Spring Cleaning May Commence!

Hurray!!  The basement is pretty much done except for some very minor things.  Here are some pics of the flood and then some after pics.  I was mostly taking the before and after pictures for my mom...who already knows what the original basement looked like, so they aren't the best if you have never seen the basement before.  Apologies.  We also got the air ducts cleaned this week too so now I can officially start dusting without worrying about all my hard work being undone in a day or two.

This one is before the demolition started.  You can see the ceiling is saturated, it was literally raining in the basement.    History of the Flood:  A pipe feeding the kitchen sink froze and then busted just below the the main floor level back in January.  More than 200 gallons of water were pumped out of the basement.

Here is Utah Flood and Fire at work...you can see all of the carpet was trashed and several of the walls and most of the ceiling had to be ripped out.

This section was directly below the kitchen sink...it took almost 2 weeks to dry it out, and that was with about 30 industrial sized fans in the basement.  Yeah, our power and water bill were a little outrageous for January.

Here you can see they are busy ripping out the ceiling.  You will notice the basement is not very open.  When the house was originally remodeled...some major short cuts were taken.  As we started the remodeling process we found out why, there is a main sewer pipe running right down the middle of the room.  Instead of jack-hammering and re-pouring the foundation to move the pipe, the guys trying to flip the home just built around them.  So the room was all funky and broken up with a closet and nook jutting out into the middle of the room.

This is horrible shot of the bathroom...but it was built as a shower for two.  We're not sure what went on in that bathroom before we moved in??  Don't want to know.  But the shower took up about 60 percent of the bathroom, there was no counter or cabinets...just 1 huge shower with an itty bitty sink and toilet.  Not very functional.

Here is an after pic of the laundry room.  Nice level tile floor.  Before it was concrete that was majorly sloped.

New paint, walls, ceiling, carpet, and a look how nice and open.  No more sewer main running into the middle of the room.  Ignore the huge tarp I laid out to make a stack of all the linens that needed washing.

Functional, beautiful bathroom.  The bathroom still needs a mirror of above the sink but there is actually a counter top, cabinets, and a window in the bathroom now.  

Oh, PS...we finally made the plunge and bought a car!  No more 1994, smurf blue, manual Ford Escort, 190,000 miles, with no air conditioning.  No more expensive car repairs every 3 months.  No more rental cars for driving excursions outside a 45 mile radius.  No more 1997, green Jetta, with no functional heater...etc.  Just a shiny, pearl white, 2013 Subaru Outback parked in our driveway.  Oh, and a car payment :(  Getting use to being a 1 car family will take some time but luckily we live really close to work and have a bus pass.

Here is Chris showing off the trunk space.  Large enough for a 6'1", 180 lb man plus some.  Oh and the next two pictures are just for fun.  I am wondering what baby Chloe will look like?  We have pretty much decided to name her Chloe.  Here are pictures of Chris and I around the same age.  Maybe 5 or 6 yrs old?  Chris's parents seem to have misplaced his baby book, so this is the youngest picture I have ever seen of him.  I'm sure it will turn up some day.  But in the meantime enjoy.

And yes...no need to remind me that I haven't aged a day since I was 5 yrs old.  I am reminded of this fact all the time :)  Same little button nose...my adult nose decided not to grow in.  Also gotta love sponge curlers right!  Hated sleeping in those things.

And what to say about Chris...he's adorable!

April Update

This post is going to be all sorts of random...just stuff we've been up to.  We took my parents on a mini vacation down to St. George and Zion's National Park last week.  My mom's compulsive nature to work compels her to clean, cook, garden, re-caulk the sinks, paint the base boards, etc...whenever she visits.  So we decided it best that she spend her vacation time away from the Salt Lake House while she visited.  It was a great idea and my mom really enjoyed it.  

Here we are at the top of Angel's Landing.  PS- I have done this hike 4 times now and NEVER EVER EVER have run into such a crowd of people climbing to the top, do not hike this during spring break.  For those Everest obsessed like I, you will catch my drift when I said, "It looks like the freakin Hilary Step up there"!  I was really proud of my mom for climbing despite her fear of heights, my dad for making it to the tops despite his old man knee's, altitude sickness, and out of "shapeness", and me for making it to the top being 21 weeks pregnant.  I am also proud of Chris but we all knew he would have no trouble.  

This is really not doing justice to how HUGE I have gotten...but it would be highly inappropriate to post a picture of me getting out of the shower.  That's a horrifying site.

We were reminded the drop off the top is 1400 vertical feet!  So awesome.

My mom definitely made the most of our 1 day in Zion's National Park...she was bound and determined to do as much hiking as possible.  My mom and Chris hiked 4 different hikes for a total of 9.5 miles.  I tagged along for 3 of the 4 hikes for 8.5 miles until my feet would have no more.  My dad did 2 of the 4 hikes for a total of 7.5 miles.

In other news we will try our hand at gardening again, we have not had much success in the past.  I meant to start all these little seeds back in March but didn't get to it until this week.  Here what we hope to grow

Chives

Sweet Basil

Lemon Basil

Egg Plant

Cherry Tomatoes

Roma Tomatoes

Better Boy Tomatoes

Parsley

and

Bell Peppers

And finally...how I spent my time off this week.  I was naively thinking I would be able to relax and spend my time off working on a baby blanket.  Instead we were informed by the contractor that the whole upstairs and downstairs would be carpeted the very next day (we thought they would be done on separate days).  Thus I spent my whole weekend moving boxes out to the deck and into the only livable space in the house (the kitchen and living room)...rendering them un-livable...and then frantically moving them back inside the next day before it rained and we had to go back to work.  Not sure if that made sense but it was sucky.

the pile of boxes we moved out to the deck and covered over night with a tarp

the kitchen...we ended up getting pizza for dinner

what use to be the only place to sit down in the house

So my plans for Spring cleaning this month have not even begun.  Looks like it will be pushed back until May.  Construction sucks.