Updated Page Design

I decided to try and update our page to look more Irish. I think I succeeded! I am going to try and get some new pics of the kids at my mom and dad's house this past week, along with some stories of the trip. A preview...and probably my favorite story: K. likes to turn on the light in the powder room herself and Grandma holds her up so she can do it. The light is on a dimmer and somehow she not only turned it on, but dimmed the lights too. We tried to turn the lights up, but she quickly stopped us and told us to leave the lights low as she was "romance pottying". K. then left the lights low so Papa could "romance potty", too! Where does she come up with these things?

Dancing Queen

We have another dancer in the house. K. frequently requests songs to dance to from I Tunes and we generally oblige. Now it appears as if the youngest has an affinity for dancing, too. She doesn't get her moves from her mom or dad...she's actually quite a good dancer! (Sorry the video flips...I cannot figure out how to edit the movie to get it turned right).

OK, let's see how my first blog attempt goes. I thought I would add a few photos to go along with what Erin wrote in the previous post. I have some before and after shots of the framing work. Let's start in what will be the toy room/storage area. Here are the before and after shots:

Now we move into the main room of the basement. This is the big room that you entered into when you went through the door at the bottom of the basement stairs. My neighbor Chris is starting the first wall of the project....the back bedroom wall. In the photos you can see the north side of the basement (front of house) where Chris is working and the south side of the basement (back of house) where Erin and Meghan are heading back upstairs. So here is before:

And after Day1 of framing: The picture on the top is the new bathroom for the basement. The 3 pipes you see in the foreground were the position of the rough in bath.....more on that later. The picture on the bottom is where Erin and Meghan were exiting

So now on to those three pipes. The small one in back is for the shower drain, the middle one is for the toilet, and the tall one in front is for the sink with a vent to the roof. The small room framed just behind those is the new bathroom. It seemed like a better location than RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BIGGEST FREAKING ROOM IN THE WHOLE BASEMENT. Seriously, who designs that and thinks it is a good idea. The shower drain was too close to the toilet drain anyway.... unless you prefer to keep your left foot in the shower when you sit on the toilet. It had to be moved some anyway, so we covered the difference between the one hour of work for the small move and the 5 hours of work I proposed. It is amazing what a guy with a jackhammer and a skilled plumber can get done in 5 hours. Let's start with the jackhammering of the floor and digging out the rock:

I worked for about 2.5 hours on Friday night and Sat. carrying all of that basement slab and displaced rock out of the basement to the dumpster. It was 12 5 gallon buckets (4 wheelbarrows) of rock to carry up the stairs.

Here is the new bathroom with the plumbing in place:
The 3 blocks behind the pole show the old location.


And now the grand finale. Yes I shot a nail though my finger. The boards I was nailing had knots. The top board had a visible knot that I avoided, but the stud had a hidden knot that bent the nail 90* out into my L index finger. It went in the thumb side and out on the middle finger side. I didn't know until 2 hours later that it actually hit my middle finger and just started to go in it. I thought the blood on my middle finger was from where it was touching the index finger. Remarkably, it did not really hurt. I felt it of course, but thought maybe the wood splintered. The tetanus shot I got on Monday hurts more than the finger. Who would have guessed that? No tendon, bone, nerve, or vascular damage. So without further ado, here are the photos of my finger with a nice little hole through it.



I have to go take one of my two antibiotics I am on now to keep my finger from falling off. Not bad for my first post. Now I know to add all the photos first, then type where you want the words. Our love to everyone.

-Kevin

And the basement project is underway

Kevin started working on the basement last weekend with the neighborhood "construction crew". After 12 hours, they had framed the first section. This past Thursday the plumbers came and relocated the bathroom drains that they had originally put in the wrong place. Yesterday Kevin and crew finished the framing (with the exception of a few soffets). They were just about finished when I hear a few choice words and Kevin comes running up the stairs to the bathroom. He said there was a knot in the wood he was attempting to nail (with the nail gun). When the nail went into the board, it hit the knot and shot out at an angle and right through his finger. Literally, all the way through. There was not much bleeding (surprisingly so) and he said it didn't hurt at all. He is headed to the MD today for a tetanus shot and to see if he needs some antibiotics or anything. So, first injury out of the way, and we hope it is the last one, too.
The job they are doing looks great and I can't believe we are to the point of plumbing, electrical, and HVAC already. Once all the "guts" are in place, we can hang the drywall and from there we will be in the home stretch! The deadline for basement completion is July 11th so P. can have his b-day party in the "batcave" with his buddies! If we continue in the present vein, I imagine he will get his party in the batcave.
On another note, M. has cut three teeth on top. It has been a hairy few weeks, as she was very uncomfortable while they were coming in, but we ae hoping she will be feeling better soon. Just one left to come in and then she will go from having just 2 teeth on the bottom to having 6 total! It will look funny to see her with a mouthful of teeth!