Much to my surprise, the pool digging began today! That's right!
They showed up and digging commenced!

They removed a large portion of vegetation first, then began to level out the yard.

Then it started to get serious when the spray paint came out! Now it is easier to imagine the pool!

Drum roll please......the first shovelful! The guy running this piece of machinery was an artist! He was taking loads of dirt and gently dumping them right underneath our floor-to-ceiling windows! He was very talented and very conscientious of our house and yard! Eek!
The day ended with a very big hole, a little gravel and one very excited Boxer! Look closely for who was taking the first unofficial plunge in the pool!

I had hoped to post pics of the first shovel of dirt scooped out for the new pool, but as it happens, I don't have any.

Yesterday morning we met with the people who were going to start later in the day to map out the position, which plants were going to be sacrificed, blah blah blah...

I even worked remotely from home so I could be available for questions should they arise.
At the dark hour of 7pm, I gave in to the idea that they weren't coming. So, Day 1 of pool construction has yielded us officially one day behind schedule.

I think I understand why everybody keeps warning us that we will hate our pool company before its all over. Stay tuned.

Drum roll please......

We have officially finished ONE room in the renovation!

It's the room formerly know as the laundry room/litter box room!

Introducing the room to be henceforth forever known as

Kitty Shangri-La-De-Da!

After moving the laundry upstairs, the idea of the cats having their own space, far away from our noses was just a bit exciting and enticing! We gave the old space a fresh coat of paint,(which matches the kitchen and den), new easy to clean carpet squares from FLOR, little mini beanbags from Corda-Roy's and an upscale espresso and sisal cat tree!

I know it sounds minuscule, but this is progress people!

I know it has been a bit since I posted any progress on our renovations, but to be honest it is going rather slowly and the progress made is kind of boring, so that being said here is a recap of what happened last week!

Earlier this week, we had some trees trimmed and removed in preparation for the start of the pool in December. Only one tree was in the direct path of the pool construction, but we thought we'd take the opportunity to clean up a few others that were either in peril or of the invasive type. The guys that worked on the trees were great and the actual guy cutting was nothing short of an artist! Very respectful of our existing landscape!

This is the result of four trees and some unhealthy limbs leaving our canopy.

This is the remainder of the Magnolia that will go down in history as having sacrificed itself for our pool! (Don't feel too bad, it had a fungus!)

Today was spent working on the dressing room. We finished sanding and texturizing the new wall areas and doorway. Dad I hope you know that we talked about you a lot today while we executed our very best "feather-edge"!

Of course, after all the spreading of joint compound and messy sanding, it was time to see the color hit the walls! It took a lot of test batches, namely 7, to finally decide on a color, but we finally did. To top it off, we chose paint that has no VOC's so we will be free of a toxic headache tomorrow!

Stay tuned! I'll try to post as quickly as something happens!