Week Five in the House

We are gearing up for the final thrust of the biggest house projects because the horses are coming soon!  This week we worked on tons more wallpapering.  I did the dining room.  Then Nathan helped me do the living room and reading room.  It made a huge difference when we were done.  Again, the place looked so much brighter and cleaner.  We also finally managed to hang kitchen and dining room curtains.

The other project I worked on was painting more furniture.  We bought a three piece set that we will use in both the dining room and the reading room.  I only have one piece painted so far, but I love how it turned out.  We still don't have any decorations up on the walls but that will just have to be done over time.  I still have to paint all the wallpaper and more furniture and redo the bathrooms.  But for now, I am thrilled that the main things I wanted to accomplish are done!

Here's some more "after" pictures of the projects I have accomplished so far.  Or maybe I should say "mid-progress" because none of the rooms beyond the kitchen are finished yet.

As of today, we started the fencing for the horses and our plans are to have them moved over here Thursday.  We are really excited and hope the preparations and transfer go very smoothly.

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Weeks Three and Four in the House

I am beginning to feel like the Energizer Bunny in that I keep going and going and going.  I am hoping in the next few weeks, it begins to really look like there is progress and it is coming to an end.  I need to have all of the physical things done before the horses arrive because I don't see my body being up to handling both things well at the same time.  So what else has been checked off the list since I last blogged?  We (mostly Auburn and Nathan) got all of the staples pulled up and the floors are successfully sealed and painted!  That was a huge thing.

Beyond that, we have been making furniture and appliance runs almost every day.  We didn't have any furniture at all when we moved into the house so that meant furnishing the entire thing.  I am hoping to furnish and remodel the house for less than $5,000, so Craigslist has been our best friend with our purchases.  We had an RV sized washer and dryer so we needed to sell those and buy new.  I was thrilled when I sold the old and bought the new for even less than what we sold the old set for.  We also found a great price on a gently used dishwasher so we replaced that.

We managed to buy living room, dining room, bedroom and reading room furniture.  They were all incredibly cheap (read ugly) so I have been busy repurposing them.  We also made a Goodwill run for odds and ends that we needed, mostly storage items and I am trying to redo those more to my style.  So lots and lots of painting!  I have no idea of any of the paint colors because I am using whatever paint we find at Lowe's that we find for $5.00 a can on the clearance table.  So far it seems to be working through.

On top of all of that fun, we have been making trip after trip to carry things from the RV over to the house so we can clean that completely out.  We've had a few fun things like the kitchen counter top buckling up the first time we used the crock pot on it.  I ended up putting bricks on it and after about a week and a half it settled down enough that Nathan could gorilla glue it back in place.  Overall, things are going very smoothly though and we are really happy with what we've done to the house so far.

We are hoping to have the horses here this coming week and the kids are going to be here for Easter so I need to have a final push of productivity and then hopefully our lives settle into our new normal.

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Our Second Week in the House

Our second week was more of the same which was working on the kitchen and painting and wallpapering.  I am happy to report, it is 99.9% done at this point and we are quite happy with it.

For about $100, the kitchen looks like a whole new room.  Some before pictures:

Doesn't look too bad does it? And it wasn't horrible, it was just so dark and the space was small as it is.  The cabinets are the cheapest laminate that we've ever seen in a house, and they attracted grease something fierce apparently.  That added to the dingy feeling/look of the space.  The entire space just felt blah to me.  Now it feels bright and clean and I love being in there to cook.

By the way, it is so much easier to get good pictures of a tiny kitchen when there isn't a fridge in there.
In other news, we are still removing staples and painting the floor.

Nathan put up a clothesline for me.  Although I could and did hang my clothes out to dry while we were full timers, I could not do sheets so I am very much enjoying that!

Poor Ava is so depressed since we moved.  She can't quite figure out this new property lifestyle and goes crazy when the neighbors do anything in their yards.  I hope she settles in soon.

She does love being outside, and runs and runs when she is out there.  She isn't quite sure what to make of the horses on either side of us, but isn't scared of them either.  Speaking of horses, no, we don't have any yet.  We have some other things to wrap up before they come here.  I am just fine with that because I am 3 miles from them as it is, so I can see them quite easily now.  Off to soak in the big tub, which I am also enjoying very much here!

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Still Working on the Kitchen

I have been working on the floor, lifting staples so we can get it sealed because that is really something we want done ASAP.  It is slow progress though and I am getting discouraged.  So I am taking breaks to piddle around with other projects.  Today that "other project" is the beadboard wallpaper in the kitchen.  You know how it is when you start a project and think this is what you are going to do and you will be done, and then you finish that and realize it makes everything else look even cruddier? That is how the kitchen has been for me.  Once the cabinets were done, I realized I hated the walls even more than ever.  Once I hung a few strips of wallpaper, I realized the outlets all need changed out.  And the trim is ripped up and needs replaced.  One thing at a time is what I have to tell myself a hundred times a day.  I am settling in a bit more and adjusting so that will help some.

I still haven't taken pictures of the whole kitchen, so this will have to do for today.

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Painting the Kitchen Cabinets

Thursday started bright and early.  Today was the day to start painting the cabinets, and I wanted to get right to it.  I need some kind of kitchen to function well and I knew I wanted to paint the cabinets so I figured I might as well do it before moving my things inside the house.

The first step in the process was to remove all of the cabinet doors.  Then I had to scrub them and the trim around the cabinets really well with a de-greasing cleaner.  The next step was to sand everything down, and after that I put primer on them.  I was afraid I would have to do two coats of primer because the cabinets are not wood, they are a cheap laminate.  Luckily it only took one coat.

