A Sneaky Peeky at Casa de Uribe

Our contractor, Gary, heretofore known as the Most Excellent Contractor Gary, did a crazy fast job early on to get our house turned back into a home. Within hours of receiving our keys, he had the old carpet torn out, the stuff left behind by the Evil Moving Crew moved to his warehouse, and an electrician working on our dangerous connections. He thought our house would be ready by May 25th, but as happens in the contracting world, delays with carpet, the electricity, the gas, and a whole host of other problems have pushed back the move in date. In all honesty, some of the delays have been our fault. We decided to have new windows installed (we have a week and a half until they come in) and we decided to upgrade our cooktop and install a microwave/hood unit. Those should be installed in the next week or so.

Frankly, I'm not concerned with the delays. I'm all for them! I'd much rather that we not be cleared to move back in until July so that I can finish up summer school and have time to unpack our crazy amount of belongings.

One happy thing we did was to hire Ed's cousin, Mario, to redo our landscaping. You may remember Mario from Nana's new garden. He tore apart Nana's front yard and created a beautiful landscape last summer.

Well, he came to our house, sized up the burned ivy and trees and decided to create a totally new yard for us. He tore out all of the ivy roots and the new sprouts, created a leveled and beautiful landing in the back of the house, and hacked the ugliness in the front and created a new walkway for us. It is gorgeous!

our new backyard

See the left side of the tree? The black part. That's where it caught fire.

Some of my new, supposedly, drought resistant foliage.

Our new walkway connecting the carport and the stairs to the front door.

A view from the street.

The landscaping is beautiful and Mario has promised us a month or so of upkeep to maintain it. While he was working on it, he had several people stop and ask about getting a quote. We are his "floor model."

The inside of the house is pretty barren, but pretty nonetheless. If you've seen pictures pre-fire, you know that the inside of our house was a combination of yellow (aka Creamcake) and sage (aka Brazil) paint on the walls. We went for a more neutral palette this time and Ed is really happy with it. Our new carpet is a frieze in Espresso and our new laminate flooring is Summer American Cherry. Both are gorgeous and make the house totally different.

The Great Room (aka dining and living room)

a view of the den and hallway to the master bedroom

Master bedroom with our illegal baby alcove.

I can't wait to see what it looks like with the new windows, new window treatments, and our killer new cooktop.

See that light? The end of the tunnel is getting closer and closer!