Home remodel back on track!

For three years, we have been living in the back apartment while the front house was undergoing a remodel. We put the remodel on hold when the recession started and Papa Bear's business slowed down. Then I got pregnant and we once again started on the remodel. But Papa Bear's work starting to pick up again and when there is work, Papa Bear has to work. We had hoped to be in the house by the time Baby Bear was born, but that did not happen since Papa Bear was pretty busy with work. It was a good thing that Papa Bear was busy because that meant income, which is important when you have a baby.

Now Baby Bear is a one year old and walking! Papa Bear is really motivated to get us in the front house and has told me that we will be there by Labor Day. Papa Bear has been working really hard the last few weeks and has taken some time off to devote to our home remodel (usually he is working on other people's homes, so our home usually falls down on the priority list).

Our house was built in 1913 and Papa Bear has had the electrical work redone in our garage, had the exterior paint touched up and finished, had the rock work on our chimney and porch fixed, and had our hardwood oak floors patched up. Papa Bear has made a lot of progress on our kitchen. Initially, we did not plan to replace our cabinets since that was out of our budget. So we were going to live with the old cabinets for the time being. But Papa Bear was able to get us some beautiful custom built cherry wood cabinets for our kitchen for almost free! A client was tearing out these beautiful kitchen cabinets and replacing them. Papa Bear offered to demolition the kitchen for free and in doing so was able to take the kitchen cabinets. So we got custom cabinets for the cost of labor to have some of his workers remove the cabinets. Papa Bear measured out all the cabinets and got out his trusty pencil, graph paper, and ruler to design a kitchen that would work with the cabinets and he did a wonderful job! It was almost as if those cabinets were custom made for our kitchen.

Over the weekend, Papa Bear demolished our existing kitchen cabinets with the help of his father and he installed the cabinets. The other day he purchased our new stainless steel LG kitchen appliances:




Aren't they beautiful. They go very nicely with the dishwasher that we got from the Ellen Show last year (which Papa Bear designed the cabinets around). I am so excited to have a beautiful kitchen. I can't wait to use them.

There is still much for Papa Bear to do: granite counter tops and tile backsplash, our bathroom, refinishing the hardwood floors, paint, etc. We are well underway. I will post some kitchen in progress pictures soon. I am so lucky to have such a talented husband.