Retro Bungalow's First Thanksgiving

WE DID IT!

By the skin of our teeth.

Thanksgiving 2014 happened here at

Our Retro Bungalow.

We were originally scheduled for granite installation on Friday the 21st,

but there was a small detail on the base cabinets that bothered me.

On the Saturday before that install date, I texted our granite gal 

and told her there was a chance we may need to re-template that section.

On Monday, Raymond, our installer, told me he could change that little detail for me 

without changing the dimensions of the counter tops. 

I let Sherrie, our granite gal, know as soon as Raymond assured me of this.

That little detail bumped us all the way to Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.

I expected the crew to show up early and I was ready for them.

They didn't arrive until about 3:30.

I was anxious and, admittedly, irritated.

As it turned out, it was a very good thing they showed up late.

 Dean got home from his 9-5 early and if he hadn't been here to 

make some modifications on the master bath vanity for them

and give them strict guidance on the placement of the kitchen faucet,

I'd be one very unhappy woman with the way things would have turned out.

It is a blessing that they showed up so late.

The three man (young men) team worked hard and didn't leave until 10:30!

I felt bad that all I had to offer them were Keebler chocolate chip cookies and milk.

I really should have done a burger run for them and I still feel bad that I didn't.

Anyway...

here are a few highlights in the form of photos and captions of

Thanksgiving.

We have SO MUCH to be thankful for.

I was so overcome with gratitude as I rolled out the traditional 

crescent rolls on our lovely island that a lump swelled in my throat

and I got weepy - a very happy kind of weepy.

Before the table setting was complete, Emmy put herself 

right in the middle of the action. Thanksgiving holiday decor was sparse due to so much 

still being packed and in storage, so I'll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume 

she thought she was contributing. She was, however, quickly shooed off the table.

Despite a lot of help from Larissa in the way of traversing mountains of boxes 

in the storage container, we could not locate any of our glasses and 

had to resort to using plastic. 

Bleh.

Our feast before the feasting began.

This year we had Jo-Tan, Mr & Mrs Brunty and Aubrey join us.

We'd hoped for the entire Mossi family, but when you have married children

you just accept that you have to share them.

Kimberly's dad is single and lives alone, so 

Mr & Mrs Mossi The Younger had Thanksgiving with him.

The Sadlers' enjoyed their holiday meal with Jay's family, 

as is their custom on every even year. 

We get them on odd years because, I'm told, in-laws are odd. 

I can't argue with that.

Mr and Mrs Mossi The Youngest

(that'll be made official in 13 days)

enjoyed their Thanksgiving meal with Abigail's family.

I certainly can understand that as Zac, Abigail's brother and only sibling,

just barely returned home from serving his mission in Germany.

Shortly after clearing the table, Aubrey went into a tryptophan induced coma.

Haha, not really.

She had worked her 9 hour shift at the hospital, arriving home around midnight

after which she stayed up til 1:00 watching Jim Gaffigan on Netflix with her dad

AND THEN

got up three hours later to run a 5k with Larissa in Draper.

Lars on the left, Aubs on the right after the race.

Mrs Brunty, aka "Lars", servin' up Thanksgiving pie.

YUM..

On t'ward evening, our holiday absentee children trickled in.

It's always so much fun when we're all together...

especially with grandchildren running wild.

Thanks to Poppo and me, Madi is well versed in the proper usage of squirty cream.

Gotta learn 'em when their young, ya know.

Cowboy and Cupcake spent quite a bit of time sitting at the island with the desserts.

In a hushed voice with her nose nearly touching mine, Ellie confessed, 

"I love sugar."

Here she is cutting herself another piece of Aunt Aubrey's amazing fudge.

The cabinet installation is not quite complete, so the pantry does not have

its pull-outs and shelves yet. I hope he doesn't think this is just a fun place made for 

playing and hiding in because he'll sure be disappointed when those are installed.

Cowboy, Kitten and Cupcake on Thanksgiving night.

We are so very thankful to be their  Poppo and Nonna.

And then there's 

THIS...

These two kooks playin' with my iPad again.

They will be welcoming our fourth grandchild, Oliver, in January. 

Poor kid.

There are some things we're gonna have a hard time explaining to that boy.

(but we love them anyway ;-})

We are deeply grateful for our blessings.

It's wonderful to be so close to living normally in 

Our Retro Bungalow,

but mostly we're thankful for our Savior and His restored gospel.

We are thankful for each other, for family and abundance.

And thank you for stoppin' by again.

Hopefully I'll have photos of a completed kitchen and other details 

for next week.

