You May Know Him as Mr. MNMom (John)...

...but we call him Anne Sullivan because he's a damn MIRACLE WORKER!! Okay, we don't call him that because that would just be annoying, and though he is a friend to the gays, having a girly name just doesn't really suit him.

So, not only does Mr. MNMom take a job 3 1/2 hours from his family for a whole week, he pulls off ridiculous amounts of work in just 5 days. There is still some painting and staining to be done, but you need to see some of these befores (taken at our inspection) and almost afters. I'll post more next weekend when the finishing touches are done. These are not our furnishings, just in case there was any confusion. :o)

BEFORE: Ceiling height at the wall with windows was about 6 feet or so. See the beams? That is painted insulation in between them. Everyone who toured the cabin stuck their fingers in the insulation. Not too pretty.

ALMOST AFTER: Wall height at the lake is around 7+ feet. Door height allows Curt to clear with inches to spare, where before the frame hit him square between the eyes. West wall slopes up to 11 feet. If you look closely you can see Claire just entering a full scoot on her behind. I'll blow it up later because she has a look of sheer bliss on her face, much like I do when I scratch my behind.

BEFORE: Again, low low ceiling height. Ugly light fixture. The wall at right was also painted insulation. Fugly. By the way, these beams on the ceiling were structural for the old roof. A few years back, the former owner had piled insulation on the old roof- held up by these beams- and put a new no maintenance metal roof on the place. John had to demo the entire old roof and remove about 20 inches of insulation. God bless him. That couldn't have been pleasant.

ALMOST AFTER: Amazing. We're replacing the ugly fixture with a north woods chandelier of deer antlers and wood. Fancy. Well, not completely fancy because the deer antlers aren't real. Real deer antler chandeliers cost a frickin' fortune. After two rounds of paint selection this weekend we settled on two colors- Arbitrary and Chic Beige for the accent walls. We had to find something that looked good with the two colors of stain on the pine- a little charming quirk we inherited.

BEFORE: Say hi to our friend Marina. If she is around, I make her model everything. I've got one of her modeling the fridge. She's a good sport. Anyway, a long narrow room with low ceilings made us tall boys feel a little claustrophobic. John also whacked his hand on the ceiling while doing a charade of the pope during a lively round of Celebrity. The low ceilings had to go.

ALMOST AFTER: Low ceiling gone. Built in shelf at the far end of the room- John's genius at work. All weekend, Curt and I just walked around with our jaws dropped at what had been accomplished. And he even did it all around all the wavy surfaces and logs for window frames and hornets nests and me e-mailing every 5 seconds. Incredible.