My apologies for taking a whole week to update the blog.  With all the last-minute shopping things sort of fell by the wayside.  But I'm back!  And BOY do I have some stuff to update you on!  Ok, so in reality nothing really got done on the house until this weekend, but heck, it WAS a national holiday and you have to admit that even the die-hardiest of home renovators need a break here and there for egg nog, cookies, and such.

Saturday probably would have been saved as a 'recovery' day from all the Christmas festivities that we had participated the past two days, but no, something had to be done.  After a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs, we started off in our guest bedroom putting up more of the drywall.  There were still just a few sections around one of the windows that needed to be covered before we could get started on the wall that creates the closet.  About halfway through those few pieces, my Father-in-law, Guy, arrived to help Kyle with the washer and dryer.

As you may have read in previous posts, we decided it was time we got the dryer out of the kitchen, and the washer out of the dining room.  Now that all the hoses and wiring were in place we were ready for the next step.  I had finished all that I could do on my own in the guest room so I headed downstairs to start lunch and do some dishes.  Kyle and Guy headed into the basement to hook up the water for the washer.  Next thing I knew they were hauling the washer upstairs and then the dryer.  It took less that half an hour and I went upstairs to see the progress.  Miraculously enough we had JUST enough room for the washer and dryer in the nook next to the shower.  Pretty amazing, since this was not in our original plan.

After helping Kyle move the washer and dryer into the bathroom, and fixing a wicked tricky wiring problem with our front porch light, Guy was headed out- no doubt to enjoy a little downtime at home with his wife after the onslaught of company from the day before.

Kyle and I had lunch, some homemade chicken and rice soup from one of our lovingly-home-grown broilers that I had roasted for dinner a few days before.  I'm always excited that I can get at least half a gallon of chicken stock out of those birds on top of enough soup to last us four meals (at the very least).  But anyways, after eating lunch we headed to the local hardware store for a couple things that we needed for the final steps in hooking up the washer and dryer (a gasket or two, a new outlet for the dryer...I can't remember what else).

We got home and went right to the upstairs bathroom.  After Kyle installed the new outlet for the dryer (the one we got before didn't actually work with the plug) and I attached the hoses for the washer.  We secured the dryer vent and slid the dryer in place next to the washer (ok, so it took quite a bit of lifting, pushing, grunting, and probably would have helped if we had some Vaseline on hand...but they're in place).  After a week of not being able to do laundry, we threw some clothes into the washer and started the old girl up.  I did my happy dance as I listened to the sweet sweet sound of the wash being done.  And let me tell you, it is freaking awesome to no longer need to trudge up and down the stairs to do laundry- and its even more awesome to have a proper vent for the dryer again.  Woo hoo!

Before the end of the day my darling husband decided that the current door for the closet in the guest room was in a stupid place and we should move it afterall.  I was too tired to care, so he took his reciprocating saw and cut a new opening for the door.  With that we called it a day and retired to our living room for some cold beverages and a few episodes of The Office.  We had a big day ahead for Sunday, starting off with the best trip to Lowes EVER.  But I'll get into that tomorrow.