The wall came down!

I felt like East Berlin in the eighties... Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but I was so happy to see the wall between our kitchen and dining room come down! Ryan got the kids to help start it, and then finished it after bedtime. G started with the hinges on the doors - yes, there were two doors to close, just in case a wall wasn't enough to box in the space - and he was able to take them off all by himself. Scout took a screwdriver to them after he'd finished, just to make sure the work was done right. Then, the fun began with the first swing of the hammer. G got out some serious aggression, and was very pleased with himself.

Then, after we put the kids to bed, the real fun started. My precious little girl started calling out from her crib, so I went to check on her and ended up rocking her for a few minutes. When I walked back out into the living room where Ryan was working, the sight, and the smell, were nothing I'd expected. Ryan had broken through some drywall to reveal a rat's nest with a couple of dried up, dead rats. Now, my husband has a stomach of steel, and even he was having some trouble controlling the queasiness. He kept it together, though, and finished cleaning it out, since he was more than halfway done anyway. Thank you, Scout, for calling me at the right moment! We'll skip the details and fast forward to the part when we thought we were almost done, and then noticed the buzzing of a huge wasp's nest full of wasps near the ceiling. Luckily, I knew where the wasp spray was, and Ryan took care of it, stomping on most of them to finish them off. Talk about renovation realities, but we survived. After scrubbing my floor with bleach water (the thought of any contamination from that rat's nest touching my precious children's feet was too much for me), we fell into bed, satisfied with a good day's work. Oh yeah, and we showered, too.

Garrett removing the hinges

It's off!

The first swing

A nice hole in the wall

Scout double checking G's work

The aggression comes out

Coming down

The remains of the nest

Almost done...

The open kitchen!