The background info...

I was going to wait and do one big blog about this, but I decided to do several smaller, suspense building posts instead. 
We have a plumbing issue and it's not a simple one.  The upstairs bathroom had a leak in the sewage line.  It wouldn't be a huge deal if the pipe was not running THROUGH OUR FIREPLACE!  Evidently, when the house was built, the plumbers did not want to do through an important structural beam, so they turned the plumbing and sent it down the cavity of the fireplace.  The leak we had caused water to seep out of the bricks inside AND outside.  The plumbers decided it would be much easier to reroute the plumbing AROUND the fireplace like it should have been done originally.  This means tearing up the ceiling and wall in the fireplace room. 
Of course it couldn't be that simple.  Since the pipes must now extend a little further before dropping down the wall, the other end of the plumbing must be raised to allow for enough of a slope for things to properly flow downward.  This meant tearing into the bathroom wall upstairs. 
Of course that would also be too simple.  The bathroom walls just happen to be tiled.  The tile (white with ugly gold speckles) wraps completely around the bathroom including the tub surround.  Once you start ripping out tile, there's really no place to stop, and of course you cannot find matching tile to patch the original hole because it's from the 60s.  Solution?  Bathroom remodel!!! 
You should know that I am 100% NOT a tile person.  I think it looks great in other people's homes, but I for one hate cleaning it and hate having little grooves everywhere for stuff to collect in.  So we were already planning on remodeling the bathroom (and the other 2 bathrooms that also have the same tile surround) someday, so we decided this was the best time.  After all, our home insurance is covering a great deal of the repairs, so we are mostly just paying for the upgrades.
While we're at it, we also decided to get a large doorway put in our wall that connects the 2 living rooms so that it is more open.  This means rearranging furniture and buying 2 new chairs to sit in the fireplace room.  The couch from that room is now in the office and Josh has a much more comfortable space to work in.  We had been thinking about doing this for a while also, but we had not planned on all this happening so soon.  We figured we might as well take advantage of already having the construction guys at our house.  So our first-time homebuyer credit has been reallocated to take care of all this fun stuff instead of other plans we had.  Oh well.  It will all worth it in the end and I know we'll be much happier. 
For now, our home is a disaster zone.  Demolition began a couple of weeks ago and hopefully all the upgrades will be complete by the end of this week. 
Stay tuned for before, during, and after pics!