"Moving in" boxes and furniture took us one day. The real work of moving in - the cleaning, unpacking, organzing - is taking a lot longer. Initially I had visions of having at least two or three rooms done by now. But I quickly realized that there are more steps involved in the moving in process, and that things move at a slower pace when you work full time.
So I've changed my view of the house to a work in progress. Ignore the chaos of boxes, paint supplies, tools, furniture, ladders, and cleaning supplies scattered around. Just focus on the one room. And after a couple day's work on the kitchen, I'm proud to announce that its mostly done!
All the insides of the cupboards are wiped out and the wooden doors freshed up with Old English. All the boxes unloaded, all the dishes washed and put away. I can't tell you the total number of cupboards I cleaned, the boxes I unpacked, or the number of loads I ran through the dishwasher or washed by hand, but there were a lot of them. At one point I thought about counting, but decided it was better off not knowing.
The final step is washing the floors and windows, and painting the doors, then it's really done.
Monday, June 22
Monday, June 8
Weekend 2 Update
This past weekend we made good progress thanks to the extra help from my mom and dad, who came and helped Friday night and all day Saturday. My "to-do" list is always longer than what we have time for, but we were able to complete the top priorities:
-Wipe all wood trim in office and master with Old English wood polish.
-Replace the door handles on the front door, door from the garage to the kitchen, and the door from the kitchen to the deck.
-Rekey all locks.
-Replace light fixtures in master bedroom, eating area, and basement.
-Replace electrical outlets and faceplates in master bedroom.
-Spackle gashes and gouges in guest room; sand down and repaint walls.
-Prime laundry room.
We also did a few things I hadn't planned on - like fixing the door from the master to the deck and giving the front door a fresh coat of paint before putting the new hardware on it. My dad, "Mr. Fix It," also investigated the problem with the icemaker/water dispenser on the fridge.
The other major thing we did this weekend was moving our big items to the house. Joel and I made two trips with the moving truck; one to the storage unit and one to the other house. Besides some select clothes, bathroom and kitchen items, everything is at the house.
The office and the master are done, with the exception of the doors. Those still need to be repainted. Our goal is to finish off the guest room and laundry room yet today or tomorrow. After that, we'll move into the more public areas of the main floor: hallway, living room and kitchen. The hallway and living room will just get touch-ups. The kitchen is transforming to a whole new color (green sprout).
We are making progress, I remind myself when the amount of "to dos" outweigh the "completed" items. Slowly but surely.
-Wipe all wood trim in office and master with Old English wood polish.
-Replace the door handles on the front door, door from the garage to the kitchen, and the door from the kitchen to the deck.
-Rekey all locks.
-Replace light fixtures in master bedroom, eating area, and basement.
-Replace electrical outlets and faceplates in master bedroom.
-Spackle gashes and gouges in guest room; sand down and repaint walls.
-Prime laundry room.
We also did a few things I hadn't planned on - like fixing the door from the master to the deck and giving the front door a fresh coat of paint before putting the new hardware on it. My dad, "Mr. Fix It," also investigated the problem with the icemaker/water dispenser on the fridge.
The other major thing we did this weekend was moving our big items to the house. Joel and I made two trips with the moving truck; one to the storage unit and one to the other house. Besides some select clothes, bathroom and kitchen items, everything is at the house.
The office and the master are done, with the exception of the doors. Those still need to be repainted. Our goal is to finish off the guest room and laundry room yet today or tomorrow. After that, we'll move into the more public areas of the main floor: hallway, living room and kitchen. The hallway and living room will just get touch-ups. The kitchen is transforming to a whole new color (green sprout).
We are making progress, I remind myself when the amount of "to dos" outweigh the "completed" items. Slowly but surely.
Wednesday, June 3
Picking Paint
To help the house fit our style and personality, we're repainting some of the rooms. The fun part of repainting is looking at the seemingly endless rainbow of paint colors to choose from. It's like a super-sized box of crayola crayons: tupelo tree, front porch gray, waterscape...there are shades of colors I never even imagined.
Joel and I are earth tone people, so we're all about greens, blues and browns. Since most of the common areas upstairs are already shades of brown and beige, we're going to do blues and greens in the other rooms. But while I know what general color I want in each room, I'm finding picking specific paint colors to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Will this shade be too dark? Too light? Too much of a yellow undertone? I've found the Sherwin Williams room visualizer to be an incredibly helpful tool. But even with that, I knew I would need to test the paint chip in the actual room. How does the color look with that exact room's natural light? Artificial light? Morning sunlight? Evening sunset? I want the paint color to be perfect.
Armed with a handful of paint chips, I spent at least a half hour in the office and then the kitchen, deliberating the fate of the room's color. I started in the office. I held up the post-it size swatches to each wall in the natural light. Then turned on the artifical light and tested on each wall again. Narrowed it from six to four. Turned the light off. Turned the light on. Narrowed it down from four to two. Recircled the room. Changed my mind and swapped one color for one I had discarded. Turned the light off. Turned the light on. Recircled the room. Narrowed it down to one. Recircled the room. Changed my mind. Turned the light off. Turned the light on. Circled a final time. Went to the kitchen and went through the same process. Then came back to the office and recircled with my final selection: tidewater. It's a light blue with gray undertones.
