Post 1: welcome

Hi! We are Garrett and Kathy. This is us:
 

We are a couple living in the Kerns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon. Garrett is a Harvard educated architect, currently working for Hacker Architects in downtown Portland. I am a software developer, currently working for Bonneville Power Administration. 
We bought our modest little house in 2008, during the recession. Our vinyl-sided, 1000 square foot, built in 1906, 3 bedroom, 1 bath house sat on the market for 6 months, slowly dropping in price, before I saw the craigslist ad posted by the owner. The poor owner had already moved to Boston and was desperate to sell. He told us what he needed to break even and we offered him that amount and walked away with our very own first house together! 
Right away, we made swift improvements. Garrett couldn't abide the textured walls and we skim coated most of the texture away. We also said goodbye to crown molding and tacky baseboard trim. Also buy-bye to all carpet. We demo'ed the ceiling in the living and dining room and painted the joists white.
In 2009, we added skylights to the upstairs hall and master bedroom.
In 2010, we made a back patio to replace boring old grass that was only used as a bathroom for our aging pug.
In 2014, we *finally* finished off the interior trim and created a beautiful and secure shed for our bikes, tools, and other sporting equipment. 
In 2016, this year, we have begun our most ambitious project yet. We are solving one of the biggest problems of our house: we are a 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom house. The bedrooms are all upstairs. The bathroom is downstairs. For 8 years, I've been slaloming down the stairs between 12-3am to pee. And because I didn't want to one awesome bathroom and the one sad and neglected bathroom, the downstairs bathroom was included in the scope. And since that would have meant that the one room downstairs that wasn't improved was the kitchen, the kitchen was included in the scope. 
Our current state is:
Master bedroom and office (which qualifies as a bedroom because the master closet has a door on both sides.) 
1 sad bathroom
To be state is:
Master closet becomes upstairs on-suite master bathroom.
Two new closets to be created in master and office.
Downstairs bathroom configuration updated and everything upgraded - flooring, vanity, tub/shower, storage, sink, faucet, EVERYTHING!
Kitchen reconfigured. Sink moved to other side of galley kitchen to overlook window. Stove moved to be across from sink location. Dishwasher moved to be next to sink. Tons more counter top space, tons more cabinets. Upgrading and leveling flooring. New under mount sink, new microwave. All other fixtures/appliances staying. 
For this super ambitious project, we are using Custom Design Homes, Inc., located in Clackamas, OR, owned by Dmitry Onishchenko, and assisted by his business partner, Alex Onishchenko. 
We began demo YESTERDAY, 8/22/2016. They project that this project will complete in 6 weeks.
This is the story of our project. Welcome, and thanks for reading!