I hope everyone had a nice President's Day.  Our company started giving us President's Day off last year and I couldn't be happier.  You will never hear me complain about a holiday!  It's funny how far the little things go in keeping up employee morale.

It was all I could do not to visit a cat cafe on my day off.  I knew I needed to do some actual cleaning though.  There is a cat cafe in Charlotte called Daily Mews.  I have never been to this particular cafe before and I really want to go.  Check out an article Hauspanther did on Daily Mews here.

I spent most of my day cleaning.  Boy, did I have a mess to clean.  Here are my "before" pictures.

Renovation

When we built our house, we were the proud guardians of a beautiful Great Pyrenees named Sadie.  Sadie's ginormous size inspired us to have our builder put a dog shower in our house.  While in the process of building, Sadie passed away and we never finished the dog shower.  In the meantime (enter Blossom and Balto), we realized that the shower in our master bathroom was perfect for washing dogs.  Scott decided that we could turn the old laundry room/hall into a much more useful mud room.  

Before:

The unfinished dog shower had turned into a "catch all". 

Ooops, I forgot to take a picture of the utility sink view.  Oh well...you get the point. 

Before I post the "after" pictures, I have to tell you that this project was 100% Scott's idea.  He even designed the entire layout via computer software and gave it to our contractor.  Scott even did a lot of the woodwork himself.  AFTER:

You gotta have a sink!

Scott did all of the beadboard work.  Look, we now have an organized place to put the dogs' leashes.  That's a huge help!

I now have plenty of cabinet space.

 

Another idea of Scott's was to put in a butcher block counter where I could fold clothes.  He even designed it where you can lift either side of the counter so that I can hang dresses for drying. With the help of his uncle Ken, they built this countertop themselves.  

Scott also decided that the ironing board should be hidden in a drawer.  

You can never have too many hooks in a mud room:

Last but not least, since we keep Greta's litter box tucked away in the mud room, we needed a door to keep the dogs out but also didn't want to block all of the natural light from the hallway.  Scott came up with the idea of a pocket door with glass. 

It was the perfect solution.  I know, I know, Blossom is in the picture but I let her in! 

I am really enjoying my new mud room.  After 3 months of renovation mess....it was worth the mess!

Why Julie is Nervous

Scott...

is painting in the stairwell to the basement.

Greta is always curious...

Julie will be thankful when this part is over!

Renovating. Already?

Yes...you heard me right.  We are already renovating & we aren't even finished with the house!  Ever since we moved in, our biggest complaint has been that we don't get enough natural light in the front door/den area.  Well, here's what it looks like from the inside right now:

The plastic is there because there is a giant hole in my ceiling that goes into the (very hot) attic.  We are hoping to take advantage of one of our dormers to let in a little extra natural light.

Check out my front porch...

If you look in the lower left corner, you will notice that there is a refrigerator on my porch!!!  What a great idea!  (hehehe)  Did you ever see the episode of King of Queens when Doug decided to put a refrigerator in their bedroom and use it as an end table?  At first, it seemed like a great idea to him because he could lay in bed and get something to drink without getting up.  Later, when he turned the light out to go to sleep...the fridge kicked on and it was loud.  Carrie was not happy.  I could so see that happening!  By the way, why does the word refrigerator have no "d" in it when the word "fridge" does?  I have always been confused by this.

OK...something is very wrong with this picture...

My TV is missing!  Scott decided that he doesn't like hanging the tv on the wall so they are going to cut a hole in  the wall for the tv to sit in. 

I have no idea how long this renovation will take but I already have a headache.  :-)  I'll be glad when things get back to "normal".  I only wish my friend Melanie (yes YOU Melanie) would decorate my house for me.  I'm not very creative myself.  If I had a lot of money I'm sure that my house would look like Pottery Barn threw up in it.