Feeling Encouraged!

 Sometimes I stress out about our renovations, but when ever I get a chance to stop by the house and take a look I feel so encouraged! It is really starting to take shape. I know we still have a long way to go, but it is great now because I can visualize everything.  (Above are some older pictures I should have posted of us pouring the footings for the basement, and then the beginnings of the framing of the addition)
What we have done this week: frame the addition roof, continue gutting main floor and we changed the plumbing from the city access to our house (which meant having our front yard completely dug up).

Us standing in our "living room nook"

Jonas in our dinning room

 Seeing what it will feel like to sit in our dinning room... feels good!

 Our main floor - standing in old kitchen

Hiccups we've had this week: We had a noise complaint. It was our neighbor. Kind of sucky because we used to have a good relationship with this lady... but she is just a renter (meaning who knows how long she'll be our neighbor), and all our other neighbors have been really encouraging. The safety people paid us a visit. They told us we needed to post a sign saying it was a boot and hard hat area, and we need a bathroom for the workers. Luckily one of our workers lives just down the street, so he posted the sign below. I love it!

Sporting the hard hat and "boots"

DIY Toy Planter

I made these little guys for my husbands office. I just bought toy plastic dinosaurs from the thrift store, cut a whole in the top (actually a little but difficult), spray painted, put in dirt and plant and done!

I used hens and chicks type of plants (or succulents) because they thrive on little water.

Down House Down!

So much has happened, house wise. The photo above is when we had set up the forms for pouring the basement walls. You can see the two huge beams that are holding up our house... the opening is where our addition will be.
We poured the walls, the house was put back down and the beams have been taking out. The floor has been added onto the addition space, and the walls have been framed in the addition. The trusses (roof frame) have been put up too. The front porch was completely taken away and re-framed. It's awesome to see it all take shape... I can see where the window and doors will be and walk in the space and dream that one day I will being sitting at my dinning room table here.
Next step is completely gutting the main floor, it is about half done right now. Also, inclosing the addition space, then pouring the concrete for the floor in the basement.
Tomorrow I have a meeting with an inspector from the Secondary Suites Program. This is a governement program that gives money to people making secondary suites for low income families. We are really hoping this will work out for us.... but for some reason I am very leery that it will work out. I guess I will just wait and see.

Button bowl!

I made these with my cousins Kendra and Cailey, when they came for a visit in summer.  We took a small bowl turned it upside down, covered it with parchment paper and hot glued buttons, making sure to use lots of hot glue. They are pretty cute!