The best I could do with the kitchen was narrow it down to two colors: great green or ryegrass. Tonight I'll have to make the final decision.
Joel and I are earth tone people, so we're all about greens, blues and browns. Since most of the common areas upstairs are already shades of brown and beige, we're going to do blues and greens in the other rooms. But while I know what general color I want in each room, I'm finding picking specific paint colors to be more difficult than I thought it would be. Will this shade be too dark? Too light? Too much of a yellow undertone? I've found the Sherwin Williams room visualizer to be an incredibly helpful tool. But even with that, I knew I would need to test the paint chip in the actual room. How does the color look with that exact room's natural light? Artificial light? Morning sunlight? Evening sunset? I want the paint color to be perfect.
Armed with a handful of paint chips, I spent at least a half hour in the office and then the kitchen, deliberating the fate of the room's color. I started in the office. I held up the post-it size swatches to each wall in the natural light. Then turned on the artifical light and tested on each wall again. Narrowed it from six to four. Turned the light off. Turned the light on. Narrowed it down from four to two. Recircled the room. Changed my mind and swapped one color for one I had discarded. Turned the light off. Turned the light on. Recircled the room. Narrowed it down to one. Recircled the room. Changed my mind. Turned the light off. Turned the light on. Circled a final time. Went to the kitchen and went through the same process. Then came back to the office and recircled with my final selection: tidewater. It's a light blue with gray undertones.
The best I could do with the kitchen was narrow it down to two colors: great green or ryegrass. Tonight I'll have to make the final decision.
Monday, June 1
Weekend 1 Update
We spent the first of what I think will be many weekends working on our house. With just a week before moving in the big furniture, we're focusing on the office and the master bedroom since those needed the most work.
Friday morning Joel rented a steamer for 24 hours to remove wallpaper. He started around 9:30 a.m. and worked until about noon, managing to take off almost all the wallpaper in the office. I came after work around 6:30 p.m. and removed the rest of in the office (goodbye country landscape) as well as the border (good riddance big flowers) in the master bedroom. I was determined to not leave until all the wallpaper was gone, so Joel came back around 10:30 p.m. after work and together we removed the downstairs bathroom wallpaper (farewell black and white aztec design).
Saturday Joel rolled out of bed by 7:30 a.m. to get the steamer back before 8:10 a.m. He picked up a bunch of paint supplies and was over to the house around 10 a.m. I met up with him about the same time, after making a stop for some supplies myself - and some much needed coffee. I washed the walls while Joel spackled, filling in holes upstairs and down. We called it quits shortly after noon in order to hang out with friends.
Sunday was the marathon day. I worked solo for most of it, since Joel had to work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. I washed the rest of the walls and then put a skim coat of spackle on the gouges and patches where the drywall showed through. By the time I was done, the office looked like the face of a teenager with acne cream. The master bedroom had less spots; instead it had a long white racing stripe of spackle to fix where the border had been. When Joel arrived around 6 p.m., the spackle was dry so we sanded it down. By the time we were done, we were covered in a layer of white powder. Joel's dark brown hair looked gray. After a quick wipe-down, the walls were ready. I went to work with blue painters tape along the window, doorways and trim in the office. Joel primed the office walls while I started taping the master closet. We called it quits around 11 p.m. when he was done priming.
We worked hard, but it felt good. With every step it feels more and more like "ours" and less like the former owners.
Friday morning Joel rented a steamer for 24 hours to remove wallpaper. He started around 9:30 a.m. and worked until about noon, managing to take off almost all the wallpaper in the office. I came after work around 6:30 p.m. and removed the rest of in the office (goodbye country landscape) as well as the border (good riddance big flowers) in the master bedroom. I was determined to not leave until all the wallpaper was gone, so Joel came back around 10:30 p.m. after work and together we removed the downstairs bathroom wallpaper (farewell black and white aztec design).
Saturday Joel rolled out of bed by 7:30 a.m. to get the steamer back before 8:10 a.m. He picked up a bunch of paint supplies and was over to the house around 10 a.m. I met up with him about the same time, after making a stop for some supplies myself - and some much needed coffee. I washed the walls while Joel spackled, filling in holes upstairs and down. We called it quits shortly after noon in order to hang out with friends.
Sunday was the marathon day. I worked solo for most of it, since Joel had to work from 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. I washed the rest of the walls and then put a skim coat of spackle on the gouges and patches where the drywall showed through. By the time I was done, the office looked like the face of a teenager with acne cream. The master bedroom had less spots; instead it had a long white racing stripe of spackle to fix where the border had been. When Joel arrived around 6 p.m., the spackle was dry so we sanded it down. By the time we were done, we were covered in a layer of white powder. Joel's dark brown hair looked gray. After a quick wipe-down, the walls were ready. I went to work with blue painters tape along the window, doorways and trim in the office. Joel primed the office walls while I started taping the master closet. We called it quits around 11 p.m. when he was done priming.
We worked hard, but it felt good. With every step it feels more and more like "ours" and less like the former owners.
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