A Day We Have Been Anticipating!

I can't tell you how proud I am of all the hard work Poppy has put in to this project. I know I have helped, and many times my help was essential, but all-in-all, he was the one who has accomplished all that we have done in the past year. A year ago he was just finishing up all the electrical wiring. On Memorial Day we began insulating. Now, here we are the week before Memorial Day and we are ready to set the beds back up and have FINISHED space!! The last room to finish was this one, the room for our darling little grand daughters. I say this, as their twin beds will occupy this space with new bright comforters and eventually bright wall art and window treatments. Here Poppy was finalizing the trim work in the closet. But, this is more than a normal closet. It will have sliding doors to hide the contents, but inside you can go back in this nice big storage area too. It has been stuffed with the beds and boxes all winter. After Christmas we took all the beds down and stored them away for the drywall finishing. Now this evening we began to pull them back out of storage. Hopefully by Friday evening they will all be made up and ready for the family to arrive for the holiday weekend!

We especially loved the color we chose for the girls' room once we had it on the walls. It is called Tropical Mist and just looks "yummy" with a bit of almost a florescent glow.

The really exciting part of today was the arrival of the carpet for upstairs! We are thrilled with our choice and love the coordination with wall colors.

Here is the carpet going up the stairwell, although it may not look that much different than the OSB and bare wood steps. It now is so soft and nice to walk on

Here is the hallway looking down into the back bedroom, where the girls' Mommy, Daddy and baby Jillian will sleep.

We were really happy when we were in Menards last weekend and found the perfect ceiling fans and lights. We had purchased two at Lowes, but they ended up being way too big and hanging down too low. So, they went back and we lucked into a great bargain on these. They are perfect and have completed the whole package. Now tomorrow we will be setting up beds and getting them made up. Over the coming weeks we will have the new space full. This is just what we designed the upstairs for, specifically for sharing our Loon Lake Lodge, our very own paradise.

Closer Still

Well, these past couple weeks have seen Poppy VERY busy with hanging doors and getting everything trimmed out. (I help hold as we hang doors, but I am not much help with the trim.) Here you see the closet doors in the back bedroom, which will be VALUABLE extra storage space!

The upstairs bathroom is taking shape too. We have the linen closet door in place and my little washer I will use for "felting" knitted projects installed. We have looked high and low for just the right mirror and this week when he is in town he is going to City Glass for the right size to just frame white himself. I also want a cabinet above the washer for storage space too.

Another encouraging feature in this bathroom is now some privacy for using the toilet or taking a shower, as there is now a door! This was the door that has been separating the old section from the new, so that was progress in itself to be able to remove that door and put it where it belonged. Hopefully he will get this door trimmed out, the rest of the baseboard in this bath and we can call it done!

We still need to find and hang towel bars/rings and TP holders in both baths, but that will come eventually. Here you see the almost finished half bath, also complete with a door for privacy!!

One big project the past couple days was getting the stair skirting on. These trim boards had to be special ordered after finding none of the "big box" home improvement stores carried them in stock. Poppy worked hard on Thurs. & Friday to get them cut just right, primed and installed.

Here is from the top looking down

and here is from the bottom looking up. Once all the baseboard trim is down, we can get the carpet layers in, which will almost signal completion! Then we will get all the beds back out of storage and set things up for our family to invade us for Memorial Day weekend. Eventually then we will tackle our master bath and be able to move down into our new first floor master bedroom. Maybe by the fall...time will tell. There is so much to do and seems like we keep checking things off the list, but the list is unending.

Poppy is just itching to do more landscaping, but fall is the best time for planting bushes and trees. This area off the driveway was where we took down a big maple tree and a small ash tree. The ground is a mass of roots and tree residue, so we mounded up dirt and added some large bolders Poppy got at the store quarry. Here we work on that, just a tiny start to beautify the yard too. We planted three day lilies among the rocks and will eventually add maybe a bush or two and some ground cover to complete this area. Watch for a photo of the finished affect eventually. Stay tuned for more progress! Ya'll come see us, ya hear?