We have SO. MUCH. TRIM.

So, my mom had painted the living room/dining room while she was here ... and she made the comment that it took her all day (and longer than she estimated) because there was just so much trim to paint around, so it went slower.  I agreed then, but was unaware of the work and time.  Or, should I say that it didn't really connect with me until this weekend!  I painted around the trim this weekend.  And then I painted around some more trim this weekend.  We have A LOT of trim work!

Pat finished ALL of the spackling!!  YAY!!  He still has a little bit to sand tomorrow, but we are all done with the digging of cracks, spackling, sanding, and repeating ... at least in the front half of the house (which is the older part, so we should be pretty set!).  And, if I do say so, he did an awesome job.  The parts that are already painted, you can't even tell that he had to repair cracks there!  That makes the job so much more gratifying too.

So, this weekend, we finished:

1. All of the spackling and sanding!
2. Den is officially ready to be painted.
3. One coat of paint in the bedroom (I still need to do the top trim work because I need to buy a step stool/ladder that I can paint on ... I'm too short, and I'm not a fan of using the ladder we have.)
4. A second coat of paint around all of the trim in the LR/DR, except the crown molding (for the same reason as #3).

We also ordered our new living room furniture, and got our wallpaper sample in the mail!  So, we were able to see that the whole color scheme matches and everything is really coming together. 

From left ... DR wallpaper; my chair; couch & Pat's chair; curtains/accent color

It's not nearly as dark as it looks in this picture!

We're hoping to the finish the painting this week, so that we can start painting the actual trim next weekend.  At the very least, the ceilings and baseboard work has to be done before the floors get finished, which is a week from Wednesday.  Plus, I think that it is mega-optimistic to think that we might be able to get ALL of the trim work painted in one weekend ... there is just so much (plus it has to be sanded too!).  But, we feel like we got a lot done this weekend, and it's starting to be rewarding work (since we can see the results). 

Hopefully the next pictures I post will be of all 4 front rooms painted!  Wish us luck!

Pat finishing the spackling where the drywall & plaster meet!!

Den ready to be painted!

Trim and trim and trim ....

And more trim and trim and trim!

 

Completely painted fireplace!!

Starting to paint the den!

Non-union work force - you don't get breaks!

So, my mom has been here all week ... and boy, has she been a HUGE help!  She worked hard all day, each day she was here, to help us get this house in order!  And, it looks like we are on task to finish all of the necessary items before we move in, which included:

1. Dig out and fill all of the ceiling cracks & wall imperfections (won't be perfect, but for first-timers, I think we did a pretty good job!).
2. Painting the ceilings and walls
3. Painting the trim (at the very minimum the baseboards and door trim - if the windows and actual doors have to wait, it's not too terrible.)
4. Cleaning the ducts.
5. Refinishing the hardwood floors.

Then, there is stuff that if we don't get done before we move in, well, it just is going to have to be done less conveniently while we live there.  This list includes:

1. Painting the kitchen cabinets and walls.
2. Painting the back hallway.
3. Painting the guest bedroom.
4. Repair pulley systems on all windows.
5. Paint & install shutters in the living/dining room.
6. Installing new countertops and sink in the kitchen.
7. Contractor to repair & build box around kitchen ceiling.
8. Contractor to remodel both bathrooms.
9. Clean up the basement, paint, and repair windows.

and much more that I'm sure I'm just not thinking of right now!

But, I regress.  BOY, has my mom just gotten things done this week!  She washed all of the walls, including scrubbing the glue and paper bits off those that had wallpaper.  She removed all of the bits of carpet and nails that were left around the baseboards in the living/dining rooms.  She removed all of the kitchen cabinets and cleaned them all out (scrubbing most of our kitchen down).  She spackled and sanded some of the walls.  And, then she painted some of the rooms for us!  And, since she got all that done while we were at work every day ... we let the fact that she took some unscheduled, un-approved breaks just slide!

It's finally coming along to the point where we can visibly see progress - which I can now say is HUGE in home-ownership.  Because when you are doing all of this work, day in and day out, and all you see are ugly yellow walls with lots of spackling and a kitchen that still has mold growing on the dishwasher ... you can tend to get a little discouraged that you're not getting anywhere. And, you start thinking ... why did we buy a house that needed this much work?  And, yep, the price was higher, but we could already be sitting in our new living room watching TV right now if we had bought that house - probably playing golf this weekend and maybe making it to the driving range tomorrow night!?!?  But, it will all be worth it when we are finished doing all this work ... our house is going to be super cute and I'm getting excited!

