Home Stretch

We're in the home stretch...pun intended...and working to get ready to move into the house tomorrow.  It's been another really long day with lots of progress, even some I didn't expect.

Andy worked really hard over the last day or so on getting the back splash done in the kitchen.  It looks wonderful!  We're very pleased with it.  And the fireplace (still in progress when I left the house at 10pm tonight) is really the final piece that needs to come together before tomorrow.

I arrived at the house this afternoon after work to the promise of moving our dishwasher from the apartment to the house!  I love the dishwasher at the apartment and the one at the house is a little older, smaller, louder...  This afternoon our friend Jim made the switch for us.

I also arrived at the house to a kitchen sink installation in progress.  It's in, works and looks great.  I didn't realize how deep the sink is...I might fall in.  Andy also flipped the way the fridge/freezer doors open to a more convenient direction.  It was a little odd that they opened the way they did; into the kitchen instead of toward the wall.  That will be a nice little change.

Jim and his wife, Lisa, also helped us with some clean up of the house.  We started moving tools out of the kitchen, dining and living areas...into the garage, shop, trailer.  And more will go once the fireplace rock work is completed.

Our new neighbor, Jerry, from 2 doors down was kind enough to donate some of his time to the cause today.  He worked on the fireplace for close to 5 hours!  He got lots done and enabled Andy to work on all the other things that needed attention.

Once the work in the kitchen was done (dishwasher and sink installed), I started moving in!  I managed to move almost everything out of the kitchen and pantry at the apartment and organized it all in the new one.  Tomorrow we'll still need to move everything in the fridge/freezer and the table & chairs, but all the cabinets are empty.  Even the baker's rack got moved today.

We are thankful for friends, neighbors and family who have been so willing to give their time. We couldn't have done any of this without them.



Here are the photos I managed to take today of the progress:



Neighbor, Jerry, helping with the rock this afternoon.



Kitchen in progress...sink and dishwasher installation.

 

Father and son working to finish the fireplace...almost there!

 

Kitchen after moving in.

New sink with new faucet.

As we spend our last night in the apartment, it's definitely bitter-sweet.  We've lived here for the first 5 1/2 years of our marriage; we've never lived anywhere else together.  We had our first date here, our first kiss, Andy asked me to marry him here, it's even where we spent our wedding night.  There are lots of memories and significant moments tied to this little apartment.

I look forward to a new home and new memories to be made.  My car is loaded with boxes and our end tables from the living room.  We're ready for moving day....well, once the rock work is done and the living room is cleaned up a little.  People start arriving to help around 10am tomorrow!  Ready to move on to something new!