Lady of the House. Captain of the Ship.

Well, we've owned this dump for almost a year, so now it's time to rip it to shreds, right? (just kidding, this place isn't a dump, it's the best house ever.) Wednesday morning the crew of electricians came to begin their work installing overhead lighting and fans in our house. For reference, we have about 1,800 square feet. The only lights installed in our house were in the kitchen (ugly florescent light box), the bathrooms (more ugly lights) and the dining room (nice enough fixture.) Our lighting down the hall mainly consisted of a bare bulb put in the attic, with a plexi glass window. The only fan in the house is in the pretty room. Not in the living room, which gets to a million degrees on a warm day. We've been living by lamp light, and now it's time to get some real lighting in here. It's a little project that's going to make a big difference, and it's a nice thing to do as our first home renovation.

So it's Friday and they've put up ceiling fans with light fixtures in the two bedrooms and then can lighting down the hallway, in the foyer, in the pretty room and in the kitchen. They've done some outlet replacing and done some work with the rattletrap wiring that the former owners did in the garage. Even though the fixtures don't have the right bulbs yet, and don't have their covers, the difference is AMAZING. For one, now when you walk in from the garage, you can turn on a light in the house right away. You don't have to walk into the entryway and fumble for the switch to the pretty room or living room. The dinner I cooked last night looked and tasted better, being made in a kitchen with an abundance of light. The bedrooms look amazing, and you could read in there without going blind.

I know there are Thiels reading this thing, so I know pictures must be displayed. Construction pictures are like crack to a Thiel man.

Baby's room, featuring new fan and light. All of the fans are the same throughout the house, thanks to a last minute trip I made to Home Depot on Tuesday, after deciding (with a little nudge from dad) that the previous fans we'd purchased at Lowes were ugly.

The pretty room, with lighting over the couch, the fireplace and one other light that will be over a little kitchen table at some point. Like, when Sequins learns how to feed her dang self.

Kitchen in progress. Thankfully it looked better than we thought when the light box came down.

Entryway cans.

The construction crew has been super nice and easy to work with. The biggest headache of the whole project (other than the dustiness) is the cats. They are none too pleased about being locked in our bedroom during the day (kitty prison) and I can only imagine how pissed they're going to be on Monday, when they're exiled to the bathroom. It doesn't help that Thor is the biggest, wailing-est scaredy baby that ever was, when he isn't getting miffed and then PICKING FIGHTS with Lulu. They are idiots, but I love them so. Just when I'm getting ready to sell them to the zoo, Thor will come and rub his face against mine, or I'll wake up to hear Lulu purring against my back. I am hoping that once the construction is done we'll have a week to just hang out and calm down before I really screw their lives up by bringing home a human sibling.

In addition to the improvement project, mom's been out of town this week so I've been driving Sara around. And doing some banking stuff. It's hard to be both the lady of the house and the CFO. Thank goodness I ultimately have dad to be the construction supervisor and home improvement adviser. Between that and having a lot of plans with my lovely lady friends, it's a nutty last month of pregnancy. But I'm hoping by late next week we'll have all of the workers out of the house and then I can go crazy cleaning and nesting. And then hibernate!