The Reno: February

On Feb. 1, a big truck came and brought several sheets of drywall. This is our living room now.

Our kitchen...the only place we can hang out or eat is the downstairs couch.

Master bedroom...since we have no closet and our room looks like this, Scott and I moved downstairs. Imagine two people's clothes spread out all over the floor, along with all of our other items we had to remove from the upstairs. It's a mess.

Scott sleeps in the guest bedroom, which I found out has scratchy sheets. Note to self: buy better sheets after this is over. Besides the scratchy sheets, a queen bed is too small when you are used to a king size. I'm sleeping on the couch.

February 13 - the kitchen.

February 24 - we have more cabinets!

This big cabinet is stationed in our living room. It will eventually go in the master bathroom.

Downstairs bathroom. We have a new floor!

Master closet...shelves.

Zach's Interests

Here's a poster of Zach's interests from school.

He likes to eat at Old Chicago and some of his favorite foods are mozzarella sticks, cheeseburgers and mac-n-cheese.

He likes soccer (Rush is his club team, Sporting KC is the professional team in Kansas City) and two schools - Wichita State University and Kansas State University.

I see some nods to the tech industry...instagram, YouTube...and of course, Apple!

He also likes ping pong, Nike, Harry Potter (in the upper right corner is the Deathly Hallows symbol, for you Muggles out there), and beagles!

The Reno: January

Master bath - removed garden tub with jets. We used it maybe two times in the last 14 years and it had become a place to store toilet paper.

 Re-configured the master bath and closet.

With the wall...

Wall is gone in the kitchen!

Fireplace tile torn out.

Front entry tile gone.

Living room carpet - gone. We won't get our wood floors installed until March.

Women's March

Mom and I marched in Women's March on Saturday. The political climate has been quite volatile and challenging the past few months. The march was about women's rights, and not about the current White House administration, but some women I know are disappointed by the current president's behavior and policies. There were marches all over the country and thousands of women showed up for them.

At the gathering spot near the Keeper of the Plains. There were women and men of all ages and backgrounds!

Some signs we saw...

Walking along the route...

At City Hall.

The Renovation

We started out needing to replace our kitchen hardwood floors and paint the ceiling in the kitchen.

We ended up renovating *almost* the entire house...the only rooms that didn't have anything done to them are our basement storage rooms. 😒

Here's what happened:

We wanted to replace our honey oak hardwood kitchen floors and repaint the kitchen ceiling.

We were told it might be hard to match the stain on the floor, so it might be better to replace the floor altogether.

OK - that's cool.

Well, if we're going to replace the floor, we might as well go darker and trendy with the new "hand scrapped" floors with boards of varying lengths.

But wait...if we go darker with the wood in the kitchen, then it won't match the rest of the honey oak throughout the house (trim, bathroom cabinets, etc).

OK - let's stain all the trim and cabinets!

Well, if we stain all the wood darker, it won't match the current bathroom tile floors or entryway.

OK - let's replace the bathroom floors and entryway with something that matches!

Oh wait...the fireplace tile won't match now.

OK - let's replace the fireplace tile!

If we are going to replace the bathrooms, we might as well re-configure the master bath to something more user friendly.

OK - let's gut the master bathroom!

But wait - the carpet in the living room is showing wear, even though we just replaced it five years ago.

OK - let's go wood in the living room too!

Oh wait - now the paint doesn't really match.

OK - let's repaint the entire house!

While we are at it, let's remove a wall in the kitchen to make it a more open space.

OK - knock down a wall!

We could add a bunch of cabinets to the blank wall in the kitchen too...

OK - let's add cabinets!

The Reno (and it should be capitalized because we lived and breathed the house renovation for a good four months) officially started today.