We've been plowing ahead on our renovation project, trying to get things finished as soon as possible in an effort to bring calm to the housing part of our lives. We're getting very close to being able to move in (next weekend?) and it's beginning to feel less like a construction zone.

With the help of several friends (thank you everyone!), we were able to prime the entire apartment in one weekend:

We painted shortly thereafter and then, in a whirlwind 35 hour work weekend, Kirstin and I sanded and refinished the maple and oak floors. We still have finishing coats to apply to the oak, but the maple is finished and is looking better than we ever expected it to. Here's the oak after the first finish (and the colors of the living room and kitchen):

Our electric contractor finished this past week, so we now have electricity in the space (though mostly temporary fixtures at this point). Our heating contractor should be finishing today and then our plumbing fixtures will be installed early next week. We're hoping to finish the floors--including painting the kitchen floor--so that we can move appliances upstairs this weekend. And then, after all of our inspections are completed, we should be able to move in ... wow!

As per usual, there are more photos available on Flickr.

It's been a good long while since I updated the blog regarding our apartment renovation progress. We've been overwhelmingly busy with moving preparations and renovation work, so I haven't had much time to write about what we've been doing (though I have continued posting photos to Flickr). Anyway, here's what we've done since I last wrote in July ...

• We framed an enclosure for our stove, which, along with a large movable butcher block, will form an island in our kitchen.
• One of our contractors finished framing the back and side exterior walls.
• We installed most of the wood floor in part of the bathroom (don't worry ... it's the part that shouldn't get wet).
• We had a few work days where a lot of people came out to help with various tasks, including my entire family one day. We cleaned and sealed the exposed brick wall, sanded the bottom of the bathtub, ran media wiring (cable, internet, phone, speaker), stripped and sanded reclaimed beadboard, extended the deck on the back of the store to access the parking lot, and a lot of other miscellaneous tasks that really needed to be done. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who helped on those days!
• We insulated all of the interior walls (and the new ceiling in the living room).
• Our rough-in electric work and heating work was finished.
• We painted the kitchen ceiling.
• Kirstin painted the bottom of the bath tub and started refinishing the kitchen sink cabinet (it's farther along now than in that photo).
• Our shower pan was poured and cement board was installed in the shower/bath area. Then, last weekend, Kirstin and her dad tiled most of the room (we're hoping to finish this weekend).
• Our drywall has been hung and is almost finished. Seeing the space with drywall completely changes things ... it feels like we're actually getting somewhere!
• We installed railings (built by Charles, our brother-in-law) on our doors to nowhere. These will stay up until we can afford to build our decking on the back of the building--which looks like it will be a long time off yet.
• Our appliances were delivered, though they currently reside in the back of World Fare (we weren't quite ready for them).

So ... I think that's everything. We're currently in the process of finishing the tile and painting in the bathroom. The drywall will be finished by the end of the week and we'll be able to prime everything this weekend in preparation for painting. We still have to install plumbing fixtures, finish the electric and heating systems, and refinish the floors before we'll be able to move in. We're hoping everything can happen in the next few weeks, for sanity's sake. :)

With the help of amazing friends and family, we moved out of our home of three years in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Thank you to everyone who helped (Kim, Chris, Kara, Ken, Gail, Michael, Alyssa, Dave, Julie, Cyndy, Duke and Beverly)!

Though the last several months at our house haven't been particularly enjoyable (given the circumstances), it was still difficult to leave. We figured out that this house was the longest place we've lived since we've been married. We'd done work in the yard--creating a stone border for flower beds; planting a rose of sharon twig and caring for it until it finally grew leaves and bloomed this summer--and lived life in the house, trying to be hospitable to friends, students and family. It's strange to still work in Grand Rapids and not be able to go to the house we called home since we moved here.

We are, though, looking forward to moving into our apartment in Three Rivers and calling it home for a long time. Unfortunately, it isn't quite ready yet, so we'll be relying even more on family and friends for shelter over the next several weeks. If all goes well, we should be able to move in to our new apartment in three weeks or so. More on the apartment progress soon ...

A friend sent me a link to a wonderful article on Slate.com about back yards and children's play equipment. It made me think again about how my best memories of being outdoors as a kid are connected to nature: falling asleep in the grass on a hot day under towering oak trees, burying "treasure" in a back corner of the yard and digging it up the next summer, planting carrots with my dad, climbing trees, exploring my friend's farm to make sod houses or vegetable soup. Of course, I also remember learning how to do the monkey bars on the swingset and playing in the sandbox--both of which my dad built himself out of wood (in contrast to the garish "safe" plastic that so many playthings are made out of today). Here's a lovely quote from Michael Pollan, with some of the text from Tom Vanderbilt's column to give it context:

In his book Second Nature, Michael Pollan writes touchingly about a hedge of lilac and forsythia at his childhood home on Long Island, N.Y. To the adult eye, the hedges were simply flush against the fence. But he had his own secret garden, a space between the hedge and the fence. "To a four-year-old, though, the space made by the vaulting branches of a forsythia is as grand as the inside of a cathedral, and there is room enough for a world between a lilac and a wall."

"There is room enough for a world between a lilac and a wall." Beautiful, both as a turn of phrase and as a practice.