Happy January Friends!  I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year.  This Christmas was a milestone for us, for we ate our first meal in the dining room.

Our tradition every year is to have breakfast on Christmas Eve with my father-in-law.  We normally have our meals in our garage, where my kitchen is right now, but with all of the work we have done this past year, we really wanted to have this meal in the dining room.

My father-in-law gave us our first 3.5 acres, so it only seemed fitting to share this extra special meal with him.  We swept and cleaned, doing our best to make it not seem like such a construction zone.

I used this credenza (that I scored for $15.00 at my local mission) to hold the food and coffee.

We piled the power tools and materials on the kitchen island and used plastic tables and random chairs for seating.  Nothing fancy here folks.

My hubby makes the most delicious french toast.  He actually does all of the cooking for breakfast, well done Love!!

It was a simple meal, with strong coffee and good conversation.

The kids played with their gifts.

And the adults enjoyed the view. 

When I think of how much this room has evolved over the years, and to be able to share a meal in here now, brings tears to my eyes.

On another note, we have made more progress upstairs over the past few weeks.

The girls closet is ready for clothes and shoes.

We had to install a fan in our attic to help push some warm air into our bedroom, which is the farthest room from the wood burning stove.  That means this beautiful thing now resides in half of my daughter’s closet.  My Hubby was able to fit the shelving around the pipe so it wasn’t a complete loss of storage space.

I touched up the beds and trim, and a ceiling fan was installed.

My hubby made a ladder for the boy’s bunk-beds out of black pipe, it was a bit of a challenge, and I promise to share more on that later.

I repainted the beds to match the walls.  I had already painted them black, but it looked like a big black hole just sucking all the detail out of the beds.  I still feel like something isn’t quite right, but I hope once I get the bedding and curtains in place, that feeling will go away.

The boys closet is ready to fill, I plan to install hooks along the wooden strips in the back to hold belts, ties and hats.  I love me some organization!!!

I painted the bathroom floors and walls.  Since I took this picture, we have both sinks installed, the toilet flushes and shower works.  We ran into a snag with the sinks along the way, but I am saving that for, you guessed it, another post.

This is our to-do list to get the kids upstairs.  I have to paint the hallway and loft floor, and the other railing needs put on the stairs.

I am grateful for those of you that have followed along and read about our home building journey, 2016 could be the year I actually get to use my dishwasher, so stay tuned!!