How my husband spent his day off.

Monday, the entire family had the day off.  The schools are closed because of the race (yes, one of our sister schools in the county is literally within a couple of miles from the track, on a main road, so it is very dangerous for the school buses to be in all that traffic).  I took the day off so I wouldn't have to fight I-20 race traffic trying to get to work, and it was Marty's scheduled off day.

Since Marty's day's off are few and far between lately, and since it was such a gorgeous day, he wanted to try to get some work done on the house.  So, instead of doing something easy like cutting our little bit of grass with the riding mower, he decided to start a HUGE project...

He's starting the stacked rock on the foundation!!  I am so stinkin' excited I can't stand it!  I think it's going to make the house look so much better!

I just hope it won't be a long time before he gets another day off work!

Just when I thought I couldn't get ANY happier....

This is what hubby did today:

We just like the trim on the top of the cabinets, the crown molding, and some heavy-duty adhesive remover where we just removed the protective covering from the vent hood, and the kitchen is DONE!

I guess we could say we had a pretty productive stay-cation!

I am the happiest wife in the world!

Because my sweet hubby used his summer vacation time to do THIS for me:

TAHHH DAHHHH!

He still has to remove the shims, clean the mortar up, and put down the tile for the floor, but the hard part is D-O-N-E!!

I can't tell you how excited we BOTH are!

Tomorrow, he starts on the kitchen:

The hole in our wall is at least half-way finished

Hubby has been working massive overtime for the past month, so progress has been S-L-O-W!  

Don't get me wrong, I am EXTREMELY thankful that he has a good job and his overtime is bringing in some much-needed moola, but DANG......

I want my house back!

We pray think all of the "bugs" have been worked out and the rest will be smooth sailing.

We spent 1/2 a day on Friday working on the mantle.

Here is a picture to show what problem we had...

Because our corbels were so thick, the mantle wasn't wide enough to cover them....so, we had to bump it out an extra few inches....causing a big gap.

Because of this gap, we had to cover the top of the mantle with another wider piece of wood.

Hubby's router is on the fritz, so we decided to cover the edge with molding instead of trying to round it out.

I think it looks pretty good....but final verdict will come when it's stained.

UGH, I don't even want to think about that!

But I have told hubby that if the stain gives us ANY problems....that baby is going to end up GLOSS WHITE!

I think this fireplace has caused us enough drama without freaking out over stain!

Praying that the fireplace is finished before our friends come in two weeks!

Wish us luck!

Fireplace remodel: End of day 2 1/2

This fireplace remodel is driving me crazy!

How do people remodel NECESSARY rooms (Like Kitchens, Bathrooms) and remain sane?

We are just adding rock around our fireplace, and I am about to loose my mind!

I swear, my living room looks like a rock quarry exploded!

There is mortar, rock, dust, sand everywhere!

Anyway, of course this remodel is taking about a million times longer than we thought it would. If anything could go wrong, it has....

The story of our life.

Today's drama centered around the fact the the gorgeous corbels that I bought to go with the mantle are too thick.....they stick out past the front of the mantle.

After going over 100 different scenarios, and spending an hour in Lowe's, we came up with a solution. We are hoping that our fix will work as we hoped!

Stay tuned to see if it does!

Because of hubby's work schedule, he can't do any rock work during the week, so progress has been limited to weekends.

So, here are the results at the end of day 2 1/2 (one full day yesterday and a partial day today....he has to work tonight, so today was cut short):

The mantle will stained (hopefully) to match our cabinets.  He just has the mantle and corbel temporarily up there to get good measurements for the supports and the rock.

The keystone and the arch took forever to complete, but I think it turned out fantastic!

We are praying that everything else from here on out will be smooth sailing.

But you know how that goes....lol!

The fireplace isn't the only thing getting a facelift around here!

The past couple of weeks I have been showing you the S-L-O-W progress of our fireplace remodel:

Here

Here

Here

and Here

But our fireplace isn't the only thing getting a makeover around here....

I finally took the plunge and had my hair cut and highlighted.....

For the first time in TWO years!

I mean, I occasionally color my hair at home, but it's been two years since I've had anything "professional" done.

Friday, hubby and Jameson were at home, planning some things for the fireplace, and Chelsea was with her Nana, so it seemed like a good time to have some "me time".

My "regular" stylist wasn't there, but fortunately, I knew one of the other stylists there.

I put my hair in his capable hands!

I was a little "shocked" by the outcome, but I am pleased with the result.

In case you don't remember, here is my "before":

(You may want to click on the picture to read the captions...lol)

And now my "after":

I'm a.....a.....a........

BLONDE!

It's much lighter than I've ever been, but I am loving it now.

Tyler knew what he was doing!

I may have also had a little work done on the other end, too.....

My sheets and socks and hubby's legs are VERY thankful!

Now, the only problem I have now is FIXING my hair every day!

TYLER, do you think you could just move in with me and style my hair every day?

Please?

End of day one

Well, here it is at 1:45 am, and hubby and I are getting ready to clean up and go to bed.

It's been a LOOOOONG day!

We were fortunate that Jameson let us *sleep-in until 9:00 this morning.

* meaning he comes in our room about 10 times and asks us if he can have a snack, have some milk, watch cartoons, play on the computer...but we don't actually have to get UP.

Once we got up and ate some breakfast, hubby went to work on the fireplace project.

