When we bought our house there were a few things on our list of improvements we’d like to make in the coming years. Near the top of the list were removing the pillars on the main floor, moving the awkward corner fireplace and replacing the hardwoods with something lighter.

In October during cheer carpool, I learned from Layla’s friend, Olivia, that their family (who lives two doors down in the same model home) had done just that before we moved into the neighborhood. That was all I needed to get the ball rolling!

Here’s a before pic. Notice the four pillars.

Within a week or two these were the first to go. We have a great demo crew at the house who were eager to earn some cash. We were still in the process of having things engineered (notice the holes in the drywall in the upper right), but we’d established these were not load-bearing, so away they went.

Well shoot. Look what we discovered in one of the pillars! Why would they run this right here?! Guess it saved a couple bucks to go straight down.

Next to go was the wall dividing the dining room and family room. This would open things up a lot! But these pillars are load bearing, so we had to have a longer beam installed, along with a couple more studs in the basement, and the two remaining pillars would become a small L-shaped corner. Also, look what was in the wall! HVAC! Bummer, now we needed to reroute it.

Getting closer! But now we decided to replace the fireplace rather than just move it. The expense wasn’t much more and we weren’t sure how much life the old one had left in it.

Before the new beam and wall removal… 

And after! Also, I taped off where the new corner wall would go.

Now it’s time to prepare for the new fireplace. We were lucky and got a deal on a floor model.

My electrician

Mantle arrived, fireplace in, drywall and Duraboard up next. Just in time for Christmas!

Making sure the mantle goes in straight

Yay! We can get the TV up off the floor. This is Christmas Eve morning!

Tile is going up soon!

Meanwhile, we measured everyone and left an Easter Egg behind the new corner wall.

A perk of getting new floors – you can rollerblade in the house!

Hard at work. These kids did so much demo!

Kieron did almost the whole kitchen by himself!

The pets love the new fireplace

All subfloor!

New floors going in…

And here they are!

I’m SO glad we decided to get rid of the carpet in the office!

Since we had to empty the pantry to do the floors in there anyway, we decided to redo it too. Here’s before…

And after! We love the counter and room for appliances. Quartz will go in eventually, but you get the idea.

Last step was putting up the last of the crown molding and the board and batten!

We finally made it to Opening Day on Everlong this year and had a blast! In the past, Back in college, Jonathan rowed for WWU in the Windermere Cup and I watched from the Montlake Cut, and a couple times early in our marriage we went to watch together, but this was our first time viewing from the water. Our yacht club has a spot across from the log boom where we are allowed to anchor and raft up. Jonathan had to take the boat over on Wednesday and stay on it until Saturday. He picked us up in the dinghy Friday night.

Here’s Tyee. We are the boat on the left.

UW practicing on a weekday morning

Heading over from Madison Park

Opening Day morning! We picked James up at UW before the festivities began.

Watching the regatta

Cheering for Western!

Did you know Seattle has the biggest boat parade in the western hemisphere? It follows the Windermere Cup on Opening Day.

Time to head back!

It may be April, but there is still some powder at The Summit, so Avery and Dalton went skiing/snowboarding

It’s getting real!

First fire of the season

I love this magnolia!

We stayed home for Spring break, but Layla went to her friend, Shelby’s family ranch, 9 Mile Ranch, in Eastern Washington for a few days. They had a terrific time together!

Phoebe, waiting for Jonathan to drop something… anything!

First day on Everlong this season. We had to take the Christmas lights off her!

Avery and Erika are so sweet with Layla. They’ll often hang out with her around the house.

Moms night out at The W

Trivia night at William Grassie Winery

Layla went the her friend, Sawyer’s, spa-themed birthday Party. It was so cute I have to share the pics!

We  really appreciate Nana and Frank staying with the kids after Easter so we could get away for a couple days in Las Vegas. It’s been a stressful couple months with Jonathan looking for a job and we needed a break to recharge, so we used miles and points to treat ourselves to a couple days in the sunshine. We hung out by the pool, walked around town, ate yummy food and went to a show.

We stayed at the Vencecian. Here’s the view from our hotel room.



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We went to a show one night

This little cutie was next to us on the plane

Here’s what we were up to in March:

Jonathan had a continuing ed session for teaching ski lessons

Silas played basketball on the middle school team.

Silas had two band concerts in March. The first was an “extravaganza” with all the other bands in our school district. He’s just to the left the middle of this pic.

This is at his concert later in the month – just his middle school band.

Layla played rec basketball with her team, the Jelly Beans

Silas and Layla had a piano recital

Senior Assassin started. It’s a game the high school seniors play with Nerf guns. Basically, the kids are on teams of two and each week they are assigned another team, which is their target that week. If they manage to shoot one of their targets (or one of their assassins in self-defense) then they are still in the next week. It’s $20 to play, so the winner and runners up walk away with quite a bit of money!

These girls were after Avery & Dalton the first week.

Erika and Avery had a scare leaving our house one evening

Here is Avery and Dalton’s first attempt to get their target. Kieron dressed as Avery and baited them.

There was disagreement over whether they indeed shot their target, so they agreed to a duel. This time they got him.

Layla went to a lot of birthday parties. Here are a couple pics from her friends’ Wicked themed party

Fun with slime!

We celebrated St. Patty’s Day by going ot dueling pianos at Saints & Scholars.

Loving on our pets

Look who’s getting tall!
Our friends who often watch Phoebe when we are out of town adopted a French Bulldog, Dottie, so naturally, we had to introduce them!

We went on a walk and realized we can see Snoqualmie Falls from a spot on the golf course not far from our house!