I'm baaaaack!

My apologies for the silence! I wasn't posting for a couple of reasons. First, and most importantly, my little niece was born this week! I knew she was on her way and didn't want to spill the beans before Sean and Amber were able to share her arrival.  She's adorable and from what my mom says, an excellent baby so far, doin' what babies do and doing it well. I love her. I thought when Sean and Amber told us they were pregnant this summer it would take FOREVER for her birth day to arrive, but it really flew! (I don't know that the new parents can say the same) But gosh, I'm so excited to be an auntie to this little one. :)

Second, I was super busy with school and snow. Prior to owning a home, we never had to clear our own sidewalks or driveway and boy does that take a lot of time! Next year we will be getting a snowblower. No more wasting HOURS moving the stuff. Our friends who live down the block let us borrow theirs during a storm and we were SOLD.

Alright, I'm done with all the excuses. Time to update you on the house! When we bought the house the basement was listed as "finished" space. We assumed finished meant... well... Finished. Permitted. Little did we know, that's not the case. Our "finished" basement was never permitted, so learn from us! Always call the building safety people to confirm your "finished" basement meets all the specs the city requires. If not, then you have some leverage in the buying process :)

We're getting the proper permits and it has been a process! A painful process. It has slowed down our progress, caused more frustrating moments (we actually haven't fought through the remodel yet, but both of us have been annoyed and angry with this city), required Greg to take time off of work for inspections, but we're almost done! We have one more inspection this week, then hopefully we're home free and can continue moving forward... quickly.

Since I last updated we've added a new cool air return in the second bedroom downstairs (I didn't know this, but apparently you have to have cool air return in every room). We also (well not me) have been working on the plumbing. Our friend Joe came over and helped reroute all our shower piping and taught Greg how to use pex. Pex is sweet stuff. We're putting it in everywhere we can, anywhere there are new pipes. It eliminates the need for copper pipes and it's SUPER easy to put together. Thanks Joe so much for your help!! It looks so good and we couldn't have done it without his help!

This is the new piping in the shower. See those white pipes? That's Pex. Our pipes used to run across the ceiling to the opposite wall. This seems waaaay nicer and much more efficient than the previous system.

More Pex, more piping, that will go to our new vanity/sink.

This has been my job. Insulation. You know, making the basement as energy efficient as possible. Even though this is tedious work, the building inspector gave us props for using this insulation and doing it the way we are. He said we're doing it well and we're doing it right, so that's encouarging!

That's all I have for now. This weekend I'll be researching/youtubing how to tile the shower :) That's next on MY list (I'll actually be doing that job) and hopefully I'll show you the finished product soon!