Funky Christmas Monkey

I just love the Christmas season!  It just seems like such a fun time of year to do special things with the family.  I love all the traditions and special time spent together.

This year has been a little difficult with our living room stripped to the studs and all our decorations in the storage unit.  We won't have a tree and there are no stockings hung so it's a little harder to get into the spirit of  things.  I almost had a melt down the other day when I called the drywaller and he said he couldn't come until after Christmas!  Oh well.  My kids have been such good sports about the whole situation and I haven't heard any complaining from them.

So, in an effort to get into the spirit Christmas, and an effort to teach my children to serve each other I have created the Funky Christmas Monkey!

"Why a monkey", you ask?  Well, it's a long story but what else do you have to do but read my long blog story?!  I went to the craft store to get supplies to make elves.  Of course, they didn't have anything I needed.  I wanted this project to be quick and easy.  So, as I was standing in the store trying to make my brain work I remembered my 13 year old son say a few weeks ago that he always wanted a sock monkey.  I know, weird!!  Don't know where that came from but it actually happened.

I have never made sock monkeys but always wanted to try.  I ran to the sock outlet store and grabbed some really cute knee socks.  I know, wrong socks but what did I know!?  Anyway, made another trip to the store to get the right kind of socks and the other supplies.

Here's the tutorial I used to make the sock monkeys.   This tutorial is fantastic.  It has very clear instructions with great photos!

Here's how my monkey's turned out.  The socks came in a pack of 3 for about $5 and the other supplies were inexpensive too.

Remember the knee socks I bought?  I used those to make hats and scarves for each monkey.

So each of my kids got a monkey and the idea is that each day the monkey does an act of service for someone in the family.  You leave your monkey where the service took place with a little note.  It's a nice way for the kids to think about someone else in the family.

We have only been doing it for a few days but it's been great.  There have been breakfasts made, laundry put away, and lots of bed making.  The Funky Christmas Monkeys have been hard at work.

So, I hope you each enjoy your Christmas season!  Think of me as you look at your beautiful trees.  I'll be dreaming of a drywaller this year and enjoying watching my kids make memories together.  (If only they were all nice memories, right?!)

Merry Christmas!!

Living Room Tear Out

We made the decision early on in the drafting process that one side of the house shouldn't be saved.  The east side of the home is not original and has multiple additions.  There is extensive termite damage and roof-line issues so that side of the house will be torn off next spring and rebuilt with a second story on top.

While waiting for the spring to come (and let me tell you it can't come soon enough!) we will spend the winter remodeling a couple rooms on the west side of the house.  First up is the living room.  Here are some before shots.  Please don't laugh, the last time it was remodeled was obviously in the 80's!

The above photo is of the beautiful bay window in the front of the house.  I have always loved that feature and it adds so much character to the house.  Excuse all the toys!  Can you tell we have kids??

Here's my hubby standing by the west wall.  You'll see a lot of him, never this clean though!

This is my father-in-law.  You won't see him this clean again either!  He volunteered to help gut the room.  I think we need to have him checked out.  Who in their right mind would volunteer to help with this project????  Anyway, we were so thankful for his help.  He worked hard and was so glad to go home when the time came!  He's standing by the wall that has the staircase behind it.

We began in early October by gutting the room down to the studs.  Not an easy task as the home had lathe and plaster walls.

You'll notice there were many shades of shall we say, interesting wallpaper!  We also found adobe used for insulation.  The hubby and father-in-law spent a couple days trying to decide what to do with the adobe.  Should they pull it all out?  Should they leave it?  If they leave it, how do you have room to put modern insulation in the walls?  In the end they decided to leave it and add extensions to the studs and put foamboard insulation on top of the adobe.  Nothing is ever easy in an old house!

Here's the stairway wall.  Do you notice all the dust in the air?  Ah, the dust!  We sealed off all the doorways with plastic and duct tape but I'm not even sure it made any difference.  Everything in the house had a lovely layer of dust!  It seemed like the more I vacuumed, the more dust there was.  It was AWFUL!!

We found little surprises along the way.  The house was built before there were any sort of building codes so we knew we would find some things.  We however, were shocked to find that the wall holding the stairs wasn't sitting on ANYTHING!  That's right, the wall of the stairway was just floating!!

We also exposed old knob and tube wiring,  We knew there was some in the house so that wasn't a surprise.  Here's some photos for those of you who have never seen it.  It's really not the safest wiring so I'll be glad to get it out.

Notice the paper wasp nest attached to the top wire!  Yep, we've been finding nests of things everywhere!!

Speaking of nests, this lovely nest was found in an interior wall.  How in the world did the hornets get into the interior wall?  See, my house is so wonderful, all creatures want to live here!!

The other shocker we found was that the bay window had no header so that wall was sagging.  Below is the hubby, father-in-law, and son trying to fix that issue.  Yep, we put the son to work!!  Quick, call child services!  Just kidding.

Ok, so we even put the little one to work!  Do you love how all my photos look like it's snowing inside?  I told you it was bad!

Anyway, the walls are down' the ceiling is gone' and the insulation is going in.  Progress!  I just have to keep telling myself that!

Here's the stairway opened up.  Yep, that's the hubby's backside.  Sorry about that.  No time for a photo break!  Work faster!!!

Ok, last one.  This is the west wall if you want to compare it to the before photo.

So the work is progressing and I can't wait to post after shots!  Keep checking back to see if I've lost my sanity.  

Maybe I should post a photo of the little sitting room that has become our living room.  Yep, I'll do it!

Here it is.  We were lucky the house had a sitting room right off from the living room.  We barely had enough room to get the couch in and still open the front door.  So, it's a little tight, and yes there is a giant hole in the corner, but hey, we're making progress!  Right?!

Drafting!

Silly me!  I thought the drafting part of our home remodel would be the easy part...NOT!  It has taken weeks, yes weeks, to come up with a plan.  Todd and I have disagreed on more issues than I thought we would.  We had the plans almost done and then it was suggested that maybe we flip things around and put the kitchen on the other side of the house.  Are you kidding me?  I could almost see the light at the end of the tunnel!  Start over?????

Well, I caved!  Want to know why?  Because it got me a bigger kitchen!  Yep, isn't that what life is all about, big kitchens.  Well, not really but if I have to spend countless hours in the same room I sure want it to be spacious and functional!

Our good friend Scott Gibby was our draftsman.  He is an aerospace engineer who does drafting on the side.  He's one smart cookie!  And talented too!  I'm happy to say we are still friends after the whole switcharoo!  We sort of just gave him a list of wants and needs and he fit it all in.  Amazing!

Todd and I spent many hours looking at the plans, asking questions like, "what if we did that?" "well then we would have to change that".  "That doesn't work...what about that."  Sometimes I thought my eyes were going to bug out!  We found that most of the time a good nights sleep solved the problem.

In the end, I think we came up with a great plan and I'm so excited to see it actually come to be!

We gave the plans to two different general contractors for bids.  In the end we choose one that both Todd and I thought would do a good job and be nice to work with.  

So why hasn't construction started you ask?!  While we took a couple days to choose which contractor to go with the one we chose was signing contracts with another family to build their new home.  Yep, we just got bumped to next Spring!

So, another winter will be spent in the cold drafty house, the baby will outgrow the kitchen sink for baths, and I may loose my sanity but who needs sanity, right?!

Tune in next Spring for major renovations and in the mean time we'll be doing some remodeling projects on the side of the house that won't be torn down.