Camp Wanake

6th grade outdoor education is a great week!  Ellie was so excited to go – to know who was in her cabin, who her counselors were, to experience all the things. 

She packed her bag – pretty much by herself… and didn’t forget anything! 

I took her to load up on Monday morning.  It was fun seeing her with her friends with all their anticipation.

    

I found her a few times in the pictures from camp.

         

And she took along a disposable camera – that no kid from this generation has ever seen, used, or will ever use again – and got a few fun pictures.

   

Her counselors were Jordan and Jodi.  Her cabinmates in Moody were Casey M, Alivia S, Ava N, and Bailey P.  A very small cabin, but a lot of fun for her.  

Remodeling: Kitchen

So, our other major remodeling project was our kitchen.  We started the process of thinking about it sometime last summer.  Our driving force was that I wanted more countertop space.  The current kitchen design had appliance garages in both corners which cut off work space.  It also had the wall oven and a lower peninsula that wasn’t really usable work space. 

With that in mind, we talked with Mullet Cabinet about just restructuring a few things (adding and deleting some cabinets).  The price they told us was not as low as we expected.  In fact, they said we could get all new cabinets for not much more than just making a few adjustments. 

So, we met with Mullet Cabinets, who had done the original cabinets in our kitchen and still had the blueprints from them, about designs that included all new cabinets.  We met with Clazak Remodeling, who does everything – cabinets, HVAC, electric, plumbing, and flooring.  Both places gave us 3D prints to look at, met with us to go over them and make adjustments, and were very helpful.  We looked at even removing the existing wall to make a “great room” with our dining/living room area (also not much more expensive to tear a whole wall down!). 

There was a significant price difference between the two.  However, the more expensive one also said they would have it all done in 2 weeks and they would handle all of it.  That was enticing.  However, we went with Mullet Cabinet because we liked their cabinets previously.

    

We talked with Travis Miller about coordinating and doing the parts that Mullet Cabinet didn’t do – tearing out the soffit, pulling out the cabinets, hiring an electrician and plumber, doing the tiling work, etc.  He said he could do it all and work within the timeline that we proposed. 

With all my hesitation and questions about design and style, we met with JT Interiors, a company run by Jara Thomas, a former classmate of Jeremy’s.  She was very helpful.  We sent her some things we liked, showed her the countertops we had chosen, and talked about what we would be keeping around.  She helped us pick out the cabinet color (Sherwin Williams Greek Villa), the tile for the backsplash – and the grout!, gave us pointers on choosing hardware for the cabinets, and suggested flooring (see light color flooring in picture on the left) for in the future. It was worth the fee.

    

I moved our kitchen things to the basement where thankfully, there is a bar top and a small sink.  That was actually what saved our sanity during the remodel.  I had almost everything my kitchen had -- just not an oven… but I had an air fryer, a microwave, a countertop burner, crockpots, an electric skillet, and an electric griddle.  I definitely didn’t find myself complaining much.  Here is our set up and some other pictures.

   

So, cabinets came out the week of spring break (March 23).  The girls wanted to have some fun with our countertops, so they drew fun pictures with sharpies on them. 

              

 

Cabinets went in the Monday after break (April 1).

     

Then, we waited on countertops from Tower Countertop – decided on quartz Gray Lagoon with a concrete finish.  During the wait time, we watched the electrician come and go, Travis (and Ryan, his coworker) come and go, and things slowly come together.  Finally, the countertops went on! (April 17)

Then, the appliances we from Home Appliance went in.  I was most excited about my fridge – a not side-by-side – with ample space to hold more than 1 gallon of milk!  (April 22)

   

Travis worked to get the backsplash on so I could really move in – wipe off the dust and move in the stuff!

Finally, I took a personal day off school to unpack all the boxes and move things back in.  (April 25)  As I was opening boxes, I found this fun note that Madison had left in one of the boxes.

Almost 5 weeks, but it was worth it.  Before and after…

Remodeling: Bathroom and more

We took on a few major projects in the house this year.  We wanted to add a bathroom to the basement for two reasons: 1) We wanted a good space for guests who come to visit, and 2) We wanted a bathroom accessible for people when we are hanging out downstairs.

So, Travis Miller (Miller Construction) oversaw the project.  We took the previous guest room (which I don’t have a really good picture of) and split it in half to make a full bath in one space and a office for Jeremy in the other space.  Here are some pictures of the bathroom:

         

And the office:

   

That meant that some other spaces got a few facelifts as we maneuvered boxes and furniture.  We added 3 bookcases to the basement (by consolidating other bookcases scattered around):

We used one bookcase upstairs to make a nicer area in my office.  And added Madison’s sewing stuff in there as well.

Jeremy’s old office/storage room became the new guest room/storage space.  We plan to add a few decorations so it is not so spartan, but I like the space it gives guests. 

Before (former office):

After:

    

We created shelving space (from my office where it housed toys) to hold travel and camping things and relocated toys to the guest/storage room: