The heart of the home.

I forgot to share any photos of our makeshift kitchen! We are in the process of putting it back together again but for now we have a makeshift counter top, no stove, and a large row of top cabinets with no doors that need to be ripped out. We have been here several weeks now and things are going okay and I'm adjusting to living this way. Although I can't wait to get the kitchen looking better! We used up a lot of our funds having to do so much work that we did not anticipate so unfortunately we have to live with makeshift stuff a little longer than we planned. So far it has been okay. We have several small appliances that allow me to make regular meals and Damien has been doing a lot of grilling lately.  We found a sink/faucet that was only $20 at the ReBuildIt store. The one that was here was disgusting and didn't work properly. We had to call in my dad again when we were trying to hook up this sink because the pipes were (of course) totally screwed up and leaked and needed replaced. He came to the rescue (again) and since we've been here everything has functioned properly... knock on wood. It just isn't very pretty!

 Trying to build the counter top right after we got here.... in a huge mess.

This is basically how our makeshift kitchen is looking right now. Not exactly how I envisioned my kitchen to look when I owned a home but hey - it's functioning for now and it's only temporary.
We are about to leave for vacation but when we get back I plan to tear down those top cabinets because they are all messed up. Damien is going to build some shelving for me to put stuff on. We will probably look around for a good deal on a small kitchen sometime in the future. But right now our main priority is getting flooring in.

The Other House...

Damien has not been to our other house in about 6 weeks because he's been spending all his extra time getting the mobile home livable for us. Now that things are (somewhat) in order here, he had to go work over there this past Monday. We received a certified letter from the borough about a side porch/overhang needing to be removed or we faced a $1,000 fine. We were almost at the deadline so it needed to be taken care of.  We don't have a building permit yet but you are able to knock things down without one so that is all that was done. Enough for now to keep the borough happy (hopefully?) and keep us from getting fined (hopefully?).

Here's some photos of the house before & after. Obviously not a huge change. Our plan was to work on the inside and then tackle the outside but it seems as though we may have to do the opposite now that the borough is after us to get it done. We knew as soon as someone new owned it we would start getting into trouble so we are just trying to figure out what is best to do when. Next we are thinking we will find someone reliable to cut down a gigantic tree in the front yard that makes us very nervous. It's huge and if God forbid it ever goes down it's either going to crush our house, the neighbors house, or block the road - so we really just want to have it removed.

Obstacles do not block the path, they are the path.

So far today has been a pretty big bummer! I woke up this morning with high hopes of doing laundry and organizing things around here. Yesterday Damien spent the afternoon getting the washer and dryer hooked up. Under normal circumstances that wouldn't take a whole afternoon and two trips to Lowe's but the pipes coming into the trailer leaked so they needed replaced. He also ended up having to replace the receptacle for the dryer because at some point they changed the outlets on dryers and the one here did not match up with our plug.

So this morning Damien finished up hooking everything up and everything seemed to be working. There were no more leaks and the receptacle was good to go. I was so happy as laundry has been seriously piling up here lately. That's when things took a turn. The funny thing is that you can work so hard on something and think for sure it's fixed and then some random thing goes wrong that you never thought would. That is what happened to us this morning. Damien turned on the washer empty to run it through a cycle to ensure everything was in working order. Things seemed great..until the drain cycle... when everything went terribly wrong. Out of nowhere the drain hose ripped off the back of the washer and water started spewing hot water EVERYWHERE. We tried our best to stop the water but there wasn't much we could do. Damien tried to block the water from coming out the back while I used a bucket to get it out of the washer. Eventually we were able to get the washer to the back door to drain the remainder of the water out but not before probably about 20-30 gallons of water went all over our new subfloors. Now Damien has ripped those out and they are outside. We are hoping they can be salvaged but we'll see.




We went out and got a new drain hose and have successfully ran a load of laundry through the washer without any more water issues. It was scary as could be turning it back on but things are okay now and the trailer is smelling like Gain and bleach and we have some clean towels!

Now on to the next obstacle!

Happiness is peace of mind.

Yesterday was the final day we were able to be in our house, so we had to move into the "little house" as Abigail calls it. The place is basically a disaster zone right now but she couldn't be more happy. My dad thinks it's because it's such a small place and we are all now really close together. Either way, it's amazing to see things through her eyes. This is such an exciting time for her!

Yesterday was a very stressful day but we successfully got everything out of the rental house and into the mobile home without an inch of space (or time!) to spare. Each corner of this place is crowded right now and stayed crowded through the day today because we were all way too tired to do anything about it since we were moving and cleaning extremely late into the night.

We had to call my dad in for help with the sink we got because (of course) it leaked when we hooked it up - just like everything else in here. It ended up taking him last night and today after work but we are leak free at this point and our sink and drains work.  It was a huge relief to have his help because we were unable to turn on the main water without having that sink hooked up since there wasn't shut off valves for the faucet. Guess what? There is now!

Here is how things were set up for sleeping last night at about 1:30am when the three of us finally were able to go to sleep: a mattress thrown down on the floor and two couches. Perfect.


The "kitchen" is a complete mess. I moved things around a little bit today for my dad to come fix our sink but otherwise I did absolutely nothing.



It doesn't look much different right now but I'm hoping tomorrow to get things a little bit organized around here. At least to the point where we can all find outfits in the morning.

Tonight Damien made some delicious chicken on the grill and we ate it off paper plates and it was a great feeling. While we were eating he said "I know we are living in tornado alley right now (because of the mess) but I can't help but feel such a sense of relief." I couldn't have agreed more.

I love my family so much and though things are completely unorganized and a mess and only half work sometimes - I feel so blessed.