Demolished

The drywall is gone, the floor pulled up, and new, mysterious wonders have been revealed of course. Our carefully charted calendar is already 2 days behind schedule. It all happened while we were on our beach vacation, and while I was a little nervous about not being there, it was also very relaxing and wonderful to stop thinking about it for large periods of time. I am so lucky to have 2 wonderful families to vacation with! (Beach photos are here)

The naked kitchen looks pretty disgusting, after being enclosed for so many years, and I hate to think about what will go back to lurking there once it's all nicely sealed up again.

Several things were revealed, which in the time-honored tradition of this house, makes people who work on it scratch their head and say, "Huh."

• There was no subfloor beneath one cabinet - they had just plopped the cabinet down to cover the hole.
• There was drywall slapped on over stucco in one place (where the original outside wall had been).
• And the beams... something about, "What was holding up the roof?"

You can sort of see beams held together with nails

The plumber and electrician are set to come early this coming week, and the painter will also start on the bedrooms. We've picked out a lavender color for Marina's room with a raspberry trim, and Ethan's will be the same green as the kitchen, perhaps with a different trim.

One morning on our vacation we ventured out to buy light fixtures from Lights Beautiful in Ventura. Brian had been very helpful on our 2 previous visits to the store, so I was glad to give him our business, and he gave us the 20% contractors' discount.

And just before we left for our vacation (delayed one day because of all the moving and packing) we took advantage of a Sears 15% off day and purchased our dishwasher, range and microwave. Yay! More things to cross off the list, and fewer decisions to revisit obsessively.