I Was Kind of Excited There For A Minute

Ever since this day and this day last June, things have been, well, unfinished, in our basement. Two rooms, unusable other than for storage after everything had to be moved out, carpet pulled up, drywall and tile torn out and so on. But finally, finally while the kids and I were in St. George, Shawn spent his nights working hard on getting the exercise room put back together. (Sorry about the pictures - remember my camera isn't quite working so everything is yellowish.)
Really, I can't tell you how great it was, when I chose to sleep in on Monday, (hey, it had been a rough weekend of not much sleep with a 2 year old, who seemed to forget when day and night were) instead of get up early and go workout, and instead of then missing the day's workout, I just went down and hopped on the treadmill and did a little TRX. So nice to have that option available again. My treadmill has been inaccessible since June. (Usually OK since I prefer to be outside, but every once in a while, it proves to be useful.) So nice to have the wide open, usable space again. This is serious progress! But then, it was time to move onto the next area of reconstruction. The 3 girls seem to want to stay together despite the crowded accommodations,and despite the offered opportunity for one of them to move into their own room, so it only seemed fair that Duff actually get to have her clothes in the same closet/room that she sleeps in. For the past year or so, they have been in Jonas' closet, or more accurately hanging from a weight bar in his room or stacked on his floor because his closet was also affected in the flood. So Shawn tore out the built in dresser in the girls' closet to make room for more closet paraphernalia.


The funny thing about this is, that, in pulling out the dresser we finally located the water main. (Sure would have been helpful to know where that was last summer.) And of course, a bedroom closet would be the most likely place to find it, don't you think?
Anyway after some priming, painting and a trip to Ikea, we are well on our way...However, in order to complete the girls' room make over, this is what happened to the newly finished exercise room.
So, like I said, I was kind of excited there for a minute to have a finished room. At least it's only temporary and we are truly making progress. One day soon, my house will be in some state of organization, (I hope!!!) and things will at least be settled and in their rightful spots. In the meantime - it's super secret, but things are starting to change in the girls room, too - not just their closet. We've moved them out until it's finished. So I guess we'll be busy this weekend.

But here is some real progress - a kid who wants to help clean up. (You've got to jump on that while it lasts!) He vacuumed almost the entire room himself. I just wonder how long it will be before he gets upset because I ask him to vacuum instead of getting upset that it's time to put the vacuum away.