Today we were supposed to be in Iowa with my family, but my nephew (who is a serious stud of a little man) got sick. We ended up deciding that it might not be wise to expose our little girl to a potentially contagious situation - so we're at home for the weekend.

I called through several of our contractors to begin the process of finalizing bids last night. We have a meeting set up with our cabinet maker and our potential general contractor on Thursday of this week. I'm hoping to meet with an architect this week as well. Turns out that the architect that designed most of the local buildings of any import whatsoever happens to have his offices just a few blocks from our new house. He also happened to be the guy who designed the 'house on the isle' of Bald Eagle near our current home! We'll see what it would take to bring him on board. Do any of you have any experience working with architect/designer types on these kinds of projects? It's a bit uncertain whether or not we really need one, but it feels like it would be a good idea with all of the custom touches and period detail we'd like to put into this remodel in the hopes that the house retains its old world charm. If you have any advice or thoughts on the architect issue, make a comment at the bottom of this post. i'll check in with it.

We got a bid in on kitchen & laundry appliances from Warner's Stellian today. ugh. My wife loves nice things (she's rubbing off on me slowly over time) and those appliances sure look REALLY, REALLY nice :).

I'm heading to 7 Corners Hardware - the world's greatest hardware store - today with my father in law to pick out my birthday present. I haven't decided what it should be yet. Perhaps one of those sweet Paslode cordless nail guns. I figure I'm going to be doing a LOT of framing myself to save money, as well as most likely building our fence and our deck. This little baby should come in VERY handy on those projects! Plus I can terrorize squirrels with them. Just kidding. I haven't done anything that evil to an animal since High School (ask my cousin Adam about that one). If not that, possibly a tile cutter (for doing the bathrooms) or a dust collection system for the garage. I'm DETERMINED to have the shop in this new place be awesome... something I'm actually going to want to use because it's laid out well.

As soon as Ella wakes up (I suppose she will first have to stop talking and rolling around and then go to sleep), we're going to Lumber Liquidators to check out different flooring options for our main level. We're debating between something exotic (like Brazillian Cherry or Koa) or going with a good old standard oak. All the exposed woodwork in the home, albeit a small amount, is in oak. Any thoughts? Soliciting advice is going to be a standard practice in this blog.

I think that's about all we'll accomplish today on the home front! It should be a good time! Rarely would I use the words shopping and fun in the same sentence, but in the case of 7 Corners both those words apply! Have a good weekend!