Home improvement...

Sorry for the radio silence on my end of the world.

Life has simply gotten in the way of my blogging.

Darn life!

That and I haven't felt like I have much to say these days. Well, that's not totally true...I have stuff that's been percolating in my brain - some of it adoption related and much of it stuff that I'm working through in therapy - but none of it is quite ready to come out and play.

Hence...radio silence.

So, in the spirit of at least getting back in touch I will mention that our house is finally on the mend.

Woohoo!

After finally admitting that the flood damage was just too much for us to handle on our own, my fabulous husband tracked down and hired a young energetic contractor guy to come in and fix the place. And fix it he has!

Wet dry wall - out!

New dry wall - in!

Plaster - up!

Today Young Energetic Contractor Guy returns to install new water-proof PVC baseboards.

It's wonderful knowing that soon our basement will be returned to us and we can get back to living in our entire house - not just three rooms.

The best part of having Young Energetic Contractor Guy come in is that we asked him to demolish a small storage room right off the main living area. It seems as though the original owners of the house intended to make the room into a bathroom, but only ever installed a crummy tiny little itty-bitty mostly useless sink.

No toilet.

At one time we looked into having a toilet installed, but it was just crazy expensive. So we used the room for storage. By having the room demolished, it opened up a huge amount of space in our laundry/utility/furnace room. Enough room that we can finally install a big useful functional utility sink and a laundry sorting/folding table! And still have room for storage!

Yay!

We will also be installing what apparently should be in every New England home - a sump pump.

Which, of course, we'll probably never actually need considering they're saying that the floods here were a freak thing in a "once every 100 years" kind of way.

But we're taking no chances.

The sump pump goes in the now enlarged utility room in the lowest part of the room. So that - on the off chance that more than three feet of water decides to make its way up through our foundation anytime in the future - we'll be ready for it!

(Oh, and by the way, in case you ever experience this particular kind of flooding - where the water table is SO high that it has nowhere to go except up through your home's foundation...just know that according to your homeowners' insurance - even the kind with a flood rider - that this is apparently considered "normal seepage." Not exactly sure how anyone can think that a foot of standing water in your basement is "normal seepage" but that's what our insurance company told us. Yeah, whatever...)

The other great thing about having our basement re-done post flood is that it forced us to get rid of a lot of things. We used a large finished room off of the main room for all the years we've lived here as a storage room and as the cats' toilet room.

Stupid really to have wasted such valuable space for storage and kitty toilet.

So now that room is pretty much cleaned out.

The kitty litter box is currently living in the bathroom, but will be moved down to the utility room upon its return to the basement.

So that leaves a nice finished room (listed originally as a bedroom) free for my use as a studio. I'll be moving my drafting table and all of my art supplies from their current location in our guest room to the downstairs.

This is a very good thing.

Not only for me to have a dedicated space I can call my own for my creative endeavors, but also because it finally means that we can begin the process of converting our guest room into the baby's room.

"I think it's time," I tell Chris, "to get that room a little more ready for the kid. I didn't want to have a whole nursery set up when we started the adoption, but I think it's at least time to clear out the room and paint it. To say to the Universe, 'OK, we're really ready. Send us a kid.'"

He gives me a sideways glance.

"You really want to paint that room?"

Yep.

And, conveniently, one of the colors that I had been thinking of for my new studio wasn't quite right, but it would be perfect for a little girl's bedroom!

We'll see if Chris is OK with this, but since he gave me a "I'll leave the nursery decoration all to you" just a few weeks back, I'm thinking that the color will be approved.