If You Give Our House a Bathroom…

We joke that our house projects take lessons from the children’s book If You Give a Mouse A Cookie  by, Laura Numeroff.

(image taken from wikipedia.com)

The book describes a mouse who is given a cookie, after receiving the cookie he asks for a glass of milk, then asks for a straw etc. etc. etc. 

Well, that in a nut shell this is how our house is…especially in regard to a project we have been working on in our basement. See it all started with the simple idea of adding a bathroom, a place for guests to have their own space and a place for little ones to use during play times.

That simple idea led to the thought process… if the bathroom ceiling is opened, lets run a gas line to the kitchen for a new cooktop someday, which led to running a water line for a refrigerator which led to looking at new appliances…a few months later (as the ceiling has yet to be closed up…we discovered that since the ceiling is open, now is as good time as ever to do what feels like another hundred projects…including running gas lines to our fireplaces as our current ones are stuck in the 60’s, not usable and unsafe.

So…our weekend respite didn’t last long after we got home from the cabin, in fact upon arriving C got to work on quite the demolition project!

This is before…notice the random cut-outs in the brick and the lack of brick on the left side of the fire place…so often with this house (which we are SO grateful for!) we have wanted to call the 1960’s up and ask “What were you thinking?”.

The progression of the demolition as it transpired…

B continues to be quite the foreman as he ‘works’ alongside C.

This photo identifies the reason behind the project…it honestly looks like it was a miracle that the mantel didn’t catch on fire from the looks of what C uncovered by removing the psychedelic ‘mid-century’ brick.

This photo seems to captivate the incredible exhaustion that crept in once about 60% of the 60’s bricks had been removed.

I really don’t do well with messes or living in ‘construction zones’…this project (along with the ongoing basement projects) will prove to stretch me in ways that I know won’t be comfortable as I will learn to live with dust and live in the limbo of not having the 1960’s brick and looking forward to our new fireplace, mantle and bookshelves…stay tuned as I hope more progress photos and hopefully after photos will be posted soon!

I have to compliment C…his willingness and enthusiasm towards rolling up his sleeves and learning how to ‘fix up’ our little neck of the wood is phenomenal. I love that I married a willing and ‘handy man’ and even more love that he is instilling a honorable and quite enthusiastic work ethic in precious little B as he patiently allows him to apprentice his jobs and other tasks around our home.  His time and physical labor is such a gift and provides us with the chance to check some projects off of our ‘dream’ list.

Be blessed.