Is it ever going to end?

I'm serious....plumbing and electrical...is it EVER going to end?  It takes so much longer because we have to decide where we want outlets, how we want switches to work, etc.  That's all we've been doing.  So tonight we took another little break to go help our friends, The Harmans at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville!

Marky  :)

Mike & Stacy

Jeffie

Johnny

Playin' a little tun BACKWARDS!!

Look how proud they all are of Johnny!

Great show tonight...but back to reality tomorrow!

Hallelujah!

The rain missed us!!  I guess God knew I wouldn't be able to handle it  :)  Check out this weather map...IN...SANE!!!  How it missed us there is just one answer....and he loves us all!

 

So the guys from the digging company got there around 10:00 (they had like a 2 hour drive, yuck!)  They got right to work.  I was sooo impressed with how quickly they could do everything.  I mean, I realize that they do this for their job...but still...they were fast!!

They started at the pond and just backed their way up the hill...digging all the way!

There's the loops that they actually put into the water!  Kade came home at lunch to check on things so he got to talk to them a little bit and see some of what was going on.

The entire thing was only about 6' wide by 8' deep.  CRAZY!

Man they're quick...I don't even think they'd been working for 30 minutes and they were already just about done digging!! 

Look at that!  It only took them about 4.5 hours total...they were packed up and gone by about 2:30!

It's going to take awhile before that dirt settles...

we'll probably have to scrape off the top and fill as it sinks in!!

As an added bonus...we had a small tree stump on the side of the house and Kade had said to the mini excavator driver...feel free to take that stump out if you want too...

and so he did!!  THANKS MINI EXCAVATOR DUDE!

Our peony's were blooming today too...gorgeous!  I think we're going to have to move them though...the "bed" if you can call it that...is about 50% weeds and 50% peony plants!

What more could we ask for...a job well done, perfect weather and beautiful flowers!  I'm happy!

And so it begins...

Good morning!  Indeed it was!  First day of the actual HVAC install!  The company installing the actual pond loops are suppose to come tomorrow (provided it doesn't rain...and guess what they're predicting...BIG STORMS!!)  UGH!!  Well..I've said my prayer and I think God knows how important this is to my mental health, lol.  It just seems like everything is going SOOOO SLOOOOWWW!  I tend to get a bit anxious when this happens.  (what is wrong with me??)

There they are...bright and early!

I got more painting done tonight...figured I might as well...I can't do much else at the moment.

Look at that shiny new duct work!! Josh & Kenny are doing a great job (and they are a hoot to listen too...they're just like an old married couple, lol!)

Everyone please pray to your God that the rain misses us tonight!

GeoThermal time!

Yes indeed!  I can't believe it's already time to get the HVAC system installed!  As you know, we committed to the GeoThermal  :)  Well, today was the day they brought everything that they're going to need to do the install.  Look at the basement...it WAS clean!!  Now it's full of duct work and misc. parts!

After they delivered the stuff we went to Lowe's to pick up our subfloor material for the basement.  We're going to try out this Dricor system.  It looks like it should work...and hopefully it will  :)  We had a bit of a dilema though....go figure!  Lowe's got both pallets of Dricor loaded onto the trailer...and then one of the tires went flat.  UGH!  While we were there I decided that I'd better paint those awful yellow walls BEFORE they put the furnace in place....so I had to get some paint too!

What a crock!  That is a flat tire for sure...not just a slow leak, lol.  It went down in like 5 minutes!

 

Doesn't that white wall look SOOOO much better than the electric lemon yellow on the other wall?  I'll have to finish that later...but HAD to get to that area behind the furnace TONIGHT!

Kade was told to get all of the pluming done tonight, so that's what he did...when they start putting up the duct work he won't be able to get up there and get it done.  He cranked it all out in about 4 hours though...I am impressed!  PEX is soooo much quicker than copper!  Thanks for the warning Josh!

We had ONE LAST thing to do tonight...We HAD to go to the auction because today was Johnny's 16th Birthday!  (and yesterday was Jeffie's 22nd Birthday!) so I made some cake pops per Johnny's request and we took them up there at about 10:00  :)  Had a small celebration...and then headed back home.

Johnny & Jeffie with their Grandma Joyce - Happy Birthday Boys!!

We definitely had a full day today!  We should both sleep well tonight  :)

Plumbing...

I swear it never ends!!  It's been another day of working on plumbing here...and there's still plenty more to do!  The guys are working on the venting and drains right now.  They get to work in that hole that we jack hammered in the basement floor, lol!  Aren't they lucky?

Beautiful!  The plumbing for the new FULL bathroom in the basement!

What have we done??  lol!

Chris & Kade working in the clutter room!  A main floor laundry will be SO NICE!

I love how Kade is observing...you better believe he is soaking all of that plumbing knowledge up!!

Time Out!

We had to take a break!!  Soooo...our friends The Harmans were invited to Nashville, TN to play at a memorial show at The Station Inn for singer/songwriter Harley Allen.  He wrote SOOOO many amazing songs, lots of my favorites that The Harmans sing as well as The Baby by Blake Shelton, My Last Name by Dierks Bentley, The Little Girl by John Michael Montgomery, and MANY, MANY others!!  Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it!  We decided we'd tag along for the show.  I have a cousin that lives in Clarksville, TN that didn't get to come home for Easter, so we stayed with her and her boys (her hubby is in the Army)  The boys were AMAZING!  Her youngest...oh my...he's going to be an architect...and I LOVE IT!  He was drawing floor plans like I couldn't believe...and he's only in 3rd grade!!  It was great!


