What's Going on Around Here

Major renovations have begun. This cabinet, between the kitchen and dining room, is now totally gone, leaving me with more counter space and more light. It's very rough - we spent a lot of time figuring out the timeline of what has to happen first around here.

And the first step turned out to be moving the laundry room to the basement. We lifted the laminate flooring to discover water on the cement. Not a good sign. We had roto rooter out. Our lovely curly willow tree's roots are clogging the drain tile. So that's going to disappear soon. Meanwhile, this week, the roto rooter boys are going to install another cleanout so they can get access all around the house. And they'll cut the roots and clean out the drain tiles.

After the laundry room is moved downstairs, then the staircase will be turned around.

The picture above was taken while we were still thinking about the house. The front door is about 10 feet from the staircase opening and my first impression on walking in was this gaping staircase leading down. We have drawn and played with many ideas and the easiest solution is changing the staircase direction. It will give us more space between the hall and living room, and will improve the access to the basement as well. 

After the staircase is moved and the walls redone, then we can install the hardwood flooring. I can hardly wait to get rid of this oh, so green carpet. But I need to be patient. Tim works full-time and does all this renovating during the evenings and on weekends. I do what I can, which isn't much in the way of construction. 

So I will live in a construction zone for many months. Our bedroom is done, the green carpet is banished. I study, cook, and clean, and did I mention study, with a bit of gardening and wedding planning and sewing thrown in. Thursday I'll finish my current list of courses and then I'm going to sew and garden more.

Here's a bit of stitching that I did recently - on a round robin sampler. This stitcher sent along a bag of threads, beads and other inspiration to use on her sampler. After I took the photo, I packaged it all up, wrapped it nicely and took it to the post office. When I returned home I was shocked to find the sampler neatly folded up, sitting on the table. I had sent the supplies without the sampler. Not too smart. But the sampler is now on its way and will catch up with the threads.