Carlsbad house update - wall down, new walls, electricity, etc

I know, I know. I haven't posted in a while. Mostly because I blog most of the day for work, so it's kind of the last thing I want to do once I'm done working. You might be thinking, it hasn't stopped her before. Well, I'm telling you, now it does.

But, because I've received so many concerned emails — thank you for caring —here's a little update on the house. I'm fine. Just busy.

We can't wait to get the hell out of Vegas. Thankfully, we're just a few weeks away from moving into the new house. Jason scored a kick ass handyman who is refinishing almost the entire inside of our house. New walls, took out a wall, installed a couple new windows, new hardwood floors, new carpet, new kitchen and we got an electrician to bring the kitchen up to code, put in some canned lights in a few rooms and give us a grounded plug in each room. The walls I think will be the biggest deal. Snow off, new skin coat, some walls got patched and one wall has completely new drywall because believe it or not, there wasn't any before.

Do you remember the before pics? Yuck!

Uncle Jon took some pics on Monday and here you can see some of the progress:

The entry to our home. And the hero of our story - Jose Delgado.

The family room (imagine your back to the front door). We took the wall down between the family room and the kitchen.

Jason demo-ed the kitchen, Westrend brought the electrics up to code, and Jose fixed the exposed plumbing and redid the walls. Since this picture was taken, Jose added a new kitchen window. This is the left half of a kitchen where we will have a six-foot long island. It will have electricity and there is the capability for pendant lights in the ceiling now - should we want some after the kitchen is installed.

This is the right have of the kitchen + dining area. Brand new walls everywhere!! The doorway on your left is the entrance to John's lair.

This is the right half of John's lair. At the left edge of this photo is a brick fireplace (I'd like to be painted white) and directly opposite this little window is a brand new slider that leads to the back yard. That got put in today.

I have two other pics of brand new walls - but I think you get the idea. :-)

Here's a pic of the outside where Jason is putting all the demo trash into a big rented bin. The outside of the house and landscaping - man oh man do we need some serious landscaping - will happen over time after we move in.

So - that's it. In our free time we run around and do chores for the house. Most of the time happily  because we can't wait to get down there. I was down in San Diego for about six days a few weeks ago and I couldn't believe how relaxed everyone was in Carlsbad. They're either there on vacation, or just happy and chill to be living by the beach I suppose. CAN'T WAIT!

We decided to use No VOC paint from Freshaire Choice. Most of the house will be in "Solemn Stone" from the Earth collection, but the bedrooms and John's lair will have other colors for accent walls.

Ok, now I'm really done with the update. I'll put up more pictures when I get them. I think the hardwood floors and the kitchen will be installed next week. John and I looked at counter tops tonight. We were bummed we couldn't agree on a Cesar stone when we first designed the kitchen, but we found three choices tonight that will do. I figure he'll go down to San Diego after he's done with the WSOP and make sure that all gets bought and ordered.

Me? I'm nearly on vacation. A whole week. I'm even toying with the idea of leaving the laptop at home.

CURRENT: Las Vegas
NEXT: Calistoga, Lake Tahoe, Sacramento (June 11-20)