B.S.C.

Progress

The house has changed so much since they started insulation and drywall last week.  It actually looks like it's going to be livable now.  I've been going up more to talk through little details and make decisions.  We took the girls up on Sunday and sat on the dock for a couple hours.  It was partially sunny, but quite cold and windy.  I didn't care.  I wanted to sit on that dock.  The girls hadn't seen it for months.  They were pretty excited to see it. 

My last visit was today.  Almost all of the sheetrock is in, the painters are caulking the interior car decking on the ceiling and painting the exterior soffits. The contractor's wife asked the concrete flooring guy for one more sample of polished concrete(even though we said yes to one already-she knew it wasn't quite right) and he nailed it.  Those guys are starting next week.  There will be some repairs they need to do to level the floor before they can start. The cabinet maker met us yesterday and we ironed out some details--like a newly added coffee nook in the kitchen. They're prepping the exterior for siding that should be arriving soon. This morning, I picked a beam treatment-the one they tried yesterday made the beams to orangey-red. We also decided on a wall treatment for the feature wall.  

We're putting this product on the feature wall in the photo below-

guest bathroom-

"new" garage. It was so gross before.

basement workout room with the final polished concrete sample-

We're doing hickory floors with a satin finish.  Here's the unfinished sample and how it will look with the stairs floating on top of it-

laundry-

View of the kitchen and living room from the corner of the dining room-

Old view from entry door

The new view from the entry(which isn't actually from the door, we've moved it). It's been fun to look at photos of this progression.

They'll be working on taping, mudding and sanding the walls for quite awhile, so we'll have to be patient.  

Heading out in a bit for dinner to celebrate Gracie Jo.  17! It's hard to believe!

Update

It’s been so long since an update because while time seems to be flying by, the only instance that doesn’t ring true is in regard to the house.  They have made some good progress with the exterior. Here is a before and after (midway really).   Siding will come next. 

All the windows are in- save a couple that have issues.   Our front door is in. We screwed up and didn’t get the sidelight frosted, so that will get fixed. 

They tore the deck off, replaced the roof underneath it with a new weather proof roof for the part of the basement that is under the deck. All of the electrical is complete and it passed inspection Tuesday! The inspector has to come back and inspect the security system though- hopefully that happened yesterday.  The Drywall company is there is this week filling all the little holes and what not. Insulation should start this week. Next week they’ll drop off the drywall and the week after they’ll start putting it up.   While the drywall goes up, Randy and his guys will be putting up the siding.  We picked a semi transparent stain and decided on a color for the polished concrete in the basement. Almost all of our lights have been decided and ordered. We finalized the kitchen cabinet plans on Monday and hopefully they’ll be done by the the time the drywall is up.  That’s supposed to take a MONTH. Randy and the guys have been busy cleaning it out in prep for what’s to come   There was so much crap in it.  I can’t wait to see it all cleared out when I take my parents up on Friday to see it.

In other news, Gracie told me earlier this week that I was considered the “cool mom” in her friend group from school so, I feel like I won parenting. Her spring break doesn't start until this weekend. I am ready for her to have a break.  Jr year is no joke. By the time her break is over, she'll be a few days away from celebrating her 17th birthday.  Ugh.  Annie has four more shows of Willy Wonka this weekend   If you haven’t had a chance to see it, it’s really cute. The best availability for tickets is tonight and Friday night.  She's kind of funny in her role.   Eric has some new responsibilities at work, so yay.  Hope is, well, Hope- always in need of attention like a two year old. I went from not being able to pee without being interrupted by my children to not being able to pee without being interrupted by my dog.  If I shut the door all the way she stands outside and whines until I let her in.   And, if she’s not getting enough attention you can be sure she’ll find some kind of paper product to tear up. I think she likes the sound it makes. To be honest, it is kind of satisfying. 

Excited to bring more updates as the house, hopefully, moves faster once the drywall starts! Happy Easter!

 

Don't Believe Everything You See on Social Media

I was messaging with a friend this morning about something and she added "how are your girls getting so big and mature?"

I was like, "oh my dear, do not believe everything you see on social media."

Yes, they are growing and maturing, but we're not there quite yet.  Last night, Eric and I watched in horror as Gracie tried to make herself a smoothie and ended up with strawberry on the cabinets and soapy vitamix water all over the kitchen floor.  And Annie, well she was falling apart about having to memorize a part of the Declaration of Independence for history. SHE JUST COULDN'T DO IT. Hmm... yet you can memorize scripts instantly.  I launched into "this is why I was bugging you yesterday to get your homework done so we were not going through this at 8:30 Sunday night." Eric, being a man of few words just told her to knock it off.  

This morning, Gracie's alarm didn't go off and Annie woke up with a fever of 101.  Eric's on a plane for New York.  He always times it just right. 

As I am parenting teens, I realize more and more how uneven their development is and I celebrate their growth just as much as I did when they were little and they hit all of those developmental milestones.  It's different now though.  When they hit those milestones, I was so excited for every new developmental stage. The future seemed so far away.  Now we're here and I feel a little bit of heartbreak with every milestone as they inch toward independence and leaving home.  Gracie took the SAT on Saturday. THAT was a hard pill to swallow.  Hopefully, she'll get a job soon.  In the meantime, she's babysitting a bunch so if you need a good sitter...

The house is moving along now.  Every time I go up, I feel like there are changes.  They have most of the windows in and framed on the inside to get ready for drywall.  We're doing a dry wall return around the sides and tops of the windows, so no trim other than the sill at the bottom. 

New framing in the basement to hide the cement.

They ripped off the deck.They'll re-weather proof that little roof you see (it is the roof over a small portion of our basement.)

It's a good thing we were already replacing the deck because that is our contractor sticking his pocket knife about 4 inches into the completely rotten beam that was holding up one end of the deck. So glad we didn't have any house parties. 

They ripped the brick off the lake side of house in order to get to access to the windows in the basement.  Helloooo, more rotten beams. 

aaaaand, NO MORE BRICK! We also have gutters.  The window for the master that arrived in the wrong size has also been replaced-after this photo was taken. 

Here are a couple of before and in progress photos.

 

 

Lake House Update

It's been over a month since my last update.  Who else feels like Jan and Feb were a disorganized shit show? I feel like we can finally catch our breath-save the snow days- we definitely did nothing then.  Gracie has one more weekend of her show and Annie just started rehearsals for Willy Wonka Jr at Kidstage.  She'll be playing Mrs. Gloop. She's THRILLED.  She was so ready to get into a theatre routine again.  She felt a little lost with all those snow days. Oh, and the show Annie helped write was postponed to March 9th and 10th.  We're all so excited to see that on stage finally!  

We did however, enjoy some down time with the snow days. We caught up on some movies and shows and played with the dog in the snow A LOT.  Eric worked from home a few days and shoveled the driveway and the neighbor's driveway a million times.  I think his back is still recovering. We stayed up too late and watched Bodyguard  and SexEducation on Netflix. I watched mardie Kondo's Tidying Up.  It was super helpful.  I started going through my craft closet and our files of papers.  I have a huge bin and a few binders of the girls school work from over the years.  Guess what's next on my list...  Bohemian Rhapsody, BlacKkKlansman, and A Star is Born on On Demand. Sidenote, can people stop putting Brad and Gaga together? He has a girlfriend and they have a child together.  FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP.  It's gross. I have to confess,  I thought the movie was fine, but it's not my favorite.  It broke my heart to a million pieces watching him fall apart.  I had to leave the room during the Grammy scene.  I hated how Ally changed into something that didn't seem like her.  It made me so, so sad.  And then of course the end broke my heart again. His pain and struggle was so real.  It left me with a pit in my stomach and nothing but compassion, heartache and despair for people that feel like this in real life. 

The house has been slogging along.  When I went up yesterday, I realized that all the things that have been happening are the behind the scenes stuff-like electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing. You know those important things we need but don't really look like progress to me. Since the last update the stairs with temporary treads and a temporary rail have been installed.

Here's a picture of some of the treads in the contractors garage.  

We've been finalizing tile and are very close to all the little details being worked out so it can be ordered.  

This is close to the lake house bathroom in the basement.  

Laundry room floor, counters and back splash

windows are going in.  The master is complete.  This is the dining room with access to the deck.  We have a huge slider that will replace the white doors.  Funny, those doors used to be in the main living space and they gave access to the deck. 

This is the main living rooms, new windows are where those white doors used to be. When I was up yesterday they were prepping for the windows on the other side of the room, which will mirror these. 

Our kitchen backsplash and counter. The counter is more white than the grey it shows here. Freaking excited for the kitchen. 

There's been a huge hole in the concrete for a long time, so the plumber could work on the plumbing and then have it inspected.  The hole is finally filled and we've got a bath tub in the "girls" bath. I write that parenthetically because, we've been joking that by the time it's done they'll be out of the house.  

Our front door and sidelight arrived this week.  It will be a pivot door. I love it. 

They've started to wrap the house and we have heat finally, so they can start warming it up in there to get it nice and dry for sheetrock. The crew has been working through all these cold days with NO HEAT in the house and no windows at times. It's insane.  They're amazing.  The house was so poorly built that there are holes every where. They've heard from neighbors that the previous owners complained they could never heat or cool it properly and their energy bills were through the roof. We know why. 

On Friday, we meet with a lighting specialist from Luxe Lighting. She's going to walk through it and make sure it's adequately lit in the areas that need good light (it's tricky because the basement can be dark and the ceilings are quite high in some spots) as well as make suggestions on what type of lighting would work with the look we're going for.  Hopefully the updates can be more frequent as things pick up at the house.  I'm sure that once sheet rock gets going, the look will change dramatically. The last time Eric and I were up there together, we stood in the main living space looking around and were relieved to finally see that this was a place that would become a home.  We have second guessed ourselves many times, thinking WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING??? and I know our friends and family have, too. ha!

Lake house Update for the New Year

I started this post last weekend and, well, got two photos in and then the week happened. In the past week and a half, Annie has had Little Mermaid Jr rehearsals Mon- Thursdays, two 4-9 call backs for a different show, the past two Saturdays and Sundays have been 10-4 writing, a hour voice lesson, an hour acting lesson, and hour group acting lesson and she's sicker than a dog. She unfortunately had to miss one of her writing days to sleep and try to get healthy. She's the busiest person I know right now.  She also has that little thing called school and homework. NBD. I told her that all this busy-ness will teach her how to multitask and serve her well in adulthood. 

Gracie and I spent two evenings registering for the ACT and SAT. That was fun.  Side note- make your teens start filling out paper forms and on line forms so they know how to do it AND know to triple check identifying information so it's not filled out incorrectly.  Half way through SAT registration last night, she asked us if she could live at home her first year and DRIVE to Western Washington University everyday.  Eric and looked at each other with blank stares and quickly responded with an emphatic NO, mainly because of the drive.  

I should be running right now, but this felt right. 

Anyhoo, moving on to a house update-

I hadn't been up to the house since before Christmas break and for Eric, it had been even longer.  The roofing company and weather finally cooperated, the stars aligned and WE HAVE A ROOF! It kind of looks blue here, but it's not.  It's grey. 

The steel beams for the stairs are on site and they've begun to cut them. These beams will be the sides of the stairs leading up to the master bedroom.  On Craigslist, Randy found 20 ft beams from an old horse barn-if I remember correctly. He's going to cut them in half and make our treads for the stairs.  

The steel for the landing is in place. The wood coming off the landing is a mock up of how the steel will run.

The fireplace is in on the main floor.

And the Master fireplace is in. 

Much of the plumbing is done.  We added water access on the side of the house to wash the lake off the dog.  We discussed an outdoor shower but didn't find it necessary. 

A lot of electrical wiring has been done and we have a new furnace. The windows will be in at the end of January.  I did some preliminary tile pick outs for some of the bathrooms and am leaving shortly to look at more tile. We also have been going back and forth on yard plans with the new landscaper.  Our old landscaper changed up his business and could no longer commit to us to do the project, but he offered up his brother to do the job as he also has a landscape business.  yay for that. 

Saturday was the first day that Eric and I could really envision the direction of the project and could let ourselves get excited about it.  Excited to document the progress!  

Leave the City

The girls, especially Gracie, LOVE  Twenty One Pilots. I'm fairly certain it's the one band that she'll remember vividly when she looks back on her teenage years and think about how they moved her emotionally and influenced her. She'll always know the words, just like I do for most Erasure songs.  If I could insert the eye roll emoji here, I would. I wish I was as cool as my kids when I was a teen.

With the release of their new album, we knew they would tour.  We were so sad to discover their Washington stop was the same night as Sing it Forward, the KIDSTAGE fundraiser.  Being the dad that he is, Eric suggested we fly to Boise the next day to see them.   Of course we were all on board.  He thought it would be a good idea to tour Boise State while we were there.

We did.  The second we started the tour, my eyes started watering. My head was telling me this was all normal and what we should be doing at this point in time, but my heart was dropping into my stomach.  I put it all out there and said to the tour guide, "I'm going to cry."  Boise State was lovely, but like Gracie said, we have nothing to compare it to and it feels very far away for a girl who can be described as a homebody. 

Later at the concert, they played their second to last song "Leave the City." While singing one of the lines in the chorus. "they know that it's over, they know that it's almost over" I was overwhelmed with sadness that this period of having both girls home under the same roof every night is going to come to an end quicker than I know.  

I've spent 16 years trying to push Gracie out of her shell.  I was never sad for the firsts- excited to send her to preschool, put her on the bus and send her to kindergarten, make her try different sports/activities, all because I knew it would be good for her. Now, I'm not feeling that feeling at all.  But, after having watched so many of my friends go through sending their babies off to college, I know that I can do it too.  

I just don't know if Annie can...when I mentioned why I was crying, she started crying about missing her sister.  Oh Annie.

Heather Emans Drunk

Last night we attended the Sing It Forward Soirée which is a fundraiser held every year to provide scholarships for kidstage classes, camps, productions and so much more.  

It is a program near and dear to my heart.  We are so thankful that the girls found their second home and an activity that fulfills them.  We were thrilled to be able to watch both girls perform last night alongside some of their kidstage peers and alumni.  

We had two tables of friends that joined us. It was a big night for our family. I was so excited to be able to share with them why the program means so much to us and the talent of these beautiful kids.  

So I was on a total happy, love fest high and I had some wine and I made it a point to love on the kids who I knew fairly well and especially if their parents weren’t there. Because I’m a mom and that’s what moms do. And the older kids, who aren’t really kids anymore, loved on my girls and have been amazing examples of what it means to be a kidstage kid. 

Apparently, it was interpreted as “there is drunk and then there is Heather Emans drunk.”  

I know I was not drunk because if I had been, I would have had my head in the toilet this morning rather than scrambling around the house the find my passport (it was a tense 15 minutes) to catch a flight this morning. 

Last night was just me, feeling my happiest in room full of people who love and support these kids and see the need to support art and individual expression. Gracie had a lovely solo and Annie was a guest speaker.  Talk about my heart almost bursting. It’s a feeling I wish I could bottle.

Lake House Update

Went out to the house yesterday to meet with Jen and Randy to discuss some items like lighting and the fireplace wall. 

They've done quite a bit the last week. 

They moved the garage door entry into the house from in front of the stairs to the laundry room. I guess I deleted the picture, but you can see it to the left in this photo- where the door mat is. Washer and dryer will be on the left.  A counter and sink will be below the framed out window and to the right will be cabinetry for storage. They also prepped it for framing in a pocket door.

They framed in the powder bathroom on the main floor.

The windows have been ordered, but not the windows, glass door and sidelight for the entry because we needed to figure out the design.  We had seen a cool window configuration in the window catalogue.  We can't replicate it exactly as our wall height is a much smaller scale.  

