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