The Bar Gets Attention

Guess what the bar used to be...

Well this weekend (the 9th) has blown by once again. I set out with my grand list of things to do and hoped more than the expected two people (including myself) would arrive to help. As usual, more showed than I had expected and we ended up with six, Sean, Elisha, Ryan, Sean, Shana D., Lola K. and Greg S. We set off to take a hunk out of the list, get ready for the first move (YEAH - with reservations), and the impending photo shoot.

All was cruizin' along smoothly with Ryan carefully pulling down the drywall where I had fallen through the floor. WHAT?! you say - yes I fell through the 2nd story bathroom floor the previous week talking with the plumber. We were discussing where I needed to run the new drain lines, I stepped for the plywood, it wasn't completely covering the joist and I dumped myself through the drywall. With only minor cuts to my thigh and a nasty bruise I felt pretty lucky I came away relatively unscathed - except for more drywall to repair. Ryan was more than happy to make a mess once again instead of doing the dainty work of cleaning the first floor to prep for the final coats of varnish. That was left to Shana, Elisha and Lola K.

Ryan carefully removes nails/I look through the plastic

The large void in the dining room/Elisha gets in the corners

Lola picks it up one piece at a time


The ladies truly knocked it out! Man the amount of hours cleaning really fly when you get in the corners and make it livable. Many, many thanks to you ladies as you made living in the house truly possible. More on the 'move in' later...

Meanwhile in the basement we were making more of a mess - for good reason though. I have those carpentry guys working at the house for the past few weeks and they were pushing through the projects rather quickly and I didn't want to lose them so the next major project that needed finish work was creating the basement bar area. As we saw last week we laid the tile down, but we needed to get in the power and water lines so they could set the cabinets and build the bar. Sean and Greg tore into that and got 95% of the work done. We had to consult the electrician a couple of times, but we gt everything laid out and the carpenters came on Monday and never missed a step.

I show Sean where lights will go/The tool that gets through block walls

Greg works by the window in the basement/Sean drills in water lines

The water is half in/The bar pre-installation

Details of the bar - Alpha/...and Omega


We ended the day fighting the still-frigid Iowa weather and helped the electrician carry in appliances for the kitchen for him to wire. The tile is down and cured, the back splashes are tiled and cured, so we are able to take the next couple of baby steps in getting the kitchen to functional stage. The photo shoot is now the last week of the month - moved once again due to tile layers lack of reliability to show up to a job - and we should be able to hit that now without too much trouble. Everyone else in the process from here on out are reliable professionals.

I make sure no one slips/Careful gentlemen with the new cabinets!