Extreme Makeover Watkins Edition

A year goes by so fast! I can hardly believe that we've been in this house now for 1 whole year (as of July 4th). Within this last year, we also decided to dive right into a major construction project (hey, if you're gonna do it, do it big, right? get it all done at the same time! hmmmm....let me tell you...it sounds like a good idea...but it's also a little, how do you say...CrAzY!) That's ok though. Live and learn.
Anyway. Here's what it looked like before:


Not much going on here, just some plain white walls and ugly carpet. We had just moved in...but yeah so anyway, Rob wanted to make changes. Fast. Boy what were we getting ourselves into...
Here are some pics of the first hacks into the kitchen wall:


And the stockpile of "Red Oak" which would become our new floor:



And like Jericho, the walls (and cabinets, and appliances...and well, the whole dang kitchen) came-a tumblin' down:


And then came the work: my husband working all day at his day job, and coming home and working several hours more past midnight, on this re-modeling monster. (I was hoping I wasn't turning into a monster throughout this whole thing myself, he he. Ahem. I digress)
Oh did I mention, we had to move all our bedroom and living room furniture, clothes, and furnishings downstairs throughout most of this process? We were esentially living in a one room apartment (while I was pregnant and taking care of a toddler! ) Here's what the chaos looked like shortly before everything was finished upstairs (and right up until I had the baby):


Poor Rob. He worked sooooo hard (and still does). It's not completely finished, but its sooo close. We finally have moved upstairs again. We had the baby on April 12, and came home a few days later and moved our belongings back where they, well, belonged. I'm so happy to be upstairs again and have my kitchen back..well not really back, but replaced! I love it now, it's a big great-room where I can cook and eat and watch the girls all at the same time. I'm blessed to have a guy who is so handy and is such a hard worker. He did a great job! And thanks to his friends and family who helped him at times along the way!! We haven't had much time to decorate or anything yet, but I'm not worried about that. What matters is that it's functional again! Here's a pic of what it looked like before we put the steps/rails up (I'll put a really updated shot next time):
And again, to contrast: