Week 6

Week 6 has come to an end and I couldn't be more excited with the progress while we've been gone on vacation!! I came home to the painted walls, new front door and garage door and the flooring is being installed!! I mean seriously!!

The house is starting to come together. I can envision everything so easily now. Oh man I can't even express my excitement!

The Cabinets arrived on time. AND so many other things!!

Here are a few pics I took yesterday while over at the house:

WE. ARE. SO. EXCITED! I just cannot wait until we can move in a decorate. I know these posts may or may not be getting on your nerves by now but for memories sake..I'm documenting each week!


~ Our Shank Family

Week 5

The house is coming along great. We've made a ton of final decisions regarding trim, paint colors, details regarding faux fireplace and much more.

The idea I gave the contractors:

Trim Idea

The doors I want installed throughout home

Lovely Paint Colors! It's time for some color! I took away the color far left though. Way too dark.

We have no ETA on our cabinets and if we don't get one here soon we will be at another stand still.

We've already hit one stand-still with mud on the drywall. We had no heat on at the house and the mud wouldn't dry. Too humid? Too wet and rainy? Not sure. So we scheduled for our heat (gas heat) to be turned on and that didn't happen until 4 days later. Finally last Friday they came on out and hooked us up.

Now the mud is dry and they were able to lay the second coat on. Sanding is going on today and paint will be mixed this weekend!!! And we are stoked.

Other projects are coming along smoothly too! They keep teasing us about painting ourselves...NO! You couldn't pay me to paint a house again. I think Kale would agree!

I had to go to the house yesterday to tell our contractor what color and where we wanted that color. I REALLY hope my decisions will look good. As I mentioned before, I'm definitely no interior designer and everything I got came from pinterest. I just guessed and chose what color and where.

He wrote the notes on the paper I printed out and told me NO CHANGES! Ha. I've made way too many I suppose :) He gave me 24 hrs to make changes and that's it. I decided NOT to think about it at all. I know I will love it.

We are excited but at the same time, we didn't think things would take so long. So, we are just keeping our fingers crossed that things run smoothly and we can move in sooner than later. We are guessing we won't be in our new home before we leave out for our renewal followed by Christmas Vacation. We won't return until after the new year so...We are thankful and grateful anyway!


~ Our Shank Family

Week 4

Week 4 is exciting but we know there is so much left to do. We were hoping for a 5 week turn-around but Kale and I have made SO many changes to hold things up. I mean, we can't go back and do things after everything has been done so we figured why not just get it done now!

A few things we added:

A Faux Fireplace 

I really needed this. I wanted a place to hang stockings and secretly I'm going to miss my enormous fireplace at our current home. While this will be nothing like the one we have now it will still be a great little addition

A seating/hanging area in foyer

Even the tiniest of spaces can still be useful. I decided to add a small custom build in right as we come into the door from garage. One of my biggest pet peeves is a messy counter. Well, for 5 years my husband has come in, put his hat, keys, wallet, belt and knife pack on the kitchen counter. I said no more and added this nifty little area just for him. We don't have nearly this much space but it will work for what we need.

A Laundry Room in Basement

 I WISH my little laundry area could be this cool! But unfortunately it won't be. This is just an idea I had for one off pinterest. Side by side with a cabinet and bar for hanging clothes :) Clean and simple. We originally were going to do something a little nicer in the garage but found out they couldn't put anything through the brick wall. At least they recommended against it. Also with freezing temps...this was the best way to do this. I will be able to do laundry while watching kiddos in rec room.

Upstairs living area {faux fireplace}

Other side of upstairs living room. On right is front door, small coat closet to the left of door then the big opening beside is is my new office space.

Kitchen

Hallway to bathroom, kids rooms and our bedroom.

We've added and changed a ton of other things as well. Door widths because the house was old and we would have had to purchase custom doors. That gets really expensive and we said no. Change the width of the doors instead. Just small odds and ends.

This week Kale also decided it was time to start on Colten's bedroom and bathroom as well.

This is the rec room. Basically storage space right now

This is inside Colten's room. Those pipes will be moved. Walls will go up. Geeze what a mess!

Kale ripping apart the bathroom you see through the opening. It's TINY! But it works for what we need it for!

My laundry space

What a crazy journey. Watching things progress. We have a ways to go! Drywallers are there this week and hopefully as soon as they are done we can get to finishing materials :)!

~ Our Shank Family

Week 3

Week 2 has come to a close. We are a little late sharing the images but I will tell you when I arrived at the house this past weekend...I almost started to cry. YUP. Tears of joy of course.

As ugly as the house was when we first saw it to today... is an amazing difference. I now know why Kale called me out on not having an imagination. The ugly is gone and even though I can't see a "home" yet, I can. I can totally see it. All the hard work we have put into the house over this past few few months is finally starting to come together :)

Here is the progress so far:

 Electrical is complete.

Plumbing is complete.

New door track for bathroom door installed

New rafters {?} for living room ceiling

Upstairs bathtub is installed

They started drywall work

More work has been done such as moving furnace pipe from Colten's room and Tyler's closet to new locations so that A. Tyler's closet isn't obstructed by a huge pipe B. Colten can now have a bedroom that doesn't have pipe coming out of the wall and venting through his ceiling.  And a ton of other changes.

This space was only about as wide as a small doorway. We requested that it be opened as much as possible.

Bad news that turned out ok:

3 roof leaks. We totally did not see that coming. We had a really hard rain over this last week and I'm actually thankful that it rained and the leaks were caught before the project was too far {such as ceilings already installed}. This would have set us back on project and money very quickly. They called out their guy to fix the leaks in the roof and were still able to stay on the job that day. They repaired the roof to the extent of us being able to wait a few years to do this costly project. We are so thankful for their expertise!

We are excited to see things going smoothly and on time. We are looking at moving in as soon as we get back from Thanksgiving vacation and are beyond thrilled!

~ Our Shank Family

Daddy's New Toy

I have always noticed that guys like to call their tools  "Toys". I understand the concept when it comes to a big truck, fancy car, boat etc. BUT a lawn mower? It took THESE moments for me to really realize how much fun a lawn mower is and why it is called a "Toy"

We knew Kale and Colten both could not mow our new property with a push mower which is all we have. So Kale spotted this gently used one and without thinking twice went and tested it out and purchased it. The kids went with him to bring it home and they all went for a ride :)

He was excited like it was the best gift he had ever received on Christmas Morning. I thought it was beyond cute. He's cute. So are the things he chooses to spend money on. BUT I can totally relate. I watched my dad growing up getting all happy over a new rod and reel :)  I. GET. IT. NOW!

Kale is teaching Tyler to mow. He feels a little left out with Colten doing most of the "big boy stuff". I know Kale will get some good exercise if Tyler decides he is going to start mowing too.

Kale's New Lawn Mower + A fun filled Evening enjoying Fall Weather

Our little visitor for the day

Gorgeous sunset down our new street :)

~ Our Shank Family

Demo {week 2}

Demo is complete in the house. They have removed all the old and we are down to the studs. They have started on all new electrical and plumbing. 

I had a meeting last week and this week over at the new house which I didn't expect. I never really knew how much was up to me. I guess for better words: I didn't realize how much I needed to think about in regards to where and how in the new house.

Things like:

Garbage disposal switch. Where did you want this? I asked for it to be placed underneath the sink.

3-way switch questions. Moving air vents around questions. How many can lights? Where is your new table going to be placed so that we can center your new ceiling fixture.

I mean. WOW. I just got hammered with 100 question {not that I mind}. I'm glad they are asking! 

I mentioned homework in the last post - boy was I not kidding!! Lots of things to think about, pick out and draw up for our new house.

Here are some photos of all the demo work. I should really call this post week 1!

Before {when we purchased home}

Day 2

After Week 1

Basement Before

Basement After

And a few more pictures from around the house:

Hallway upstairs leading to bedrooms

From living room

Bathroom

It's been a crazy week. When we go inside it doesn't appear that a lot has been done (I am female) but then Kale points out all the electrical, plumbing, everything that I wouldn't really notice unless he pointed it out. He says they are doing really good and on schedule.

We are really excited. I'm not as excited at this moment as I will be when things go from this to looking like a new home.


~ Our Shank Family