Mission Accomplished!

No, ZuZu isn't here yet-- that's the second mission of the week. :) The first mission was the completion of the attic spaces. I haven't been up there yet (they finished yesterday morning, a crew from church came in and helped clean in the afternoon, and the carpet cleaner is coming today to steamclean the carpets in the bedrooms upstairs), but K went up and took pics for me.

Remember what our bat-infested attics looked like before?


(You can also see a couple of the previous posts here and here).

Here they are after:








Astounding. Truly, the guys who did this (including my husband) are my heroes.

They removed the false ceilings, removed the guano-saturated insulation, put up dry-wall, blew in insulation that will repel animals, put down a new floor, added/moved the lighting around, and added some outlets. We will paint at a later date. Right now, I am just ecstatic that these spaces are finished, clean, and BAT-FREE!!!

And we can use the bedrooms upstairs now! It's like our house just doubled in size! And, oh man, how I LOVE that I now have 4 walk-in closets (although we think one will be designated "club house" for the kids).

NOW ZuZu can come. :)

Day Three!

Yesterday was day 3 of attic construction-- there was a change in schedule, so they worked yesterday but aren't here today (they are now waiting on the insulation guy, who isn't returning calls! grrr!).

Here was one of the attic spaces at the end of Day 3:




And below is the attic space I am most impressed with. It used to have a false wall right in the entry with a second little door in it, and you had to duck through it to get into it. That wall is gone, and they ripped out the false ceiling above to reveal an almost-normal sized room:


Moses and I had some fun of our own yesterday:




And today, Daddy took advantage of the construction-less morning and took Moses for a wagon ride:

Oh-- and no more bats have made any appearances, so the count remains at 9!

End of Day Two!

Here's where we are at the end of day two:




Each of the four attic spaces looks like this. The drywall will be finished sometime next week, but we have to wait for the insulation guy to come and blow in the insulation, so it will probably be the end of next week before there are any major updates after this.

One more winged rodent bit the dust today, bringing the total "removed" to 9... I was just thankful there weren't 20 or 30 hanging from the ceiling when they went in this morning. We have (er- HAD?) a "bachelor colony," which we're told can number in the hundreds. "Nurseries"-- where the females and babies roost-- can be in the thousands. BLECH.



Moses and I had fun watching the forklift unload and lift the drywall to the roof (where they were taking it in through a window).







The neighbors are probably watching all of this and thinking, "Wow, that's going to be SOME nursery." :) But no, ZuZu won't have her own room just yet-- we're ridding the house of bats instead (and I am trying not to think of what an awesome remodel we could have done with the upstairs bathroom for the money)....


Moses REALLY wanted to go outside to watch...




Can you tell it made him really happy?

Demo Day Update

What a day! I was amazed at how fast this crew works. Within an hour, they already had all the walls and insulation ripped out of the first attic space. By noon, all four attic spaces had been demo-ed (is that a word?). The dry wall starts tomorrow!

The total bat count for the day was 8 bats "removed," and 1 got away. Darn! If it had been nicer outside, I would have sat out there to watch if any came flying out through their little bat holes.... By the way, one of the guys asked a police officer if they could get in trouble for killing bats. The officer answered that you can kill them if they are putting your health in danger. I think the bats hissing at the guys is definitely is a "danger" sign...

Here was one of the attic spaces this morning (pre-demo):





And here it is now:

Just look at all the junk that came off/out of the walls (the back end of a pick-up was also full):

Moses and I had a good day together, and he let me get a lot of work done. But there were things that I did that I wouldn't normally have done-- like, I didn't fight him when he wanted to wear his Elmo pajama shirt to preschool this morning. Here he was before preschool:

And apparently, it was the twins' birthday today, because this is how he came home:

He was so proud of his crown, I didn't make him put his stocking cap on for the walk across the street...

And another thing I let him get away with: a doughnut and apple slices for lunch... Again, not worth the fight today...

When he got up from his "nap" (he didn't actually sleep), he was inspired by all the banging her heard upstairs (he's singing "Bob the Builder" while he bangs his hammer):

And random question: Do you think a work crew would be caught dead eating the "funfetti" cupcakes I made tonight? I was thinking about sending some up for them tomorrow. :)

Demo Day!

*BAT COUNTER-- So far, 9 bats "removed" (goodbye, suckas!)*

It's day one! The crew will be here in about 10 minutes. But I took a little video today of the current status of the upstairs:



And below is an example of one of the attic spaces that is being remodeled. It is quite large and goes around the corner, and we have four of these, in each corner of the house. There is some kind of false ceiling that will be ripped out, and the insulation is all coming out, too. They are going to put up dry wall, blow in insulation (to remove roosting space), and put in a new floor. GOODBYE BATS, and HELLO, giant walk-in closets, and a big family room we've never been able to use!



A few prayer requests:

• That the bats will be driven from the house and not bother the crew at all.


• That no bats will fly into the living space.


• That I can start sleeping at night! (between pregnancy and worry, I haven't gotten much lately)


• That my breathing improves. I've been having trouble lately. I think it is anxiety-- go figure!