Never Remodel!

Jim and I used to dream about building our own house. We'd draw pictures of what we wanted and continued to dream. It is definitely easier to buy an already-done house than to remodel one. This has by far been the hardest week of the project physically. We had to move a heat vent that was in the kitchen but now is in the middle of this big open room. The vent will now come through a toe kick under the cabinets. Jim had to cut the floor down to see where the vent went and then we hired a young guy to come and put in new duct work. He had it done pretty quickly but filling in the holes is taking longer. Today Jim is finishing the project. It's been pretty scary to walk around the holes. I keep thinking I'm going to fall in and break a leg.

 I scraped the popcorn off our bedroom ceiling on Wednesday and removed the carpet and so we had to shove everything in the closet. I can't get in there very far to get clothes. Didn't think about that one.

 I had planned to texture the ceiling Thursday night after work but we ended up taking Ammon to the ER because there's where the doctor sent us. He is having some issues with bleeding through the ureter and we needed to see if he was passing a kidney stone. He can't feel much so couldn't tell us how it felt. That shot the whole night. Jim spent about 4 hours with Ammon while I came home and directed the priest quorum what to haul off (fireplace rocks and carpet) in a truck. They came as a service project. Then I went back to the hospital (in Payson) and waited until the guys were ready to come home. We were too tired to do anything after that so we ate dinner at 9:00 p.m. and went to bed.
The sheet rock guy is here today. We needed to move some furniture (our bed) that was in the living room so he went in and textured our bedroom ceiling in 15 minutes. That was a tender mercy. Our pocketbook may not feel like that, but he did it so quickly that I was very grateful it was done.

 We have been sleeping on the big bed downstairs for the past 3 nights. Our bed is finally back in our bedroom. It's one heavy mattress! The two of us can barely move it.

 So the mudding and taping is done with the first go-round on most of the house now. Jared, the contractor is very fast. He brought his wife to help and they make a great team.  Jim is cutting plywood in the picture below to fill in the holes in the floor.

 Pantry door waiting to be installed.

 Jim has framed in the new door frame and hopefully today we can get the door set in place.

Our kitchen table has been filled with tools and nails and screws and sawdust. We eat standing up. And it will only get worse once we pull out the sink and dishwasher. I would never recommend remodeling to anyone at this point. It calls for immense patience, lots of hard work, and keeping a constant vision of what it will look like one day.