Good night and God bless.

Sweet Return of The Dining Table

THIS...

happened tonight!

And it was a joyful occasion.

Tannon and Ryan helped bring some of our furniture out 

of the storage container this evening. 

It's like Christmas has already come!

I've missed our things. 

They even dragged out the box with our Fiestaware.

The cabinets aren't completely done and the granite is still a few days away,
but tomorrow I'm gonna put those dishes in their new home regardless.

This week we put down as much wood flooring as we could.

We had to climb out our bedroom window and down the ladder the night we 

floored it because we continued from the bedroom hallway where we'd
left off and you're not supposed to walk on it for 24 hours.

That was actually kind of fun and memorable.

We aren't able to put down the wood in the garage entrance/exit and 

service porch hallway because the bull-nose pieces that are to be installed around 

the stairwell opening haven't come from the mill yet.

We are anxious for it to get here. 

Waiting for the bull-nose is holding up the sink and commode install in the little half-privy, 

the balustrade, and the baseboard. 

We actually haven't started installing baseboard yet, but still...

They've told us to expect the bull-nose by or before December 1st.

We are hoping it shows up soon.

Dean got more light fixtures installed and this one

is my FAVORITE.
It hangs in the little hallway to our master bedroom.
*the photo is crooked, not the fixture, btw*

The light fixtures for the back hall arrived and I sent them back.

They were way out of scale (too big).

I ordered some similar, smaller ones that should arrive just before Thanksgiving.

Dean also got all the switches and outlets wired.

That's about it for tonight.
If you're interested,
here's what was going on last year at this time.
We've come a long way, baby!
Thank you, as always, for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.

Sheri

NOW We're Cookin'

The past few weeks have been particularly exciting as we've 

watched the personality of Retro Bungalow emerge.

I've been spending lots and lots of time online purchasing the 

aesthetic elements. They're slowly finding their way to our front porch

and my favorite contractor has been installing them one by one.

We've also been working and working and working on

getting the wood flooring down;

it's not a difficult job,

but it is a very messy job

and that gets frustrating.

THIS

is the messy part.

Because we have radiant floor heating under gypcrete,

we can't nail our flooring down. We have to glue it down 

with urethane. It has the consistency of honey and is applied with a trowel.

Yeah. Just try picturing that for a moment.

But we're making progress...

Our cabinet makers showed up to begin installation last week.

And there were complications.

Serious complications.

When Raymond explained that they'd exhausted every possibility they 

could think of to make our GORGEOUS custom island work,
 I felt panic welling up inside me.

And then he proceeded to itemize the cost of rebuilding it.

It was all I could do to hold back the tears that were desperate for escape.

All I could say was, "Dean will be home soon. He'll figure something out."

Raymond reminded me once more that they'd thought of everything already.

I kindly explained to Raymond that he didn't know my husband and

left to run a couple of errands, calling Dean  as I pulled onto Fruitland
to let him know what was going on.

Calmly, he reminded me that problems like this arise all the time in construction 

and that there's always a way to fix things.

By the time I returned home Dean had been here with Raymond and Devin 

for about 15 minutes and had come up with a solution.

Problem solved.
I should know better.

I panicked for naught.

Here are a few photos of some other little things we've done besides flooring...

The light fixture over where the kitchen sink will be is installed.

And the chandelier where the dining table will go is installed.

And several more canned lights are in, like the one in the vestibule
that illuminates our "vanity window".

AAANNND...
OUR RANGE IS IN!
Oh, HAPPY, HAPPY DAY.
We actually had a devil of a time getting it hooked up as there was a loose
connection at the breaker.
It took us about an hour to figure it out.
The next day I went out and bought some of that Nestle
pre-made cookie dough just to try it out.
The oven works great, but has a kind of burning oil smell.
I haven't read up on it yet, but I'm assuming it's just because it's new
and the smell will burn off and go away.

Dean had Veterans day off from his 9-5, so he and Joe and I got the concrete slabs
for the front porch and back deck steps poured.
I don't have any photos of those slabs, but really...
it's wonderful to have that done, but they're not much to look at.

Tannon and Joe came over Saturday and helped Dean install several outlets and switches
while all the Mossi women were over at Jo-Tan's for Abigail's bridal shower.

It's late -
the hour and getting this posted.
So, if it comes across as convoluted that's because I'm tired
and spiraling into shutdown mode.

Thanks for stoppin' by.
Good night and God bless.

SO CLOSE!

Lots of things are happening and they're happening fast.

These's at least a zillion things to report,

but I'll just highlight some of the bigger items.

