String lights

I wish I'd gotten these lights up about two months ago because we missed out on some good ambience the weekends we had guests.

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The kitchen post

Our kitchen remodel was our defining event of the first half of this year.

The old kitchen was ripped out to the studs:

We were stuck using the kitchenette in our basement for two months during this process. I missed the dishwasher and the counter space so much! This what the area looked like after dinner most evenings:

We had to move out of the entire main floor of the house in order to have the floors refinished and the walls painted. The place looks nicely freshened up now:

Here's a look at the new kitchen (before we fully moved back into it):

We'll be adding some color and warmth to it with towels, rugs, etc.

The fridge is in a new location:

My favorite part of the remodel is having a counter that we can sit at. I've been looking forward to slinging pancakes over to the kids on Saturday mornings.

I'm sure there will be more photos of the space to come... We do spend a lot of time in the kitchen!

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Bookshelf project

I found this old bookshelf on Craigslist. Omri helped me replace a couple of water damaged boards and also repaint the thing:

It makes a nice addition to his room:

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Big painting weekend

A huge thanks to my parents for their three solid days of painting over Labor Day weekend!  Veronica got in on the action too.

Here's a closer look at the clever footwear her mom devised:

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Basement construction crew

We had an expert, a college student, a pregnant woman, a rookie, and a documentarian (not pictured) working on our basement over the weekend.  Thanks for the help, everyone.

Also of note: Uncle Nathan is starting school just down the road from us at the U.  We're looking forward to having him closer by.

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Nesting

We're having our basement finished.

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Thank you, Mike!

My father-in-law did us a huge favor by leading our deck replacement project and also doing the largest portion of the manual labor himself.  We very much appreciate him doing all this for us!

We used composite boards, which should save us some maintenance in coming years.

We're looking forward to eating many meals outside this summer.

We don't have a hose hooked up yet so, thankfully, the rain filled up Veronica's water table.

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