Pictures

Today we got our internet connected and Aaron and Nickie helped us move more stuff over to the new place. Thanks also goes out to Eddie for letting us use his truck as well.

We have a whole list of things that need to get done today...so I will keep this short. Just wanted to get more pictures up of our progress.

Right now as I look around, I see another tornado has hit this place - as we moved more stuff in...

Well, enjoy the pictures!!

Moving In

Thursday Update

We have slept in our new home two nights now. AND Rachel officially slept through the night last night. Could be the start of a beautiful thing. :)

In other news, the upstairs floors are done! We get to move up there this weekend - as long as we can patch up the holes in the walls of the boy's room and get the bathroom in a safe enough state (maybe just lock that door).

Taryn, Aimee, and Aaron were my heroes helping me to move most of our belongings over. We just have a few more items. Phew!

We are all sleeping in the downstairs study - nothing like a family of 5 in one room. Hey! At least we can all fit in there! :)

One bummer is that my last working camera broke! So Taryn is lending me hers. When I get internet access at the new place I will upload the photos and you will see the great progress!

I am sitting here typing and looking down at my hands I see that I still have paint on my knuckles. That about sums up my time at the house this past week.
The big news this past week was the finishing of the painting and the starting of the floors.
Most of the pictures span the whole week, so some of them are before the painting on the walls and ceiling was iniated. I will work on putting captions on all the photos soon!
Yesterday, the Durbins showed up and Taryn and Chris helped pull all the painters tape down from the whole house. I painted the neglected hallway between the study and kitchen (our "popcorn" hallway)and got carried away with all the touch ups that need to be made. I had to restrain myself and realized that I will be touching up paint for the next month. It's just so hard to see when it is dark or cloudy outside (when most of our painting has been done lately). I will also be painting all the trim - so I had to put a stop to my running around the house with paint and get to the cleaning.
Sam has been working on installing the tub in the upstairs bathroom. It has been a learning process in itself. It doesn't help that the walls are not square and the floors are not level. Welcome to an old house y'all!
I just heard from my Dad that he and John are putting the first coat on the hardwoods today! Yay!
I also heard from my Mom and Greg that they will be there at the house to help clean the downstairs some more. I pulled up the plastic last night and swept and mopped some of the downstairs. There is just so much dust (from the sanding of the ceilings) that it almost makes it unsafe to do it with the kids there. So I am so thankful for their help tonight. My sister Aimee also scrubbed the downstairs bathroom this past weekend. So feel free to use our toilet if you come over :). Okay, TMI.
I was not at the house on Saturday, but I know many of our helpers were there working hard, so thank you everyone again!
Tomorrow, Aaron is going to help me move everything so we can hopefully sleep there tomorrow! Wow!

Painting Basically Done, FLOORS!

Painting and more Painting

I will not post any pictures with this post as the camera is at the new house - but I wanted to just write a quick update. Painting has taken over the whole house. I thought after taking down the popcorn ceilings everyone would be saying, "I will never do that again!" (which still may be true). But I also have a feeling that after this week, my family will unanimously vote that they will never paint again.

Because the whole interior of the house (minus the BRIGHT yellow in the kitchen) was painted a pale blue we had to put a good layer of primer over every wall and ceiling. In most cases we did two coats.

Then the ceilings had to be painted and cut-in. Time consuming and painful at times as you have to keep your head arched up to see what you are doing. I heard a lot of sore necks and shoulders plagued my crew of family volunteers. It was also a little deflating after a weekend of 8 workers at the house - taping, priming, laying down plastic, cutting in the primer - to go to one to three workers at a time trying to get more priming and color done. A lot slower. But still - progress was made!

The wall color I picked out is called Cancun Sand. Vieing for a color that was not brown, orange, or yellow, but would still stand out against white trim. However, looking at it now dried, I think you could say there is a little yellow tint to it. But so far I am OK with that. It has really warmed the place up! And now that more rooms have it on the walls, the ceilings painted white and all the cutting in done, it looks like it is all coming together.

