Thankful for so much in 2011!!

As the end of 2011 approaches, we have so much to be thankful for.  On Solid Ground is slowly growing, along with our inventory.  Our family is healthy and Kyle and I are both working steady jobs with promising futures.  Lucy has started preschool, and comes home with new artwork and songs to sing everyday!  But most of all, we are thankful to be safe after the fire in our home in July.  Among the hundreds of thousands of dollars in belongings we did lose, we are unscathed and our family and pets have moved on as if nothing happened.  We are slowly re-collecting the important things we lost and I am rebuilding my wardrobe as Kyle is rebuilding his electronics.  The silver lining is beginning to appear on our dark, soot covered clouds and we couldn't be more excited about the future.

We hope to be in our home by the end of January, but at least by Valentine's Day.  As progress continues to be made, we will continue to document the changes and all the excited happening on the northside of Sheridan Ave.

Perhaps the biggest change to our home will be the re-configuration of our kitchen.  Finally our modern refrigerator will not have to stick out from the space that was built for a fridge in the 1920's.  We are expanding the cabinet space and updating everything to have a retro but modern feel.

Perhaps the biggest change in the kitchen is the portion of the wall that is coming down between the dining room and kitchen to open things and up and allow for the cabinets to move to the left wall, which was completely void of any storage in the past.  Although, I had hoped they could completely take the wall out, they had to leave some space for an air duct.  You can see but the pictures below how nice and open the space will now be.

This wall was the original spot for our sink therefore, we had the sink moved to the left wall under the large window.  The plumbing has already been roughed in to accommodate my large apron farm sink.

The basement is also taking on many changes.  We are expanding the bathroom to fit a tub shower combo (2nd full bathroom!).  We have also added a small linen closet in the bathroom hallway and expanded the closet on the right side of the basement to accommodate either my office and craft storage or my wardrobe.  We will see if I can stomach the idea of moving my wardrobe back downstairs after the trauma it suffered in the fire.  Some nice new can lights have been installed in Kyle's "man cave" space.

We hope to have drywall by the end of next week, so stay tuned!  Happy Thanksgiving weekend!