The Bluick's Family Blog

Duck Face

2012-05-05T13:33:00.002-05:00

He's not too young to practice making his duck face.

Todd's 30th Birthday with the family

2012-05-05T10:14:00.001-05:00

I had a great time at my parent's house for my 30th birthday! My dad grilled steaks, I had awesome cake! My parents got me a new Peyton Manning (Broncos) Jersey that I'm already wearing the next day! We played some party games. Tristin is really bad at charades, but Derek somehow guessed them a lot. Ellie stole everyone's Leis. Grandpa Jerry was in town with Lenny which was a treat.

Pardon all the sideways pictures, technical difficulties...

Some thanks

2012-04-14T20:53:00.000-05:00

Not too many pics of Sarah yet, but she has lost a lot of baby weight already.

Locke got a ton of gifts from family and my work.

Sarah and I really appreciate all the gifts and food that we have received this week. Sarah Rayfield, Grandma Ross, and Aunt Tristin have all given us tons of food that helped us make it through this first week at home. We also appreciate the baby gifts that the Whelehons, the krolls, my grandma Sandy, the Harpers, the Jacksons, and my office at Announce Media.

Kitchen Remodel: Before and after pics

2012-04-14T20:42:00.000-05:00

Everything is finished on the kitchen other than a couple really tiny odds and ends that we are waiting for. like, we need some extra shelf pins and things like that. Without further ado, pics!

Far away pic of before kitchen including breakfast room and original tile floor.

Picture of kitchen before showing the island.

After pic showing the peninsula.

After pic showing the new hardwood floor and breakfast room.

After pic of kitchen showing sink area.

The new custom shelves in our pantry.

Also, my wine chiller is now in the pantry!

Picture of bathroom before renovations.

We added a cabinet above the toilet to act as the medicine cabinet.

We also added drawers under the sink for extra storage.

At the last minute we decided to bring the same cabinets into the laundry room as well.

We also added some white custom shelves for the laundry stuff.

Some more Locke Pics.

2012-04-10T18:12:00.002-05:00

A dew more pics of Locke's hospital visit.

Another sibling pic

Locke getting his official weight.

Wearing hist first polo shirt.

Awesome flowers that my company delivered to the hospital.

Locke is born!

2012-04-08T16:12:00.002-05:00

At 2:08pm on April 6th, Toby Locke Ross was born. He weighed 8lbs 3.9oz and was 20.5 inches long. So far him and mommy are doing great. Locke has the sniffles that he already got from his big sister, but he is doing ok and mommy is recovering quickly from the c-section. They will both be coming home on Tuesday!

Siblings!

Rockin out!

I think this is my favorite picture so far!

Kitchen Finished!

2012-04-08T16:04:00.000-05:00

The kitchen is finished! Huge thanks to Charlie and Steve for being such great contractors working on our kitchen. Technically they aren't done since we added the custom pantry and laundry room shelves, but the kitchen itself is finished.

I'll add before/after pictures after I recover from locke's birth.

Day 41 of the Remodel

2012-04-02T19:48:00.001-05:00

Yay, granite was installed today! I really like the way it turned out!

With all the lights on.

you can see how it cuts in to give more room by the door.

Bathroom is finished, sink and faucets not installed yet.

Another angle of the kitchen. Backsplash will be installed tomorrow.

Day 37 of the Remodel

2012-03-29T18:45:00.000-05:00

The upper cabinets have been installed and a lot of painting has been done. Much of the finishing touches have also been completed.

Long side, still missing crown molding, countertops, and backsplash.

Sink side, with temporary countertop and sink.

Cabinet above fridge.

Day 29 of the Remodel

2012-03-21T09:11:00.001-05:00

Not really much to update on since the last update. The holes in the drywall have begun to get patched back up, the laundry room has been tiled (waiting on grout, probably today), and we are still waiting on the granite counter tops to come in.

There is still a lot that needs to get done.

Laundry room

grout the tile
put appliances back

Bathroom

Countertop installed

Install sink/faucets...

Finish off the cabinets

Hardware
Trim

Kitchen

Countertops installed

install sink/faucets/garbage disposal

Upper cabinets installed

Hardware
Under cabinet lighting installed
Crown molding

Finish off the lower cabinets

Hardware
Trim
Decorative Back panel to peninsula

Dishwasher hooked back up
Back Splash

Mudded
Grouted

Pantry

Custom wood shelving
Wine Chiller

Flooring

Thresholds from wood to tile
baseboards re-installed

Painting

Bathroom
Kitchen
Living Room

Whew, I really hope all this can get done in 2.5 weeks. Its going to be tight.

Day 22 of the remodel

2012-03-14T17:25:00.001-05:00

The Granite countertop was templated today as well as all the lower cabinets moved into place.

Davey was a HUGE butt again today by running out again. Charlie and Steve (the contractors), were able to get him back. But it took them about an hour. It let me test out the new Tagg gps system. I could tell where he was at all times to withing about 10 yards. It is pretty cool.

Here is the back of the cabinets. We will be adding trim to the back.

temporary microwave location. Also, you can see the old countertop acting as a temporary countertop.

Oven is in place, but you can see that the vent for the hood will need to be moved about a foot to the left.

Here is the cabinet in the bathroom.

Here is the new toilet!!! YAY, we have a toilet on the ground floor again!!!

Here is what the GPS of Davey's escape looks like on my new Tagg system... Being able to know he is at home at all times, or at least know exactly where he is, is a huge relief for me.

