Lest you think Javi has spent even one day this entire year without SOME kind of project in our house, let me bring you up to speed on all of the ways our house has transformed since January!

The first big project was building all of those beautiful cabinets that cover our open shelving in Penny’s playroom – you can read more about that in THIS post from earlier this year. Here are a couple of before/after photos because I love them so much:

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After this project finished up, Javier tore up our floors upstairs and installed engineered bamboo flooring with subfloor. We took out the carpet and found pine wood beneath it when we moved in two years ago, and we were perfectly happy with that for awhile. It was lightyears better than the disgusting cat pee carpet that had been in place, and all told the wood was in pretty good condition. The main issue was the NOISE. We discovered that the wood was actually the original subfloor…so there was nothing beneath it but beams. The floors would CREAK and GROAN with every movement…and that was a major drag when we were trying to tip toe around Penny’s room at night. When we found out we were pregnant with Goldie, we decided it was time for new floors.

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Here are some during and after photos of the hallway upstairs

This project took the entire summer because Javi did the whole thing on his own. Being pregnant and chasing Penny around, I wasn’t able to help Javi at all except by keeping P occupied while he worked. The other issue was that Javi *couldn’t* work on it when P was sleeping or while he was at work, so the only windows he had the whole summer were basically right when he would get home from work or on the weekends. He started in June and was finally able to finish our room and Penny’s room while we were visiting mom and dad in Nashville in August. THE WAIT WAS WORTH IT. The new floors are smooth, shiny, beautiful, and SILENT!!!! HALLELUJAH! This is especially helpful now that I’m getting up to pee every 3 hours in my third trimester. Penny never hears me!

Literally the week after Javier finished with the floors he started on his next AMAZING project. This one was born out of indecision with what to do with a weird space in our kitchen. We have a “breakfast nook,” AKA strange, almost useless bit of space, at one end of our kitchen that we have been experimenting with since we moved in. We originally had a round IKEA table, but it blocked the basement door. Then we put my desk there for about a year, but I didn’t like working in the kitchen. We put a bookshelf in there for more pantry storage and have been using it as a catch-all space for random stuff, but…ultimately it was just not being used in a way that we thought was productive or helpful.

above – the nook when I used it as my “office”

Javier saved all of the pine wood from the floors upstairs for future projects, and here was a project that required the wood. He decided to build a bench with storage that would go against the wall, and a table that would align perfectly with the window leaving enough space for the basement door to open. For the other side of the table, he designed two wide and short chairs that slide directly under the table when we aren’t using them. It’s everything I hoped it would be!! Penny IMMEDIATELY started using it and it’s a perfect spot for her to color and hang out while I work in the kitchen! Javi wrote a few posts about the making of the table, so I’ll let him expand on the table more there.

So…yeah. Javier has been busy this year. Our house has seen so many improvements through his handiwork it’s amazing. I don’t know how much money we’ve saved through his ingenuity…from a custom kitchen table to laying wood floors, I’m sure it’s a ton! So glad he has a productive hobby! We have a few additional projects to post about that we worked on together – those are coming up (with some really fun before / after photos!). More soon!