As of today, the upstairs bedrooms and hall are done with painting. So floors upstairs and the bathroom upstairs will take priority this weekend!

When we have more hands than can be physically helping with the floors, then more and more painting still needs to be done in the stairwell and downstairs. We have to get the place livable (no wet paint would be nice while trying to move in!) by next week.

Well, that is all for now. After this weekend I will post more pictures.

Ceilings scraped, sanded and textured. And priming.

Thursday I went back to the house and tested out two colors for the walls. Neither of them were what I wanted, but I did learn that I definitely needed primer first. Aimee was with me and was very helpful with the kids while I painted swatches on the wall, let them dry, washed out brushes and trays and started the whole process over again. Around lunch time we decided to pack up and head home only to be about 60 cars or so in back of the freeway closure that took place on 85 (high speed chase ending in a crash). Bummer. Nap time did not happen on time that day. :) That evening I headed back to the house again after picking up more sample colors and painted my swatches. Because of the darkness in the house and limited time, I couldn't really make a decision that moment. But painting was going to be a week off anyway...right?

Friday and Saturday I worked 12 hour shifts at the hospital. So the next two days account comes from Sam's perspective.

Friday after school Sam headed to the house and pulled up tack boards, staples and nails from the hardwoods. He even ventured to tear off the paneling from the walls in the study. Then he taped off a section in the study and used the airless paint sprayer to wet down a section of the popcorn ceiling to scrape it off. Soon reinforcements were there and Ed and Greg and Jodi worked on the upstairs bedrooms - more tack boards and staples. They even got the baseboards off and numbered them so we know how to get them back in.

Sam scraped the rest of the study and the gang decided it was time to scrape the upstairs - operating with just a few lights to make work visible in the darkness (had to take down all lights...water does not work well with electricity).

Then there was tons of patch work to do throughout the house. And the carpet came off the stairs. It was like a work machine. Everything being done at the same time. Some people scraping, some bagging up the garbage and some spackelling. All in a 5 hour time frame. Weary bodies headed home to bed.

Saturday Sam restocked supplies. Scaffolding went up in the stairwell. More worker bees came. Aaron took the carpets to the dumps. More lights came down downstairs and more popcorn was scraped. Closet doors came off from the study and all it's shelving taken down by Sam. Sanding was a big project. Sanding was the worse. If they weren't already covered by popcorn, now they were completely white. All the walls had to be wiped down and then the ceilings were textured. The wall that was paneling was also textured. Then the texture had to be "knocked" down.

Sunday, I, Jessica, got to jump back into the action. Sam had told me that they had only been able to scrape the study's ceiling and the boys' room. And that was it. I was so proud of that progress...so when I walked in the house and saw the whole downstairs scraped and textured AND the stairwell AND the upstairs...I was in shock! I am in awe of the hard work my family has volunteered. Because of the great progress they had all made the past two days, we were able to prime the ceilings and walls and my Dad was even able to get the stairwell in such a condition that the dreaded scaffolding could come down tomorrow.

Thank you everyone for all your help! We know you know that we could not do all this without you. But we just want to say thank you again!

First weekend

Welcome to Our New Place!

What a blessing we get to share with you all. It is official. We are the proud owners of our first home. I have noticed that I already feel protective over it - warts and all. When someone laughs or comments on some of the more rough edges on the house, I get a little defensive. After all, this was a good find! And what can I say, when Sam and I walked in this place it just felt like home. It needs a lot of work and already we have shared some long hours in this place. Thank you for all the help we have gotten so far. And thank you for the hours of work some of you will be putting into the place in the next 19 days (yes, it has to be livable by then!).
Enjoy the first look at the place. The first pictures were taken by Sam when the home assessment was being done. Then it jumps to January 10th - the night we got the keys! Pictures conclude with my first full day of cleaning. xoxo

First Look