Windows in the Kitchen

To start...a random picture of my two oldest children wearing diapers. Not sure how it happened, but just so you know, when they asked if they could wear the diapers under their clothes and pee in them, I said No.And here they are, lost among my laundry.No seriously - they were hiding under all of that.Okay, now some more house pictures, because we officially have windows in our kitchen! YAY! Big, Beautiful windows. Here is a view of the progress - this was while they were still framing out the windows and before they had cut out the stucco. You can also see in this picture how the plumbing has been moved out of the center of the room and is now where it should be, under the middle window. Those wires coming out of a pipe are for the electrical on the island.Here is the same view but from the living room. Look at that amazing wide hallway. Yum.Here is a close up of what we found in the hallway when we tore out the pantry. The pantry had a lowered ceiling because it was actually a cavity to help take the air from three return-air vents into one vent. We have decided to have Scott put an eyebrow arch (a really shallow arch the shape of...an eyebrow) there to hide the vents and again have a cavity for the return air to flow through.Here are the windows with WINDOWS in them. (Sorry so dark..)Another project we had to tackle was removing the carpet from the main areas of the house, namely the living room and the hallway. (Jacob in the living room. I am standing in the hall by the front door taking this picture.) The den has vinyl flooring and the bedrooms have carpet but the carpet guy is going to remove those himself. We needed to get rid of the carpet while we had a big roll-off to put it in. Here is Jacob standing in the bare-floored hallway. The house is interesting in the fact that it is basically a one-story house, but it steps up gradually as you go from the left side of the house to the right. (Just two or three steps each time.) These steps are an example of that.
Now is the part where if you are an inspector for the city of ABQ you will kindly click off to another website. Here are some prime examples of the wiring abominations we found in this house. It is amazing the house is still standing, truly, considering Grandpa's lack of faith in using grounds, among other things.
These wires are in the living room. They've been hiding behind a couch for a couple of decades. They go outside to an outlet.These wires are in one of the bedrooms. Where do they go, you might ask?Naturally they go from a lightswitch in the hallway right behind the front door...through the closet in one of the bedrooms...and outside to power an outlet and those gorgeous floodlights.Amazing. We are having a fun time as I'm sure you can tell. Truly. My cabinets come in this week...eek! I'll have to let you know how that goes!