How to lose 7lbs and 14.5 ounces in less than 24 hours

Have a baby! Guess what friend of ours is no longer pregnant? No, not me. It’s our fellow home remodeler and my officemate, Cheri!

Remember this photo from a few weeks ago?

Well, Cheri doesn’t look like that anymore, because she and her husband welcomed an adorable baby boy into the world on Saturday morning. In honor of that occasion and because I’m now without my officemate for TWO MONTHS!!! and I’m already lonely, this post captures the highlights of Cheri’s interactions with this blog, starting with her guest post from several months ago, where she shared the Before and After photos of her own remodeling projects.

No one knows the highs and lows of home remodeling like other home remodelers. So, when I learned that my office mate, Cheri, had survived her own home improvement experiment, I officially decided that she was my soul mate. I mean, the girl shows up here with a copy of Monster Ballads for us to listen to and then starts talking about demo and drywall – how could I not instantly become her friend? Anyways, I invited her to be a guest blogger so she could share her incredible Before and After photos (I’m encouraging her to send them to One Project Closer for the contest they have running). Her response was “I am deeply honored by your invitation and will keep the goal of making you proud at the forefront of my blogging.” No, she didn’t say that at all. But she did write a great post. Enjoy!

I thought it very important for the blogosphere to know that my office mate Liz (who we like to call Lizard) unknowingly showed up to work today with caulk smeared on her arm. I then had to spend the next several minutes informing her of the importance of showering before coming to work. She’s lucky I didn’t get HR involved.

However, I can’t be too upset with her. Only mere months ago, I was just like her. My husband, Derek and I were (and well…we still are) renovating our first house. A fixer-upper, they call it. I called it a time warp and an eye sore. Imagine my disappointment when we first walked into the house with the realtor and saw this:

We loved the neighborhood, the double lot with big, beautiful trees, and the fact that it was a good-sized ranch house. However, with months of hard work, lots of sweat, a few tears, several Band-Aids and more swear words than a George Carlin show (RIP), we turned that 70’s eyesore into this:

The kitchen, complete with cabinets made of wood paneling and linoleum flooring used as a backsplash (not to mention a dryer next to the fridge.) went from this:

To this!!

So I like to remind Liz that I’ve been there. We knocked out walls, started a small electrical fire, got a rash ripping out carpet older than me, removed wallpaper from the ceiling in the living room, breathed in asbestos, took many trips to the city dump, and worked until all hours of the night only to go to our day jobs the next day (probably with caulk-smeared arms) and start it all over again that night.

But even now when I’m relaxing on the couch, I look around at our handiwork and can’t believe we live here. And though we had help from family and friends, we did it together. We’d sit in our backyard after work every night, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner in our dingy paint encrusted work clothes, before we’d spring into action to get the saws, sanders and paint rollers going. Never once did either of us threaten divorce. At least not to each other’s faces.
Next project – our ugly bathroom.

I profess my hatred for this bathroom as I get ready for work every morning. Though unlike Liz and Joey, I don’t have the knowledge that someone died in our bathroom. So that makes me feel a little better.

Cheri and her husband are now working on building a new bathroom in their basement in preparation for destroying the one you see above. Hopefully she’ll post about it when she’s feeling up to it.

Moving on…

Here’s Cheri and a few of our other office buds moments after they surprised me on my 30th birthday. Cheri’s the second head, the other two belong to John and Kristen.

Now, Cheri is a true smart ass, as many of the comments she leaves on this blog prove. For example, when I wrote about how stuffy my nose was thanks to a horrible cold, Cheri had this to say:

“I’m actually very impressed with your nose-blowing skills. You don’t sound like a little blonde girl. You sound like a truck driver.”

And when I wrote about the emotional breakdown I had over our nightmarish attempts to caulk our shower, Cheri made this supportive comment:

“Again?!?! I’m so sick of walking into our office and seeing you in a crying heap on the floor. People are starting to talk. Well, me mostly. I’m talking.”

That’s just a few things she’s written on the internet. Imagine what it’s like having to share a small space with her for 8 hours a day. It’s a blast. And now it’s very quiet in our little office. Thank goodness for my other office friends, who are also smart asses and find ways to make every day at work fun.

Anyways, congrats Cheri! We’ll keep your seat in the lunchroom warm. By filling it with your replacement. Just kidding. Enjoy your time at home, but we can’t wait to have you back.

• ← Remodeling Garbage as Lawn Ornaments
• My Basement Wet Itself →