And ... this is what we got to walk in and see on Thursday night!

So, then we ate some Thai food ... delicious, as always ... and my mom & I went back to paint the fireplace.  I was a bit skeptical at first because it was making the walls look too blue (they are sliver/grey), but after we were finished, it looks AMAZING!!!  My mom leaves tomorrow; so we'll be back at it by ourselves, but thankfully since we've gotten so much GREAT help over the past week from all of our parents ... we're on task to finish everything we have to get done before we move it!!  So freakin' exciting!

 

A BIG thanks to our parents and families for helping out and being so excited with us ... hopefully next time you come to visit, we'll have an actual bed, in an actual guest bedroom, for you to sleep on/in after we put you to work with the unfinished list (outlined above)!! 

Seriously, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!

Sunday & Monday ... The anniversary is over.

So, Patty & Tom left early on Sunday morning and so we were up and at it.  We got some breakfast, made a stop at Home Depot, and headed back to the house.  We put in a full day's worth of work.  We finished scrapping the paper off the walls in the den - we had to take turns doing this because our arms started out sore from the day before.  There was still quite a bit of wallpaper and paint left!  We also dug out and filled ceiling cracks and wall cracks, which will need a couple more takes before sanding and hopefully they look awesome!  And, I cleaned up our tools (very necessary project!).  We were spending a lot of time just looking for the right tools, so I organized them in our dining room hutch.  Then I organized all of our cleaning supplies in the kitchen cabinet so our counters were clear to work on.  Plus, I knew that my mom was coming to help us out this week ... so this way, she'd know where everything was while she was working hard while we were at work all day!

My mom arrived shortly after we got home from work on Monday evening.  We ate some sandwiches and then headed over to the house.  The city allows for 2 dumpster drop-offs/pick-ups and 2 large item pick-ups per house each year; so we opted to use one of our large item pick-ups for all the stinky carpet and padding!  Our garage had become unusable since the carpet had been sitting out there stinking it all up.  So, we put on our masks and re-rolled, stuffing into garbage bags, and pulled everything out of the garage to the driveway.  The previous family either all had asthma, or absolutely no allergies because they became immune to it all!

Then, Pat re-spackled some of the cracks while I showed my mom around and discussed what she should do this week.  We called it an early night because Pat had to finish some actual work ... and my mom and I made a trip to Meijer for some needed supplies for wall washing before we paint.  (Painting is actually on the horizon and although it's going to be work ... it's visible progress and we'll feel like we're getting somewhere when we see the house!)

We've scheduled the floor guy, giving ourselves a clear deadline of when all this work actually NEEDS to be done ... it's going to be close, but we'll make it work.  Also, we scheduled a duct and furnace cleaning service to come out tomorrow.  They'll suck all of the stupid smell and dirtiness out of our ducts, sanitize them all to kill and prevent any build-up/mold in there, clean the furnace and blower, and clean our air conditioning coil!  I am super excited!  This task was not on the original list, but after getting in there and seeing how these people lived, I don't think that I could have moved in and turned the heat on without doing this ... just thinking of all the dust and dander that is probably down in those ducts makes me sick-o-rama!

Home Owning Anniversary (one week)

Pat & I got some stuff done through week one ... but we needed some help, both via manhours and professionally!  We had been waiting for a long time (since we bought the house back in August) to see what the costs were going to be to contract out the work that we can't (or don't want to) do ourselves; like the hardwood floors, building the box above the cabinets in the kitchen & repair the ceiling, and putting new tubs in the bathrooms.  Well, Friday finally came, and Pat sure was busy ...

1. The electrician came to do the repair work negotiated in our purchase.
2. The floor contractor came to estimate the repair work to hardwood.
3. Two contractors came to give us estimates on the kitchen and bath work (and some misc. stuff)

And, they all came at once!  The electrician actually came in the morning, but just as the floor guy and one of the contractors showed up to start their estimates, the electrician thought he was done, but then found some of the switches that didn't work properly ... so it was quite hectic!  But, Pat managed to talk with all of them and really ask some great questions so that we find AWESOME contractors.  We've gotten some of the quotes back already, and got some ballpark estimates for others ... so at least we're able to rest a little easier just knowing.  We decided on a floor guy (thanks to the online yellow pages, and some awesome previous work pictures), and also on the general contractor we're going to hire for the rest of the work (big thanks to Steve from northern Kentucky for recommending Rich to us ... he is awesome!).