The majority of the daylight hours were spent prepping the floor for the hearth tile.

However, we (Marty) didn't lay that tile because then he wouldn't be able to walk on it for a few days and he wasn't ending this day without some rock on that wall!

Here's the first globs of mortar going down.....

And now, the first rock is placed.....

***LAAAAAAAAA***

(That's the sound of the angels singing in Heaven...lol)

After a few hours, the first three rows were done....

Then after a few more hours, 2/3 of the legs were finished.

Now here is where Marty decided to call it a night....

We can officially say the "bottom" of the fireplace is now complete!

The pictures really don't do the rock justice.  The flash highlights all of the mortar joints that you cannot see in real life and we also still have all of the spacers and shims in place to hold the rock where it needs to be overnight.

Hopefully, from here until completion, it should be a much more simple process.....

Except for the arch and the keystone.....

But I'm not going to think about that for now....

I DO want to actually get some sleep tonight!

A little bit of progress....

It's the weekend, so there has been a tiny bit of progress in our fireplace remodel....

We've had the sand delivered.....

Jameson is super-excited to have a sand pile to play in....

As is the neighborhood's cats.

We've purchased the hearth materials.....

And we no longer have a big, gaping hole in our fireplace wall....

Notice that all the black around the fireplace is now gone?  I think it's going to look so much better!

It's supposed to be a warm, beautiful day, so I am hopeful that progress WILL be made today....

Keep your fingers crossed for us.

I just HAD to open my BIG, FAT mouth!

Well, as I told you on Monday, our rock for our fireplace/vent hood/foundation was delivered on Monday.  Because of various reasons (waiting on keystone, work, rain), we (Hubby) just starting playing around with the rock today.

He laid out several pieces so we could get a feel of how everything would look.

It looked good, but for some reason, we were having a hard time getting it to look like my "inspiration photo".

Well, then I had to go and open my big mouth and say, "Well, the reason we don't have as much room as in the inspiration photo is because the rock on that fireplace goes all the way down to the edges of the fireplace opening. We've got all this black metal that we are trying to work around."

Well, hubby comes up with an idea to fix it.

He first decides to try to just take the face off the firebox.....

After about an hour, unscrewing about 1000 screws, and jerking the thing to pieces, it didn't work.

 

The face is somehow permanently attached to the firebox.

PERFECT....GRRRRRR!

Then he makes the decision to just slide the entire box back by 1/2", so the concrete backer board will just sit flush over the face of the firebox.

Sounds easy enough, right?

Well, to do that entails removing ALL of the surrounding concrete backerboard, AND cutting away the studs that are holding the firebox in place.

So as of right now, this is what our fireplace wall looks like....

All I wanted was some rock on my wall......

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If you want to keep up with all the drama as it's happening....look over at the right-hand side of this page and read my Tweets....or better yet, click the link over there to follow me on Twitter!

It's sure to be an interesting few months weeks!

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Is it wrong for a grown woman to be THIS excited about ROCK?

No, I don't me "Rock" as in "Rock and Roll", I mean "Rock" as in the kind of hard thing you find outside in the yard.

Three-and-a-half years ago, when we were planning this house, our plans ALWAYS centered on the use of rock.  Specifically, we wanted a stacked stone fireplace, foundation, and as an element above the vent hood in the kitchen.

We poured over photos, magazines, websites, and brochures; drove around new neighborhoods, and visited numerous vendors just looking for the "perfect" rock.

No matter how much we looked, we always came back to one type of stone....

El Dorado Bodega Bluffstone

We centered all of our color and design decisions around this particular stone.

There was one problem, however....

The price.

El Dorado is expensive.....very expensive....

And as we got to the end of the building process, and the end of our budget....

We just couldn't afford it.

There were other, less expensive brands out there, but Hubby was adamant that if we couldn't get exactly what we wanted, we would wait.

So here it is, two years later.....still no rock.

I've gotten pretty used to looking at my concrete backer board wall that holds our television and fireplace...

And gotten used to my concrete block foundation and steps....

And I've attempted to get used to the open frame above the vent hood....but it's just so darn UGLY!

(Hubby didn't want to put the concrete backer board up yet because he didn't want to risk getting grease residue on it.)

But after two years, I am ready to live in a FINISHED house!

(Actually after 22 years, I'm ready to live in a finished house..... Remember, "slacker mama" married a "slacker daddy"....)

I am also ready to have a mantel to decorate!

Well, this weekend, part of our dreams came true....

We were able to FINALLY order our rock!

Not only were we able to order rock, we were able to order El Dorado Bodega Bluffstone!

And the BEST part....it was ON SALE for CHEAPER than the "other" brands!

WOOO HOOO!

They delivered it this morning, and hubby and I are about to bust a gut because we are so excited!

 

 

We are also very fortunate that one of our friends just finished building a house and had eleven boxes of another brand of rock left over, and sold it to us for a really great price. 

THANKS MORGAN AND ADAM!

When we put the two brands side-by-side, they match perfectly!

 

We may have enough rock between the two, to finish the inside AND the outside of the house!

Marty is so raring to get started putting it up, he almost took a week of vacation....

But the keystone isn't in yet, so we were going to have to wait a few more days anyway.

However, it looks like hubby will be starting on Friday!

We know it's going to take a LONG time to get it finished, but any progress is better than no progress!

Hopefully, I will have some great finished pictures soon!