I worked on pulling up floor staples while the primer dried.  I had a helper but she pooped out before me.

Luckily she woke up again and resumed her duties and pulled up staples "like a boss" in her words.  She did rock at it!

After the primer dried, I put on the first coat of paint and this is where we ended for the day.  By the way, the really great part about having plywood floors is you can paint without drop cloths because you know they are going to be covered soon anyways.  That's actually the only great part, but today it was a huge plus!

I grabbed enough food and kitchen items to make dinner and we fell into bed exhausted again after dinner.

The next morning, I painted the second coat of paint.  I thought I would do the backs of the cabinets today but I ran out of paint.  So I tackled our bathroom and started cleaning it.  I pulled the entire shower doors out with a bit of help from Nathan.  They were really dirty and I just didn't feel like spending hours trying to see if I could get them clean when I hate shower doors anyways.  I'm glad I did pull it up because this was under the track.

I decided I could at least primer the backs of the doors when Diane from the sanctuary called.  I finished the painting and headed over to help her out because something was wrong with Gary and Robin had to leave.  Nathan went out to get more paint and supplies while I was at the sanctuary.  He was a saint this week, working long hours and then running around every night.  I really appreciated all he did.

The next morning, I was up at 6 am because I just wasn't sure what was going on at the sanctuary and I was worried about Gary and Robin.  I wanted to wait to see if I was needed again before jumping into a project.  At eleven or so, I decided I must not be needed and started painting the backs of the doors.  As I was halfway through the very first door, Robin called!  Gary had his appendix removed and they did need me.  So I finished painting as quickly as possible and headed over to the sanctuary.  

After wrapping up my time there, Nathan and I went to Wal-Mart because we needed even more things.  We did not get home until eleven.  It was another long day!  I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow!

This morning I was hoping I could finish this kitchen up and get everything moved over.  I got up very early and worked hard all day long and not only finished the cabinets but managed to move every single thing from the RV over to the new kitchen!  Nathan carried it over and I put it away.  Together we got it done. 

So, how did it turn out? Pretty good.  We really like it.  It is much brighter and cleaner looking.  I still have a few things to finish up, like door pulls and I am going to do white beadboard on the walls but it is at least functional now.  I'll show a little sneak peek and then take decent pictures tomorrow.

Off to bed for me, because I still have two bathroom vanities I want to tackle!  

Happy Birthday Ashleigh, our oldest girlie girl!  We love you!

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Our First Week at the House

Week one was just like moving into any other house.  Except this time I wanted to move extra fast on the projects and we had more limited funds for the house than we normally put there.  So I started the process of doing lots of real DIY projects, more than we ever have with any other house.  And by "we", I mean "I"...because Nathan is working an insane amount of hours right now.

Day one in the house was a LONG day of me pulling up the carpet and padding.  From the first time we saw the house, we knew it had an overpowering animal urine smell so I knew I'd have to do this before I could get anything else done.

It was hard, hot and sweaty work and it was filthy, disgusting work.  But so worth it to have the source of that smell gone from the house.  Here is a sample of that process and you can see the layer of dirt that was UNDER the padding.  You can imagine how dirty the carpet was for there to be that much dirt under that and padding.

While I was in the middle of that project, more neighbors came to meet us.  This time it was a family that just moved here a month ago themselves.  Very nice people too!  As I made my way out to the RV for something, he was talking to our other neighbor and so I went and met her also.  She was great too.  I don't know that we've ever had better neighbors anywhere else before so we are thrilled with how wonderful they all seem.

Nathan got the water going in the house, which was a huge plus.  HUD is holding an escrow for that repair so we are now able to get that money back from them and use it towards fencing for the horses!

Rapid Systems came to hook up internet for us, but had problems so they have to come back on the 25th to try again.  That night Austin, Ryan and Nathan picked up some furniture and a fridge that we bought on Craigslist and Brittany helped me sweep up the mess on the floor.  We were glad to go to bed even though we were still hot and sweaty.

Wednesday I headed back over to the house bright and early.  I worked on pulling up staples on the floor for hours until I had too many blisters on my hands (need work gloves!) and then started cleaning the kitchen.  Those two things had me busy until that night when the guys headed out to get living room furniture.  The poor guys worked full days and then did this at night.  Very long days for all of us!  The kitchen was very dirty at the beginning of the day, but nice and scrubbed clean at the end.

The next day began the big project, so I'm going to write a separate blog post for that one!

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We OWN a House Again!

I suppose this is my first "official" post here, so I will start with the first step in our fostering horses process.  Monday, March 3rd, we bought a house.  After signing 150 pages of paperwork, we were handed the keys and headed out to drive our old house to our new house.  We left the realtor's office and I said, "We own a house!"  Then, "Crud.  We OWN a house'.  We are still adjusting to that part.

We got to TT and hooked up the RV and drove over to our new house.  It was really neat pulling it right next to our house.

Before we had even parked, one of our neighbors drove over to meet us.  It was so nice to welcomed to the neighborhood right away.

Once we got the RV somewhat level we tried to hook up to see what we had.  We knew we would not have water in the house, so we planned to stay in the RV until we could move into the house.  We plugged in the electric at the RV hookup and it didn't work.  So we had to plug into a regular outlet which meant we could run the fridge and that is about it.  Luckily it was mild enough weather we were just fine with that.

The important part was we were at our place where we could begin our horse journey.  I want to get the house ready and have it settled before the horses come, if at all possible.  We'll see if that happens or not.  Projects tend to be like kids, they always take more time and money than you plan.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it goes ok though.  I am so looking forward to moving into the having horses part ASAP!

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