Photo of the Day

I like candid shots best. But it's rare I'm able to get a really good one. I guess if I were a professional photographer I'd take hundreds of shots a day and be tickled if a half dozen were really good. This photo of me and my husband, Jug was taken in April of '05 while we were in Vegas. We were by ourselves and for the life of me, I can't remember who took this! The way my left arm is extended, I'm inclined to think I just held the camera out and went to shooting away! Not bad!! But it really shows my big pig nose!! Dang those Higgins anyway!

Talked to Olivia a good while today. I'm so excited she's coming home this coming weekend!! Yay, yay and yay!!! It'll be so good to have her home if just for the weekend.

Still working on the photo albums. Up to April 2003! Slow going. But finding lots of good pics.

Uploaded "Remodel--Living Room" pics this morning. Click on "Remodel" on the top left of this page to see. Be sure and click on the photo to see it close up.

Remodel--Living Room Before and After 2

Here they're raising the floor of the living room. That's Jug and Olivia. Poor Livvie looks so tired! We all worked so very hard that whole summer. But the payoff was tremendous!

And Grant practicing his balancing skills on the soon to be raised floor.

This is two of Jug's guys: Rick Shumate and .....man, can't remember the other's name! Jug will have to tell me. They're putting up the sheetrock to close off one of the two sliding glass doors we closed off.

And this is finished room with the view of the fireplace and TV. Turned out so nice! This was the wall that had the sliding glass door going into the bedroom before! Check out the fan. Click on the pic to see much larger.

Remodel--Living Room Before and After

Click on the photos to see enlarged photo.






Little background on our remodeling project. We bought this lovely place out here in the "country" of Moravian Falls early June 2005. We just fell in love with the views and the land--26 acres that includes ample pasture land and wooded areas and even a creek. It still so close to town. We can get to downtown Wilkesboro in less than ten minutes.







Jug, fortunately was able to be home most of that summer so went spent a solid three months doing the remodel. Jug is a master craftsman--that man can do anything! We all worked together--Jug and I put in 10-12 hour days for three whole months. We had help--a few of his employees helped, as did the Lendermans--Pam and Keith painted, Michelle--she helped a lot with picking out colors and going with us to help us select home decor, my brother Jim with the dining room built-ins, and we did hire electricians and plumbers--otherwise we did it all ourselves. Quite an accomplishment!





It's about 2700 square feet. In this first pic--you see what the builder (built in the early 80's) had in mind for this front room--they used it as an aviary/sun room. This room was about two feet lower than the rest of the house and literally surrounded by sliding glass doors--every wall. It was tiled with terra cotta. We thought this a huge waste of space! This room was not heated/cooled either. In this first pic--the sliding glass doors on the left are going into the dining room and the sliding glass doors on the right went into the bedroom! Weird, I know. We completely closed off the set going into the bedroom--and this wall we covered in a beautiful rock fireplace and bookshelves.

This is another view of the same room. That's Grant working on the left. Both the kids helped that whole summer. They were real troopers!! They learned a lot! And got plenty of blisters! Those are sky lights in the ceiling which the seller had already closed off as they leaked, I guess. We debated and debated about what to do about those openings. Finally deciding to use this unique look and wired the openings and hung lights there. Turned out good. I meant to upload a pic of the raising of the floor--maybe tomorrow.

















Here's Jug and Grant taking out the sliding glass doors. This room had five walls--and seven sliding glass doors!! We completely eliminated two of them, left just openings for two and left three functioning.

























So here tis---finished room! Huge difference!! This is the "after" view same as the second (above) before view. Didn't it turn out fabulous!? I meant to upload an after view same as the first before but actually did this view twice! I'll do another "blog" entry with that view. On the far left you can barely see the fireplace. I love my living room. It's so open and bright. Sometimes, though, in the winter, I have to lower the blinds the light gets so very bright it almost hurts my eyes and makes it hard to see TV.