More "Before" and "After"

Our Living Room Before and After

We removed the gas fireplace and moved the front door. This has made our living room so much more functional!

Probably the biggest improvement, is the stairwell!! I can't believe none of our children have been seriously hurt on this set of stairs in the past 4 years.

More of the stairs! We feel rather silly saying this, but most every time we walk up or down them, it seems to come out of our mouths! "Man, I love these stairs."

"Before" The playroom, looking past the stairwell, into the office, and through to the master bedroom.

After, nicely painted, you can see the skylight on the left, and the post for the banister on the stairwell on the right. The playcenter isn't staying there, it is just serving as a barrier for now so no children fall down the balcony!

"Before" Looking from the stairwell toward the playroom and through to the kids' rooms.

"After" You can see the other skylight on the right and the little hallway leading to the kids rooms. Cedar paneling will cover the half walls there on either side and we'll have access to those spaces for storage.

"Before" Looking downstairs. Eeeeek!

"After" Beautiful clean, carpeted. The electrical panel will get covered, and railings and a banister is coming as well.

These are pictures of our master bedroom.

Hallway to walk in closet and ensuite which are not finished.

This is the office. Previously Faith's old room.

We love our stairs  :)

Thank You Lord!

We have been waiting a long time to see the mini excavator sold! Praise the Lord because He has graciously answered this prayer for us.

Picture This

These are some shots we took as we were building the front deck on the
house. As well, it shows the cedar trees that were in the front yard we had
taken down two summers ago. As much as we loved the privacy, those trees (an
overgrown hedge) really kept us from meeting our neighbors and talking to
people as they walked by. We have met so many individuals in our
neighborhood since taking them down!

Do You Not Know? Have You Not Heard?

Do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God,

the Creator of the ends of the earth,

He will not grow tired or weary,

and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary

and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,

and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:28-31

Carpet Coming!

We have ordered the carpet for our upstairs. This means we will probably be home and sleeping in our own beds by the end of next week. Very exciting!!

I hope to post pictures of the inside soon, but for now imagine painted walls, freshly stained banister on our new staircase is being stained and assembled, and I have tried picking away at the post-drywall mess! We were a lot smarter this time and papered the flooring downstairs, so I've only swept and mopped it about 4 times, instead of a dozen like last time!

Please stay tuned for interior pictures.

Holiday to the Island

We spent time over on the island this weekend with my family. It was very relaxing and nice to visit with family members we hadn't seen in a while!

It was so relaxing in fact, that I had time to just take pictures and play with the camera, for fun!

Rob keeps busy all the time ... even on holidays!

Nonetheless, there was definitely time for family time!

Feeling refreshed, we are back home now, making one final push on the renovations before August arrives!

Time for "Before & After"

Rob and I bought paint for the inside of the house last night! This is another milestone. It means there's no more demolishing, no more adding. We are truly FINISHING!

We thought it was about time for a before and after photo of the front of our little house.

Here we had been living in the house for about two years already. We had already laid hard wood throughout, relocated our bathroom and landry room, gutted and rebuilt the kitchen, gutted and drywalled the living room. By this time, we were definitely anxious to make the oustide of the house look better!!

After lifting it three feet, removing about 15 cedar trees in the front yard, building two bedrooms upstairs on the left side, a garage and master bedroom ensuite on the right side, building a beautiful new cedar deck on the front, redoing the entire roof, digging for a new septic system in the back, and relandscaping the front, planting grass seed and building new planter boxes in the front, this is it! Phew. Oh and did I mention we had three babies while we were doing all this?  :) God is good, all the time!

Breakfast at Oma's

 

Renovations on the house continue, so we remain at Oma's house. Our time here has been pretty good actually. Now, if our summer weather would ever arrive, it would be fantastic! We are experiencing typical South Fraser Valley weather I think. We were teased in February and March with unusually warm Spring weather, and now we eagerly wait for summer to arrive. It has been gray and dull for days!! Which is making us all feel rather gray and dull.

This is our house all lit up. Just a little bit more siding to go as the dry-wallers finish up inside. Seeing it lit up last night was a big milestone for us. Similar to mowing our front lawn for the first time after Rob seeded it in March.