The blue tape represents the black metal breaks that will fall in the glass. The large opening to the right is our door which will be on a hinge system and the smaller area to the left will be the sidelight- all in privacy glass. The glass to the left, which will be our entry way is clear.  I'm so excited to see it carried out!

The electrician was out and placing wires in the car decking since they'll be working on the roof soon. 

We also walked through and reviewed light placement as well as added some can lights and ceiling lights in a few spaces.  With the weather turning, we've had the opportunity to figure out how dark the house is in certain areas. 

Here's a little video of the gross closets they're demo-ing.  They creep me out.  Cannot wait to see them with fresh sheet rock. 

And, all the paint cans that were in that room.  

Our job this weekend is to look at lighting, specifically for the entry, dining room, kitchen and main view room.  I fell in love with a light that Studio McGee used in an entry recently.  Then I looked up the price.  We won't be using that light.  Happy Friday people!

 

Lakehouse update

Had to take a field trip to the house today with my friend, Kelley. She had some appliance b.s.c. going on so I was like come over and see the money pit.  That’ll make you feel better, just don’t bring me any wine. 

Side bar- kelley and Tien came over for dinner a couple of weeks ago and not knowing wine, kelley asked her father in law for a good wine to bring us. His brothers live in France and he likes good wine so she felt confident going on his recommendation.  He pulled something out of his wine storage and she brought it to us.  She was quite proud of herself when she brought it.  

After they left, I went to put it in cellar tracker and it came up as a $5 bottle from traders joes.  Eric and I about died laughing. Then we made a pact never to mention it to them.  So,  Tien has lunch with his dad this week where he learns about the origin and price of the bottle.  Then they about died laughing. Love them.  

Back to the house.  They had punched out the entry closet. 

And were working on the entry steps. The entry is a mess, especially the ceiling. that will all be repainted  white to match the interior ceiling.  The beam will be stained with a light color that will let the grain of the beam show through. A false beam will run down the side the closet is on. 

Last week, Rejuvenation was having a sale so we made some commitments and purchased a few vanities, mirrors and lights for some of the bathrooms. It was very exciting and a little scary to commit to something.😬 things are moving along!

 

Thank You.

Thank you to my friends and family who took the time to read my last blog post about the incident with the girls.  I appreciate your supportive comments.  And, I seriously love you all.  Like totally. We are fine. It was just shitty.  One comment that I made in the string of comments, which I should have put in my post, was how the girls were so mortified and embarrassed and ashamed THEY WERE NOT GOING TO TELL US.  

Moving on...I'm sitting here typing away with no Halloween prep to do or Harvest party to attend.  I alternately miss it and don't miss it.  The girls aren't even going to be home tonight (although Gracie dressed up for school because she'll get 5 extra credit points for it). They have rehearsal for the KIDSTAGE fundraiser, which we are so excited that they both get to be a part of this year.  Proud mama moment here. Basically what that means is this...I AM STUCK AT HOME HANDING OUT THE DAMN CANDY AND TRYING TO KEEP THE DOG FROM GOING NUTS EVERY TIME THE DOORBELL RINGS AND I'D RATHER JUST BE SITTING ON THE COUCH.

I told the family that I was going to shut the lights off and not hand out candy. They protested and Eric said he'd leave work a little early to hang out with me. I think his version of "helping" involves Jameson's and watching EPSN in his comfy chair while he shouts words of encouragement to me in the entry.  Nope. Not this year.  I'm setting up the camp chairs and we can take turns opening the door-we typically get a lot of trick or treaters. 

So instead of party planning, I spend my time doing nutso things like this.

She's super thrilled about wearing things on her head. I've turned into a crazy dog mom.  She even has her own Instagram, @ayearofhope. Wait 'til you see what I got her for Christmas.  Target always has things I didn't know I "needed."

I did, however, get to bake with Gracie last night.  She signed up to bring cookies for the Honor Society bake sale today.  We made some Jenny Cookies, which always seem like they shouldn't be that hard, but they are. 

Then Annie wanted in on the action, so she made a make shift box cake. My dishpan hands had had enough. 

So, Happy Halloween. Have fun with whatever your plans are tonight!