Our House, Year Two: Weeks 23 & 24

We like living in chaos. It’s like our third child.

I say this only because I cannot think of ANY other reason why, when we are already in utter chaos having ripped out the kitchen, we would then decide to go full pelt  and start demo on the guest room & office room .

Yes it MUST be because we thrive on insanity and living like total extreme hoarders.  I blame this craziness entirely on us deciding to take  a vacation which was meant to be in the form of a family trip to Mexico but the cost of replacing the ripped out kitchen quickly took care of that idea. So we changed it to a “staycation” and gave ourselves time to hang out at home which of course spurred us on to finishing what needed to get done. Also it was the first time in 6 months that the guest room was actually not in use so it was a good opportunity to tackle this job.

First up we had to empty out these two rooms which were cram packed full of stuff I hadn’t even seen for months. Hello my formal living room…you look awfully like a junk yard and not the vision I had for this space.

Cluttered living is so now.

Of course demo is tough and it takes time and we were down to a one man crew..well one and a half man crew. Jack insisted on “helping” daddy every opportunity he could get. I think for a 4 yr old being able to smash a wall with a hammer was beyond thrilling and the most fun he’s had in a long time! Who needs Mexico and its beaches anyway??!!!

Ripping out the drywall. A father son teaching moment.

It was at this point that I insisted we make the closet door bigger in the guest room. Previously it was half the size of a normal door and just looked daft so this was our opportunity to fix it. Jon didn’t appreciate me telling him this at 4pm tho when we had to have ALL demo done ready for the drywall crew arriving at 8am the NEXT DAY!!!

And yes the office still looked like this at this point…a half demo-d job.

Office demo in progress.

So Jon had to remove all the old drywall, install new electrics & then add the new insulation into the room all before the guys got here and he had 5 hours or so left to do it. So yes, I put the kids to bed myself that night!!!

We did manage to squeeze in some family fun days out during our staycation and we did get out of the house when the drywall was going on. It’s so loud and dusty that you really don’t have a choice but to escape!

Enjoying dimsum in Chinatown!

We had a day in the city followed by a zoo trip and then a day trip up to the Napa Valley  with visiting family members – I highly recommend Cornerstone Gardens for the kids to tear around in. There’s mini  gardens with lots of cool installations to look  at. And we might have ended the day sipping champagne on the terrace of Gloria Ferrer…another personal fave!

Is it windy here or is it just me?

Whilst we were out having fun here was what was going on back at the ranch….

The nearly after…..

The guest room was slowly getting put back together and its awesome to see how fresh these rooms are now – they always had this old musty smell before but that has gone now yippee!!!

Having a week at home also meant that we were able to have a few meetings and make some  decisions so closets were designed and ordered (hurrah), tile selection was made (more to come on that) and we started  discussion with a landscape architect to help finish the outside.

Once the drywall was on the Felix came back and laid the remaining flooring however we ran out half way through the last room. Turns out the sawmill that we bought the boards from had miscalculated the sq footage in each bundle and we are half a room short. We now have to wait a week for them to deliver more and get the floor laid.

This mean the work wasnt finished in time for my mum arriving to stay so we had to set up a temp guest room in the family room. It’s a mess.

The family/guest room…ahem!

There’s no blinds and the sun come streaming in at the crack of dawn but luckily this has coincided with her jet lag from England and the baby’s early wake time so its kind of  working to our advantage right now!!!

The next big job is sanding and staining the floors. For this to happen we have to move ALL the furniture out of one side of the downstairs and get that done, let it dry a day and then move it ALL back to the other side so that can get done and then let that dry. And as this will include the stairs and family area we will need to vacate the house overnight when this happens. The only issue is we don’t know when this will be so a last min trip away somewhere will be in order.

Our other big drama is that we have more guests coming to stay, some good friends of ours from New York  and they arrive in 3 days to be exact. The rooms are still a wreck.

We just found out that the delayed flooring wont arrive now until Weds which is the same day our NYC guests do – so lord only know what we are going to do!!! Anyone for camping?