Ellie made a crown at Tristin's house

2012-03-13T09:46:00.001-05:00

Day 21 of the Remodel

2012-03-12T18:55:00.000-05:00

Our tile floor has been grouted and we have a few of the floor cabinets installed! Not all the grout has been scrubbed off the tile yet, so they don't look nearly as good as they will. Tomorrow, they plan to install more cabinets to prepare for templating. as well as some electrical work in the walls.

picture of some of the new cabinets. They aren't quite this dark in person.

Here are the cabinets showing some of the cool features.

Ellie, Sophie, and Aunt Tristin

2012-03-09T08:36:00.001-06:00

I've been getting some great updates from Tristin about the time her and Ellie have been spending together this week. She also sent me a cute little video of Sophie and Ellie on a swingset.

Day 17 of the Remodel

2012-03-08T18:37:00.000-06:00

Today the contractors finished demolishing the bathroom and setting the tile in the kitchen. Tomorrow they plan to grout and put the bottom cabinets in. On Tuesday the granite company should be coming by template out the countertops.

Here is the kitchen facing the "Dining Room"

Here is the kitchen facing the sink area. Note the terrible terrible realization that the previous owners painted over wallpaper.

Here is the toilet side of the small bathroom.

Here is the sink side of the small bathroom. They put just enough tile in so that they can put the cabinets in tomorrow.

New Design w/ soffit

2012-03-07T17:01:00.001-06:00

We had to redesign the area under the soffit... Since we already purchased all the cabinets, w had to fit the new design within the constraints.

Day 15 of Remodel

2012-03-06T18:59:00.002-06:00

A lot happened today. They removed all the cabinets (except for the microwave and cabinet above it), all the tile in the kitchen, all the appliances, the 2nd layer subfloor, and delivered all the tile.

Unfortunately we can't remove the soffet because it is actually a load bearing beam. This caused us to have to order 3 new cabinets and now we have 2 extra 36inch wide cabinets that we need to find a use for...

Ugh., I guess this couldn't go too smoothly.

You can see the holes they punched into the soffet to see what was inside.

Here is where the left the microwave on the wall.

Day 11 of the Remodel

2012-03-01T17:02:00.000-06:00

Not too much to report today. They finished the flooring inside the pantry and coat closet. They also put a baseboard on one of the walls in the Dining room to show me what they will look like.

Apparently why they were here, Davey got out of the back yard. Luckily they saw this and grabbed him. I guess there were some gaps that he made under the fence that I covered up this evening. Davey really is a butt.

Tomorrow morning, Sarah and I are going to an ultrasound for Locke. Due to her having gestational diabetes she has had more ultrasounds than we had with Ellie. I think this is her 4th one. Sarah also has to go to a TON of doctors appointments every week.

Day 10 of the Remodel

2012-02-29T20:18:00.003-06:00

Long day for the contractors today. They were still working when I got home, so Sarah and I took Ellie for dinner and picked up Davey from my parents. They pretty much finished all the wood flooring. Only work that remains is to finish the pantry, inside the closet, as well as replacing the base boards. We also picked our grout colors for the back splash and kitchen tile floor.

Ellie slipped on the new floor.

She wanted to prove she could walk across it.

Davey checking out the new floor

Finished hallway towards door.

Finished hallway towards family room.

"Dining Room" still getting used for storage of tools.

Day 9 of the Remodel

2012-02-28T19:16:00.000-06:00

After Day 9 the remaining tile has been removed from the hardwood floor area. Some interesting things this uncovered.

There was linoleum under the tile.
There was different linoleum under the wooden rail.
The plywood subfloor in the kitchen/breakfast area is about 1/2 an inch taller than the subfloor in the hallway/dining room...

Not sure how the contractors are going to handle that last item...

The contractors laid carpet pad everywhere so that we don't step on the unfinished floor and cut our feet or anything else.

as you can sorta see, the rail is no longer here.

you can almost sorta make out that under where the rail was, is a different linoleum.

picture of the doors removed from the pantry and downstairs.

Here is a nice picture of the front door close to being finished.

Days 5-8 of the Remodel

2012-02-27T17:51:00.001-06:00

No work was done Fri-Sun, but the contractors came to our house on Monday again. They didn't do too much on Monday. They removed some more base boards and the wooden rail that segregated our Family room from the Kitchen.

We did get the news that demolition on the kitchen cabinets will begin next Monday with installation beginning next Wednesday. That is when things will get a little crazy due to not having a kitchen for cooking at all.

Day at the Magic House!

2012-02-25T21:33:00.002-06:00

We all went to the Magic House with Grandma today. It was my first time going, and it was really neat. Ellie had a blast!

Ellie playing in the water room.

There was a cool restaurant play room as well.

She liked to climb on everything possible.

Ellie in the static room, her pigtails went crazy!

Day 4 of Remodel

2012-02-23T16:58:00.002-06:00

Not much of an update. Most of the "Dining Room" is now finished. They left a small gap to help them demo the kitchen tile.

I think the wood looks a lot more red in the pictures.

Day 3 of Remodel

2012-02-22T20:04:00.000-06:00

I'll make this quick since I am sick and feeling really crummy. Here are some pics of today's progress.

Hallway is pretty much completed.

"Dining room" is about 1/3 complete and should be finished tomorrow.

Day 2 - More Demo and the Wood Begins!

2012-02-21T18:36:00.000-06:00

So after day 2, all the tile has been removed from the dining room and half of the hallway. We also have some wood floors! I love looking at it. My house smells like concrete due to the dust in the air from the concrete board that was under the tile.

Here is some of our new Hardwood floor!

Here is Roxas checking out the construction.

Here is the fully demolished "dining room" and the wood floor covered for its protection.

(Not sure why there are spots on the wall... I think that was my camera)