We're still cozy and comfortable in the basement.

I have to mention that our sweet friends, Wayne and Jane,

made basement dwelling a little bit easier for us.

Yep.

They had three large, rooms size pieces of carpeting rolled up

in their garage that they gave us to use while we waited to have our carpet installed.
We are very grateful to them.

We put off having our carpet installed until the painting was done.

Last Saturday was one of those long, exhausting days we've become accustomed to - 

we put nine gallons of paint on the walls upstairs.

And so...

we had the carpet installed on Thursday!

It's been nearly two years since we've felt carpet beneath our bare feet

and it is nothing less that DELICIOUS.

Our order for basement window coverings took about two weeks to get here,

but Lloyd's delivered and installed our 2 1/2 inch route-less

blinds without a hitch and we are pleased.

As much as possible, we like to go with small, local, family owned businesses

and that's exactly what Lloyd's is.

Don't have a picture, but...ya know...they're blinds.

And here's a sampling of the finished wall and trim paint...

Dean installed our upstairs doorknobs...

I LOVE 'EM.

The door above is the little half privy off the kitchen and "service porch".

The "service porch" is what Grandma Zarucchi used to call the back entrance

of their little home in Cloverdale. 

It's where the washer and dryer were.

And that's where our little laundry room is here at 

Retro Bungalow...

 We laid the tile in this little laundry room on Friday night

and grouted it last night.

We put the same tile in our master bath on Tuesday night, 

grouting it Wednesday night.

I thought I had a picture of that too, but looks like I don't.

And I'm not up to fixing that at the moment,

because I've got an appointment with my pillow for

one of those Sunday afternoon naps and I'd really like to 

wrap this up real quick-like.

We got a good start on putting down the wood flooring.

We've got the kitchen done enough so Matt can install cabinets tomorrow.

WAH-HOOOOO!

The gypcrete has to be primed twice before putting flooring down

and I've got to finish doing the rest of the priming for the other rooms tomorrow.

We narrowed our wood flooring choices down to three, 

which was hard, and ended up choosing a darker Acacia wood.

I was perfectly fine with that choice until Dean

took a plank from one of the boxes and set it out

in the middle of the gypcrete by itself.

I freaked out a little because it looked so much darker

than the sample board I'd brought home.

We pressed forward with faith and hope and once

we got a good portion of it down,

I fell in love with it.

Dean was visibly relieved.

We'll get the rest of the wood down this week.

Have I shown you our porch lights yet?

I don't think so.

They've been installed about a month now.

One of these days I'm gonna remember to get the proper bulbs for them.

I thought I'd posted pictures of the basement bath,

but I can't seem to find any evidence of that, so here are a few.

The vanity turned out just how I'd envisioned it would.

Matt does fantastic work.

The granite is "Steel Grey"; same as our little basement kitchenette.

The back splash is a glass and granite mosaic that I loved at first sight.

When I told Matt (tile store Matt) that's what I wanted for the accent

in our basement tub surround and back splash, he apologized and 

informed me it'd been discontinued.

I asked him to look a little harder and he actually was able to scrounge up

just enough for what we needed. 

He called me tenacious.

He called it right.

One insignificant detail that's hardly noteworthy -

I do not, do not, do not like those little towel rings for hand towels,

thus the regular towel bar that's been cut down to size for hand towels.

I had Matt (cabinet maker Matt) create an old-time medicine cabinet

for the basement bath.

He'd never had a customer ask him to make one before, so this is his first.

My friend and neighbor, Karen, was over just a couple of evenings ago

and I was showing her around.

When she saw this little gem she said,

"That looks just like the medicine cabinet in my grandma's old house."

I was SO happy to hear that!

That's exactly the look I wanted.

After showering in our teeny, tiny trailer shower for 15 months,

THIS is FIVE STAR!

We ended up hiring a couple of guys,

a father-in-law, son-in-law duo,

to do our tile.

I got their business card from the tile store we've purchased 

materials from.

They did an ok job.

Just ok.

And sometimes, if I let myself, I get a little steamed about it if I

focus on the details of their work.

It's just gonna have to be what it is.

For good.

They were nice men, but if I could go back for a re-do,

I would.

It's just like the old saying goes...

If ya want somethin' done right, ya gotta do it yourself.

But, we were desperate to

1) move into the basement

2) keep up with everything else we needed to get done

Doing the tile for this tub surround would have likely set us back

almost two weeks.

Oh, well.

That's it.

Now...

about that nap.

Thanks for stoppin' by Our Retro Bungalow.

We are grateful for your encouragement and support.