It's been a little bit, but I promise that we've been sufficiently busy. 😀Seth and I have put a lot of focus into some renovations on the second floor bedrooms of our house. I think it's official now, but we have removed every last bit of old carpet from the house and painted just about every single wall! But, like all of our renovation projects - our house gave us some obstacles and struggles to battle through. No worries though, we made it out unscathed - aside from some paint covered shoes and reminders that you should always triple check your math when you have to buy flooring. For that matter, quadruple check because it never hurts to be sure. 😆(Obviously, we messed up on counting our square footage - twice. But, Seth saved the day and made an emergency run over to Floor and Decor to grab more!)
Our second floor houses a guest bedroom, the nursery and changing room, as well as a bathroom, and a hall closet. Everything except the bathroom was carpeted. We had been talking for a while about ripping up the carpet and laying some waterproof laminate down as it would be more durable in the long run. (The carpet was on the older side and a bit worn. Not to mention, our cats disliked it.) So, as with all of our renovation projects, one day, I just got curious and tried to pull up a corner of the carpet to investigate what was underneath. Seeing that the house was built in the 50s, I was praying for some beautiful hardwoods! Well, that didn't happen. 😆But, because I couldn't realllllly see what was going on under that carpet, one small corner turned into the whole hallway. Because, why not? What we did have was incredibly paper thin old wood-look laminate. Both Seth and I were intrigued. Well, what was under the laminate??? I'm sure you see where this is going. 😉Under the laminate was pages and pages of newspapers from the 1950s. Most of which were incredibly preserved and super interesting! (Obviously, there were no beautiful hardwood floors - just the subfloor. Whomp whomp. 😑)
After some research, we found that it was possible that this laminate may contain asbestos so, we took some samples and had them sent off for testing. But, of course Seth took some to look at under micro-CT at work. (cough cough nerd cough) 😂Anyways, all tests confirmed that the material was free of asbestos. So, we had the green light to continue the demo. (My favorite part, obviously.)
MicroCT image of a slice of the laminate flooring.
After about 2 weeks of afternoon/evening and weekend work on the floors, we finally finished. We even were able to paint the walls of the hallway/staircase and the guest bedroom. We installed new light fixtures, painted the mirrored closet door frame, and laid some decorative penny tile in the stair case. I couldn't be more proud of our work!
Stairway, before (left) and after (right)
Stairway detail with penny tile
Guest Room - Completed (top) and during demo (bottom). Look at that weird laminate! Reminds me of the old flooring in some schools.
Nursery Changing Room - Completed (left) and during demo (right two photos)
Nursery - Completed (left) and during demo (right two photos)
Completed Nursery!
But, we are Seth and Shana. That didn't keep us that busy for too long. 😂So, since our last update we also were working hard to prepare for our second home study update. This means that we have officially been in the adoption process as a waiting family for just over 2 years now. We are incredibly lucky to be working with our local agency, Haven Adoptions. Everyone there is great and we are absolutely lucky to have these women helping us along the way! Just yesterday we were visited and had a meeting to help our caseworker write our home study update. We had to make sure that we had all of our forms, health updates, clearances, and files up to date. Trust us, this isn't always an easy task. In fact, the ladies at Haven give us a check list to make sure that we have everything in order.
Since it has been a bit over two years, we also took the time to update our profile video. This meant hours of videotaping ourselves, changing outfits, and video editing. All for a 2 minute video! Seth and I are actually incredibly proud of how our new and updated video came out! I'll post it below. Please take a look and let us know what you think! 🤔😁
But that's not all!! (I feel like I'm narrating a game show at this point.) As we previously mentioned, we have completed all our training and requirements to be a foster family. So, since our last update, we were also blessed to be able to provide a week of respite care for a sibling set. It was definitely an adventure! We were so happy to be able to help these littles out and give them a happy and safe place to be for a short while!
As always, I write the most long-winded posts ever. I'm glad that you made it this far! And if you didn't, I totally get it. 😂No worries!
Anyways, we wouldn't be here together or as strong as we are right now if it wasn't for the support and love that our friends and family give us. So, thank you for reading this. Thank you for your love and support. You all are the reason we have made it through a little over 2 years of waiting. Hopefully, this is our year and we will be able to bring home baby Hogg soon!
Please know that if you have any questions, comments, concerns, etc. we are here. Just reach out to us and we'd love to discuss our journey with you!
If you feel so inclined and you would like to share our story with your friends, family, coworkers through social media or other outlets, please feel free. You never know who you may reach and who may be considering adoption.
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