Rain, Snow and Home Renovations

As I mentioned previously, March 1, the day of Avery's baptism, we had torrential rain that later turned into snow. Alaina and Amanda both had friends over for the baptism celebration and they were still here when the rain turned to snow. Of course, everyone was so excited about the snow that we all got bundled up and went outside to play. The snow was really wet since the temp was just barely cold enough to turn our rain into snow and there were puddles of water everywhere. It was a mess! We knew that school would be cancelled again (the 3rd snow day this year, even though this was our only real snowfall!) so Alaina's friends stayed the night. The next morning everyone went outside to play some more and Nicholas and grandma made a snowman. What a party!

During our Sunday rain, Alaina and her friends noticed that the window in our foyer was leaking. Over the course of the next week we had a few nice days during which our snow melted, and then it started raining again. Unfortunately for us, during the nice days, Keith had to work and he was off on the rainy days. No luck fixing the window that week! Instead, we decided to use this time to redo our kitchen. Here's the scoop on my kitchen. It's the one room in our house that we haven't painted since we moved in. The previous owners had painted the kitchen this terracotta color. But, it wasnt' a flat color--they added sand to the base color and then sponged on this glaze. It sounds really crazy, but it looked pretty neat and was different, so I liked it. That was nearly 6 years ago, though, and the walls have since endured some wear and tear that couldn't be repaired because there was no way to match the color on the walls. So we decided to repaint and make a few other changes to update the look. My friend Ann is very gifted when it comes to decorating (and in many other areas too :) ) so I consulted her before deciding what to do with the room. Thanks Ann for your suggestions! It's not completely finished--we are going to continue the crown molding into the kitchen, I still have to get a rod and some curtain panels for the doorwall (I ditched the vertical blinds. We never used them so they just hung there collecting dirt!) and I still haven't totally decided what to do with the wall above the oddly placed mini-closet. I want a shelf of some sort where I can put my cookbooks and some knick-knacks but I haven't found anything I love yet. Here is a before picture and a picture of where we stand with the kitchen now. I'll post another kitchen picture once it's finally, totally finished.

Our Kitchen Before

Our Kitchen After

That bring us to Friday (we're up to 3/6 now) when our weather took a huge turn and it got sooooooo nice outside!!!!! By Monday, Keith was off and finally able to get on the roof over our front porch to investigate our leaky window. What he found was a huge mess! All of the decorative wood and trim around the window was rotten and needed to be replaced (a huge problem with homes in the south). Keith immediately started pulling off the rotten wood and creating a plan to fix it. I wanted to hire someone to put it back together because it looked like pretty complicated woodworking to me (and it made me nervous to have Keith on the roof--he's already fallen off once!). I shouldn't have doubted, though. Keith is very talented when it comes to fixing things! He and his step-dad engineered a fix that looks great and nobody was injured during the project. Success!

Window with all of the rotten wood removed. Doesn't that ladder look safe!?!?!

Our window after Keith's repair

Our house. I'm so happy that we're getting leaves on our trees again!