich and the dogs could come in the house. My feet and pants were soaking wet. Then I started vacuuming the water out of the carpet, of course the water got on to the new carpet in the basement bedroom, the carpet at the bottom of the stairs and into the living room (FAR into the living room), but NO water on the ugly blue carpet in the blue room (of course). So I vacuumed and vacuumed, Dietrich crawled around also getting soaking wet on the carpet (he apparently thought that was fun) and then we started the fans.

This huge mess could have easily been avoided (yes, fine, don't leave the house when doing laundry, but I probably wouldn't have noticed the water until I went to get the laundry anyway) PUT in a DRAIN! If you are building or remodeling your laundry room, put in a drain, it will save you heartache and possible replacement of carpet (good thing the carpet in the living room is terrible and stained anyway). Today while I continued to complain about the lack of drain to my mom she pointed out that there may be a drain, but someone tiled over it when they remodeled. If that is the case, oh how that makes my blood boil!!! Do NOT do something so stupid! Oh I can't even take it, I'm going to bed (and hoping that the carpet is dry enough that we don't have to rip any up).

Pantry Complete!

I was told that as the leading love interest in my "story" I should go into some great detail on how awesome and sexy Bryce is now that he has completed my new pantry. But to tell you the truth, the awesome and sexy bit isn't really from his ability to build me a pantry, it's all because of this:

What could possibly be more awesome and sexy than seeing your husband play with your child? Besides that they are in matching overalls and Dietrich is teething on a hammer. Seriously doesn't get much hotter than that.
"Dad, will you show me how to use that power tool again? That was so cool!"

It wasn't very long after we moved in (probably right away now that I come to think of it) that we were setting up the bookshelf that we would be using as a "pantry" when Bryce suggested that someday we could turn the coat closet around so that there was a door in the kitchen and turn it into a pantry. This was of course a brilliant idea! There are two closets in the hallway and one of them is probably supposed to be a broom closet, but we mostly used it to store junk. So Bryce turned the narrow closet into a coat closet by putting two bars in, one high one for his coats and a lower one for mine. Although the coats are a little crowded, I would way rather have crowded coats than nowhere to put my food! So we started cutting...
And then we broke through the wall!
Finally, Bryce put up new drywall and after several attempts finally matched up the texture. I painted and then we hung pictures. Now instead of a door here it's a wall!
And instead of a wall, here we have a door! The second he was done putting in the shelves I started filling it full of food, dishes, and appliances...
Ta-da! I love it so much. In fact I spent most of Saturday and Sunday cooking and baking in my fresh and clean kitchen. The shelves are so deep that there is plenty of room for extra supplies behind what is already there. I can't believe how organized I feel now, and the really cool part is it's like the house has always been this way. We kind of wonder if they made a mistake when building, because really, who needs two hall closets? I think every house should have a pantry!
And of course I am incredibly thankful to my awesome and sexy husband, who has the ability and knowledge to complete such home improvement projects. A friend stopped by and I showed her what we did, she asked "How, how did you do that?" Thank goodness I have a husband who is actually capable of doing the things that I suggest!

The Fireplace

So almost immediately after I wrote the post about our New Year's resolutions Bryce and I both started projects around the house. I was so excited, a week into January and I was going to show you all the amazing things we had accomplished! But then, as you know, projects always take longer than planned and January has come and gone and neither project is done. So I am going to show you MY project. That's right the project I planned to do all by myself, "don't worry Bryce, you won't have to do any work here, I have it under control!" I started by priming the ugly black fireplace:

Then I painted it. After painting the WHOLE thing I discovered this color was not right...
Attempt number 2, this color was just what I was looking for. SO much better than the black! So happy to have the black gone!
Then I thought, hey, they put those peel and stick tiles on stuff all the time on HGTV and what a quick and easy way to cover up the grey tile of the fireplace until we decide what to do with it permanently. Well, peel and stick tile does not stick to the tile that was already there so...."Bryce I can totally do this by myself just show me how." "Okay, Bryce there really is no time in my day where I can rip out tile without having a 9 month old try to eat it." "Bryce I am really sorry that my little project is now taking time away from your project..." And so Bryce ripped out the tile, which of course damaged the sheet rock:
And oh, what is this behind the sheet rock in the fireplace?
That's right! Dead birds! AWESOME!
So with brand new sheet rock up, I attempted the peel and stick tile again. Apparently it only works on a flat surface. So much for my simple little project. Now I will be learning how to do tile. It will be so nice to have the fireplace all redone and beautiful, so you know, maybe sometime in February I can post my finished "after" pictures for you!