Kitchen renovation

I worked on my island today - getting excited for how it is turning out. I still need to add some more trim and then I'll be staining it a dark walnut. Joe and I have been renovating our kitchen for my Christmas present. It still has a long way to go, but here are a few pictures...

This is a shot of the most recent "before."

Quick Update -- November 6, 2011

Here are our Fall 2011 school pictures for Hannah (kindergarten), Sara (2nd grade) and Emma (4th grade). Super cute, don't you think? They take after their mom :)

Baby number six is on his way and due to arrive any time now. If he hasn't come earlier, Haylee is scheduled to check into the hospital to be induced on ~11/18. Friends and family have held a couple of baby showers, so the baby should have, among other things, a few nice changes of clothes to hold him over until Christmas. We are very excited for the arrival of our first boy.

Mom's Bathroom Remodel

Let me preface this post and my earlier one on the kitchen by saying that my mom is the queen of practicality and frugality. She accomplishes incredible feats on a dime. When we moved into this home my senior year of high school, we were coming from a 70X14 trailer that had housed my parents and (at the time) 10 of their 16 kids. Needless to say, moving into a 2000 square foot basement was really moving up, even if it didn't yet have electricity and we had to cook on the stove (the one used to heat the house, not the one in the kitchen) for the first few weeks. I remember waking up to the noise of dad firing up the generator outside my window so we could use our curling irons to do our hair for school. My sister Shelley and I had a huge, beautiful room that we got to design ourselves. It had a window seat. The pink carpet remnant that was purchased for the room wasn't quite large enough, so we had a 2 foot border of white carpet to finish it off. We also had our own door to the bathroom. It was wonderful!

Halfway through my sophomore year at BYU, the second floor of the house was finished, more than doubling the living space. And it was all done completely free of debt.



So, onto the bathroom remodel... Most of the labor was done over the 4th of July weekend. The bathroom "before remodel" was worse than the kitchen "before remodel" in many ways. There were mold and decay issues in the subfloor where water was continually sitting after so many kiddie baths. Like in the kitchen, the cupboards were mix and match. Pink walls with coordinating (darker) pink mouldings and flowers, linoleum flooring, bare-bulbed fixtures. The mirror was two smaller ones put together. In the before pictures we've already started removing mirrors and wall cabinets. Here it is: The BEFORE...

And AFTER...

Mom's Kitchen Remodel - the Before and After

Earlier this spring, mom asked me about remodeling her kitchen. After nearly 15 years in actual time, and probably closer to 30-40 years of wear and tear, it definitely needed some work. When mom put the kitchen together, there was no budget. All the cabinets were picked up new and used at next to nothing prices. She had about 7 different sets of cabinets, put side by side and painted to "match." She found laminate countertops to put over the top to pull them all together. The best thing about the kitchen, which we didn't touch, was the hardwood floor. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of good before pictures, but you'll get the idea: seafoam green paint with a wallpaper border, mismatched painted cupboards (some with pulls, some without), and the laminate countertops. So, without further ado - The BEFORE and AFTER (in another post, I'll add pictures of the work in between w/some more detail).

Together at the temple

At the end of July, my youngest brother received his mission call to Samoa. Two days later the whole family, siblings and parents and most of the spouses, got to be in the temple together when Jared received his endowment. It was a wonderful day.

I'm a...

BOY!!!

Blessings

Last fall I read Dave Ramsey's "Total Money Makeover." In the past, I have had the thought "Wouldn't it be nice to be totally out of debt? To have a house paid for like the prophets have continually counseled?" But I never really believed it could be. After all, we have TWO mortgages we're paying, thanks to the setbacks in the housing market here in Vegas and across the country, not to mention the school loans and the financial stresses of a growing family. But now that has all changed. I DO believe we can get out of debt, and for the last 6 months we have started working towards that goal. It is going to take years, and in the beginning I was feeling VERY impatient (I still am, at times). I can see the end, and I want it NOW. Funny, how we can be very much like little kids. We think that as grown ups we are pretty patient, but there is no doubt that we can be every bit as whiny and stomp our feet in our own adult ways. I read an excellent talk by Elder Uchtdorf on patience last fall that was exactly the message I needed.

In Doctrine and Covenants 104: 78-80, 82, the Lord speaks to Joseph Smith about his debts and the debts of the Church. It is a powerful passage, another message I got at just the right time:
"And again, verily I say unto you concerning your debts -- behold it is my will that you shall pay all your debts. And it is my will that you shall humble yourselves before me, and obtain this blessing by your diligence and humility and the prayer of faith. And inasmuch as you are diligent and humble and exercise the prayer of faith, behold, I will soften the hearts of those to whom you are in debt, until I shall send means unto you for your deliverance. And inasmuch as ye are humble and faithful and call upon my name, behold, I will give you the victory."

As I look over the last six months of our efforts, I have a grateful, humble heart to see the Lord's hand in blessing us. I won't go into detail over the many, many events that have magnified our ability to make progress against our debts, but one of the greatest blessings has been the ability to SEE His hand and to feel the closeness that is the result of calling upon the Lord and drawing ourselves to Him through sacrifice and an effort to be more diligent in those things that will qualify us for blessings. It is a wonderful process spiritually.

Last month on a quick stopover at my parents house, I had a conversation with my dad about our progress. He made a point that really stayed with me : that the Lord wants to bless us, not only with our needs, but also with our wants. One of the things I have long wanted is to be able to have our girls take piano lessons. We have a piano that was given to us several years ago, but the sound board is cracked and would not hold a proper tune. My thought has been to get a piano that would be good enough for piano lessons and practice once we had made enough progress against our debt, but I have also been painfully aware of the time lost as the girls get older. This week, the Lord filled that desire above and beyond anything I had hoped for. We stumbled upon a piano at an estate sale for a price just outside the budget given us, but we think quite a bit under its actual worth (which we don't know yet). The proprieter at the sale lowered the price for me enough to fit our budget, including sales tax. The piano is beautiful, a Krakauer Bros piano built in 1929 and in excellent condition. The woman who owned it bought it in 1945, presumably the second owner, and has had it ever since. She had it moved from New York, where she lived and where the piano was built, about 20 years ago. Joe, who is currently the only piano player in the family, is pretty pleased with it, I think. :)