Clearing Out the Jungle

If you'd seen the 909 house prior to last Friday, you definitely wouldn't think that I was making an understatement if I said that my new backyard was comparable to a jungle, but thankfully, mom and I had the chance to make a dent into the overgrown wilderness Friday and I finished it off (within my capacity) today. (We still need to go back in there with some heavy-duty tools, i.e. chain saw, some other tool to pull up the ground vines and masses of ivy.) Thanks to Erika for watching Caed Friday and mom for watching Caed today so that this feat could be possible!

I can't even begin to imagine when the last time someone pruned the shrubbery, trees or vines in this backyard. They were all over the place. There were even random shirts, shoes, a toilet and unmentionables. If you would have peeked into the backyard last Friday afternoon, you would have seen mom and I practically swinging from several of the vines to pull them down from the trees and yank down all the other garbage that was attached to them. It was quite comical ... and impressive, if I do say so myself. With our joint strength, we took care of quite a bit of work!

Here's a few pictures after our work on Friday (Brad cut down a decent bit of the overhanging branches a few weeks ago):

And here's one of Caed climbing up the stairs on Saturday:

He LOVES his new house and all the exploration that's involved. (Climbing stairs, hitting boards on the floor, clanking the pipes, opening and closing doors, you name it ... what more could a 14-month-old boy want?)

I'll take a few more tomorrow to show you the progress I made today.

Cabinets and More!

909 is really transforming. The cabinets are almost completely in place. The tile guys are set to lay mud room tile today. The trim is completely done, and the painters will be on their way early next week to paint the interior and exterior of the house! (Yikes ... we have to make quite a few more paint decisions!) Shelving is being built for the pantry and plans are coming together for the shelf and desk nooks. I can't believe it ... everything is REALLY coming together!

Here are some of the pictures I took yesterday while Caed and I were deciding on paint colors and working out the details with the kitchen cabinets:

The Back of the House

The Front Door

 The Dining Room

The Kitchen

Upstairs pictures will come in a later post!

By the way, Brad had to run back down to Ikea Wednesday night to pick up more cabinets. Our measurements were apparently wrong and we still had some space to fill (thank goodness it wasn't the opposite problem!) So ... it actually allowed us to have the cabinet configuration that we wanted all along ... with a few glass cabinet doors and all! Although it was a pain in our butt, the contractor's butt and the cabinet installer's butt, it will work out for the best in the end, hooray!

Preparing for Ikea Saturday

Tomorrow's the BIG day .... We're heading down to the Charlotte Ikea to wrap up final details on our new Ikea kitchen and make our purchases. So, in preparation, I'm running through their website today and creating our online shopping list. We plan to get our kitchen cabinets, mud room  cabinets, mud room countertop, shelving for our built-in desk nooks, one bathroom vanity and a few other odds and ends. We hope to take it all home in the Volvo ... ha, just kidding. We're borrowing mom's Trail Blazer and we're renting a trailer, so hopefully that will do the trick. And as you may remember, mom and Judy will be keeping Caedmon Saturday, so we'll be able to have the full day to do this. Sounds exciting and exhausting all at the same time. Wish us luck!