We had to spend a little bit of time waiting for The Harmans to get to The Station Inn (imagine that, lol!) so we sat in the parking lot a little bit and when I got on my phone I had to laugh.....this is what popped up on my available networks...

Let's be serious...that's the best list of available networks that I've ever seen!  :)

We stopped by Antique Archaeology Nashville, it was pretty cool, but more of an advertisement for the tv show than an actual place to shop  :(

So Wednesday night was the show...and a great show it was.  Del McCoury was there, lots of songwriters, Gary Allan stopped by, and of course my favorite...The Harmans  :)  The guys did a great show...and are invited back whenever they want to come!!  (I see a summer trip in the works!!)

Del McCoury (and Corrinna over there on the left...yeah!)

Gary Allan singing Bourbon Borderline

MY FAVORITE!!  The Harmans.  Mike, Jeffie (in the back) Mark singing and Johnny on the Mandolin

Thursday we drove back down to Nashville and went to see an old friend of mine.  We did a LITTLE catching up, but it was great to see him.  He's always working.  The life of a chef I guess  :)  He works at Tavern in Nasvhille.  He told us a couple of places to check out...and we found the time to go to a few of them....and in that I found the most awesome dining room tables EVER!  I've got to get one.  The store is called Karmal Skillington...Oh...My...Gosh!!  We both loved it...Kade and I could have purchased every single thing in the store!!  :)  Before heading back to Clarksville we made a stop at a salvage yard...Hailey's Salvage to be exact....LOVED IT!!  I just love stuff!  What is wrong with me??  It's like....I'd like some more things please, lol!  We ended up buying 4 old enamel pendant lights...I think they'd be great in my craft room!  (and they were only $20 each!)

Look at all of that stuff....

Wish they would have had some square newel posts or balusters for the new stairs!!

So...one more night with my cousin and then we will head home tomorrow (Friday)  That'll give us the whole weekend to get some work done on the house!  What a nice break that we had!

KITCHEN LIGHTING....AHHHHH!!!!

Yes, that title really is worthy of being in all caps!  We just can't make a decision on WHERE the lights should go!  We're doing can lights for general lighting, lights above the two windows for more of a task lighting (like when we're at the sink and such), two lights over the island also for task, and then under cabinet lighting.  So we know WHAT we want to have....we just don't know how to have it, lol!  We've already been dwelling on it for a couple of weeks, and I have searched and searched the web.  UGH!  I've come to the conclusion that there really isn't going to be an answer for me.  Every kitchen is different, so we're just going to have to make our own decisions, dang!  I've also been trying to find lights for over the island...there are the big bell pendants that I've been looking at forever....I ordered one to see if it would work....

 

Can you see it?  Hanging there above our mock up island?  lol!

I love it....but Kade thinks it's too big! (and yes those are Kade's legs on the ladder, ha!)

So no decision has been made yet.  Kade's working on installing the can lights anyway...and we'll just see if we like where he puts them, lol.  Electrical isn't supposed to be this difficult!  I can tell you one thing...I'm going to have to get MUCH better about making decisions if we EVER want to be done with this house!

Cabinets are Ordered!!

FINALLY (now that I've got my fancy sink, grin) I can get the cabinets actually ordered!  The final decision on them was to stain the island and have everything else painted soft white.  I think because the kitchen is so big it will help it to not look too cold (plus the sunroom is right by the kitchen and it's going to be pretty much all white!!)

Left to right- Backsplash color, wall cabinets, stained island,

island countertop and the bottom is the hardwood floor!

 Island: It's now 8' long...not exactly sure on the width yet...we're thinking about 38".

The middle cabinet is actually a trash can - that'll be SO NICE!  I hate to see the trash! :)

We just went ahead and ordered all of the cabinets at the same time...so that meant the mudroom, laundry and pantry cabinets too!  For the laundry/pantry in the clutter room we were able to use a set of display cabinets from the cabinet shop that were only $1,000 - we just had to add a couple more cabinets to the order.  We also got the sink, faucet and countertop (ok, the countertop has got to go, lol)  These are the same style as the kitchen/mudroom cabinets...the doors just aren't "inset".  I'm going to have to paint them though I think...light, just like the rest of them!  Here's the display that we bought:  I cant't believe that we got such a good deal and were actually able to make it work in our space!  YEAH!

Pantry side of the clutter room. (remember I bought a little table on wheels to go at the end on the left.)  We had to add the 24" base cabinet and one 3 drawer set on this side.

 

Laundry side.   We added the tall pantry cabinet (for my laundry baskets) and then the cabinet above the washer/dryer.  I know this room looks big....but I think it's going to shrink drastically when we get everything installed!  It will still be very usable...just not quite as large as we'd like  :)

The mudroom, ahhhh, I'm going to love this spot!   These cabinets will match the kitchen wall cabinets, painted in soft white with inset doors and soft close hinges.  LOVE IT!