Termite damage (OLD) that will be fixed ... along with sanding & refinishing all of the wood, and patching/saving the add-on to the floors in both bedrooms!

Pat also managed to strip the border wallpaper in the guest bedroom and part of the back hallway before I got home from work!  Then, we cleaned up our apartment and talked about the contractors while we waited for Patty and Tom to show up (Pat's parents) ... they were in town for the weekend to help us with the house, and they were a big help! 

On Saturday we all got A LOT done ...

1. Pulled up all of the tack board, nails, and staples from the carpet - in ALL of the rooms.
2. Decided to finish stripping ALL of the wallpaper in the den - even the stuff under the paint (not fun, or easy).
3. Stripped the wallpaper in the kitchen, and removed the tiles behind the stove. (this sounds like a lot of work, but this wallpaper came off with just a scrapper and some pulling, and the tiles just popped right off.  It was a gift from the housing gods after we decided to finish stipping the den, which was HORRIBLE work.)
4. Trip to Home Depot to get a sander, sand paper, spackle, more scrappers, etc.
5. Fixed some of the cracks in the walls and got a lesson on how to fix larger cracks in walls/ceilings.
6. Pulled up some of the master bath flooring to see what was under there.  (The hardwood floors run through to there also, but we're not sure that they are even in savable, fixable shape.  We'll ask the floor guy when he comes back out!)
7. Painted the samples of colors on the walls throughout the house. (Pat & I had bought these sample pints earlier in the week and I was super excited to see how the colors were going to look in our house.)
8. FINALLY finished cleaning all of the components and putting the fridge back together! 



 

Tack board + nails + staples = Hand injuries for Patty

It was a VERY productive day!  So, we all rewarded ourselves with a few drinks and a little dinner at our favorite place down here ... Oakwood Club!  It was much deserved, and oh so good!

And, just for fun ... here are the awesome shutters we have for the living and dining room windows!  We found them in our not so awesome basement (shower anyone?)!

So much more to do ... so there will be lots more posts this week ... as long as I have the time!

Breathing easy.

Yesterday, was the first Sunday of the 2010 NFL season; so we didn't really get that much work done.  But, we did manage to clean up our current apartment some, make a trip to Home Depot, and work at the house for about 4 hours.

We finished stripping the rest of the wallpaper in the living room and dining room.  I finished cleaning out the fridge and freezer (because I couldn't keep any drink or food in there until it was done).  Pat was able to clean up some of the dirt and bugs with the awesome shop vac we bought.

The PEEL-AWAY didn't work as well as we'd hoped ... and since we have SO many other projects, I think we are scrapping that one.  We'll paint it and it'll look fine ... maybe we'll take that on in the future?

Today, Pat took the day off work ... to work.  He also met the electric guy to read the meter in the basement and met with a painter lady to give us a quote on painting the front half of the house.  We're probably going to do it ourselves, but she came recommended at reasonable rates ... so we'll see what reasonable means to other people.  It would be nice to just have her do the work, and for it to look professional - apparently she knew a lot about painting and fixing our slight wall problems, and some tricks and tips.  She has to mail us a quote because she is just learning how to use a computer ... we might be done painting before we know what it would have cost.

Pat also ripped out the carpets in every room but the den ... Oh, how fresh the air smells when compared to just yesterday!  It was so nice in there; I didn't even have to wear a mask today!  And, it looks SO SO SO much better already.

And, we got most of the 2+ layers of wallpaper off of the walls in the Den.  This has been by far the hardest out of the front rooms.  The walls are patched in places, and there are multiple layers of wallpaper with some kind of plaster/spackle in between some of the layers, and what we think is also a layer of paint in there?  Anyway, the paint lady told Pat that she would probably take it all off if it were her house ... we'll see how that goes.  We've got the bottom half mostly done, and the top half is painted over already.

 

And, finally ... the floors in the bedrooms/den.  We think that maybe parts of the house were added on in the 50s.  Both bedrooms have original hardwoods throughout 2/3 of the room, and then an added-on section that is not done well, nor does it match.  It was a disappointment; but, we have a hardwood floor specialist coming out on Friday to give us our options.  So, since we both like a nice carpet, if need be, as a final resort, we can always carpet those two rooms.

Now for beer and bed.