Week one Kauai - renovations

We got into Kauai in the afternoon, brought the kids and pets to the house and Paul and I went shopping. We needed food (no refrigerator), an air fryer for cooking, and mattresses. It was so exciting and overwhelming at the same time. The house was disgusting, and worse than we imagined, but everyone had great attitudes and the next morning, we got right to work!  Paul had to do a meeting from the car on the way home.  We used the plastic wrapping from the mattress packaging to cover the ground and protect the mattresses from getting gross. 

Swishy was bummed that we got rid of all the carpet, and would lay down on any piece of rolled up carpeting before we threw it away. Ripping out the carpet was the first order of business. Getting the carpet and pad up was the easy part, then we had to load it in the rental car, bring it to the dump, and repeat. Paul was working most of the time, and then came out to help after he was done. We had to plan the noisy parts for when he wasn't on a phone call meeting.  Then we got to pulling out the all the staples, that was the hardest part. They were very generous with the staples, and it took a LOT of extra time to find them all. 

Paul worked hard to clean this tub and shower so we'd have one we could use. We still didn't have a water heater, so it was COLD showers, but at least we could be clean.

Snow Baby didn't care one bit about her new gross living conditions. The other two cats spent a lot of time outside, especially Whiskey, hunting and enjoying the nice weather! 

We made sure to take a break at the beach most days. It made for a fun thing to look forward to with all the work. This time we brought dinner. We ate out a lot.

Each day, at least once a day, we went to Home Depot or Ace Hardware, or both. Sometimes I'd already be gone when Paul remembered something else to buy, so I'd get a text with a picture like this and a brief explanation of the problem. This time, the wheel pin on the gate for the driveway was missing on one side, and I needed to find one just like this...

Lots of trips to Kauai Juice for extra vitamins, yum!

They got most of the flooring peeled up from the dining room and kitchen while I was gone, great job!

The laundry room and other bathroom also had the same linoleum flooring. It came up in sheets, which made it really easy to do, we were so thankful!

Out to eat at an old favorite restaurant that was changed into not our favorite. Still good, but not our favorite. 

While pulling up the carpeting in the bathroom, yes I wrote that correctly, carpeting in the bathroom, we found a hidden surprise... Another layer of flooring! Great!  The kids were SUPER hard workers and did SO well. Great attitudes and honestly, Paul and I would have taken more than twice the time to do all the work they helped us with.

Pulling out carpeting from the bedrooms, by now they were professionals!

Beach break, as usual, a welcome time of the day. The beach showers were sometimes warmer than our house shower, so that was great too!

Out for shave ice. We tried a new place (which is now already gone), and liked it, but it's no Hee Fat. 

We went to the grocery store for some meat to make dinner. We had to get things like meat the same hour that we wanted to cook and eat it, which made for some tricky timing, and sometimes we didn't plan well enough. Thankfully it's perfectly acceptable for Paul to go into the grocery store in only trunks, slippers, and a towel. The kids played with the wild cats while we waited.

Flooring removed, covered in plastic and then mattresses watching something on Paul's computer during a break from the work.

Lullaby found lilikoi in the jungle for a snack. 

We removed the broken leaking toilet and pulled up the last of the pink flooring. Gross. 

Paul had to fix up some of the water pipes and installed a new sink in the laundry room. It had to be removed again later and reinstalled when we decided to paint the room too. 

Pulling out the front door and installing the new one was harder than we thought. The door was rotten and there was a weak spot in the bottom panel that could be pushed open by the cats. Although the cats loved it, I was ready to be able to close the door fully at night when we went to bed.  The frame was a bit too tight for the new door, and took lots of adjusting to get it in. But we DID get it, woohoo!

At church we ran into some old friends, who were THRILLED when we told them we had moved back in. It was a happy confirmation that we had arrived exactly where we needed to be.