Addition update - progress has been made

I was looking at my blog today and realized that I haven't updated about the progress on the addition.  The best part is, there is actually progress to report.

At the end of November we moved the bookcases to their new home, you can read about that here.  But since that post we have installed the crown molding around the top and painted the bookcases.  Like everything else around here it is not quite finished so I can't take it off the list but it is still progress.

                               

We have also been working on the outside as well. Our property is very sloped and we had to dig into the hill when we started building the addition.  The long range plan was to build retaining walls once the addition was completed. However, we have been getting so much water under the house every time it rains that we had to move forward with that project. Last month we had a company come in and start digging the footers for the retaining wall.  This was a very effective way of entertaining our toddlers, you can read about that here.

This is what our yard looked like behind the addition. Notice the logs?  I call those "redneck retaining walls", they didn't really work.

After a day of digging we had lots of dirt piles.  A little boy's dream come true.

Then after days and days and days of work, we have the first level of wall up, 110 feet of concrete block.  Now Peter is digging back 8 feet to make room for the second level.

Basically, we are building our own Great Wall of China.  It is possible that the Great Wall of Rightmyer may take almost as long to construct as the China version. Once all the block walls are up we still have to clad all of the walls with brick. Peter and I were discussing how many bricks we need for the first level of wall. We discovered we can't count that high. It is somewhat discouraging to realize you will have to lay more bricks than you can count. However, bricks are pretty small, not too heavy, I see no reason why Wythe and Ainsley cannot start their masonry training soon.

Now for the big news.....the bathroom!  After months of trying to pick tile, pick paint colors, changing tile, changing paint colors, making up my mind, changing my mind....it is finished.  I can no longer change my mind on the tile or the layout of the tile.  I could change my mind about the paint color but I think I am content to let  that be.  This bathroom has been a story unto itself.  I think to do it justice I will need to write a post only about the bathroom, so you may be hearing more about that later. But for now, here is the picture of the bathroom prior to tile/paint/etc. 

And here it is painted and tiled. We are still waiting for the shower head and I need to do some touch up work, another coat of stain on the cabinets, hang the window curtain, things like that.  But this is pretty much what it is going to look like.

It is so exciting to see things finally coming together, perhaps this will motivate me to finish painting the rest of the addition!

'til next time...