Not Closing Yet...and What We Want To Do

So, I was wrong about us closing on the new house by the end of this week.  It looks like it will actually be another week and a half or so.  But in the meantime, other things have popped up that needed to be dealt with, and the Lord has dealt favorably with us again:  The Relocation company is replacing the pool liner for us.  This is wonderful....and huge!

But we are EXCITED to move and are slowly but surely getting ready around here.

We've got lots of boxes packed up already...

Yes, free boxes...high class, no?

...and empty bookshelves staring back at us.

But since there is no one pushing us out of this current house yet (kind of wish there was someone pushing us out), we plan to do some work at the new house before we move in.  Painting the bedrooms?  Definitely.

And we also plan to do some work here:

I totally forgot to take pictures of the kitchen previously, but here it is.  I really like it.  It has more  counter and storage space and a better layout than what I currently have.  

But see this wall on the right here?

Well, it backs up to this wall in the family room:

While I love, LOVE the bookshelves (my addiction love for bookshelves is well documented...very well documented)...they must go.  It pains me...but they must be sacrificed for the greater good. 

I need to be able to see from the kitchen into the family room. It would be nice anyway, but with Gabriel (and any other littles to follow), I really need this access. 

We did this same thing in the house we're currently in.  Jas took out part of the wall separating the kitchen and the family room.  We sacrificed an in-the-wall oven and four cabinets... 

...and it was totally and completely worth it.

The hard thing about having such a handy hubby is that it makes it very painful to hire anyone to do anything for us.  But since there is only one Jas, (oh, what I could accomplish with if I had more Jasons!) and he does need to show up at the bank to bring home the bacon, we think we need to hire someone to do this work...although we may do the demo ourselves.

Like I said, I/we are antsy to get in the new house, so hopefully it won't take too long to get these things done and actually get moved over there.  We're thinking that we'd like to be there at least by the mid to end of March.