This and That. 8 Days til Move In

Check out Joey's mad photo skills.

We only have one of those flowers in the yard, but it's beautiful! We're down to only having 8 days to go until the move... and we're getting incredibly nervous. Not much has been packed and not a single room at the house is finished entirely. So... anyone want to paint? Anyone? Anyone?

Really, we can move in without it being painted. The only things that absolutely must be done before next Wednesday are:

1. Pack up the apartment
2. Finish the bathtub
3. Clean the entire house. (It's very dusty, still has assorted items in it that need removed, and the floors need a good hard clean)

Really, that's it... it's a lot. But that is all that has to be done. I'd love the whole place to be painted and happy... but I really don't see that happening. It can all be painted after we move in, so that's good at least.

Joey had some amazing progress with the bathtub yesterday. Look at that beautiful tile! I can't wait until he starts putting the trim up, it's going to look amazing!

The before picture for the fixtures.

He also switched out the fixtures yesterday. They were not so pretty before and the calcium was affecting how usable the fixtures were.

Shiny and new!

He'll put the nozzle and knobs on after he puts up the backer board and tiles. He also secured the pipe leading up to the shower head. Someone along the line took a shortcut and just let it stand free without support.

See... it just kind of stands there. Now it's fixed!

He was also awesome enough to remove one of the window air conditioning units that didn't work and was just looking terrible... now it's gone and ready to be primed and painted!

Ick.

I spent time cleaning. Some of the dust I cleaned yesterday was literally older than I was. Here's a reminder people: you should clean the top of your refrigerator. Dust gets really hard to remove when it's been there for 20 to 30 years. I wiped down the top of the fridge, the insides of some of the cabinets, the air conditioners, and most of the window frames (yes, those have to be cleaned too... and if you wait years, they really really need cleaned).

I got tired of cleaning and painted some window trim. I did two of these suckers and this is the smaller of the two. Unfortunately, I think that my painting days are over until I get everything else done. That Kilz just makes all of the old damaged wood look clean, so I keep tricking myself into thinking that needs to be done before move in... but it really doesn't.

Bam!

I started packing up the apartment yesterday too. I feel better about having a bit more of it done, but there is still so much to do there. I had a slight mental break down and just kept saying "it can't get done! We don't have time!" until Joey banished me from the house and sent me to go get a massage. I need to have more mental breakdowns if that's what I get! haha.

Tonight I have a Girl Scout leader training I have to go to, so we aren't going to do any work at the house. Joey is going to pack and do some dishes and cleaning while I'm gone. Isn't he a good hubby? And when I get home I'll keep trucking right along with the packing!


PS. I have 9 followers now! Who wants to make me super happy and be my 10th?

Short Update

Sadly, I don't have any pictures today. I'm covered in paint and using the hubby's computer so I don't really have the desire or access to pictures. However, I am excited about the progress we've made!

1. Painted the first coat on the ceiling in the bedroom.
2. Primed the ceiling and walls in the bathroom.
3. Continued caulking the trim on walls and door frames.
4. Cleared out massive amounts of stuff from the house- got rid of most of the furniture (the rest will be in the garage sale) and got a number of boxes out of the house.
5. We removed the horribly stained, horribly smelly area rugs out of the house. And removed all curtains. The dog smell is starting to fade! Hallelujah!
6. We are just about ready for the garage sale! It's on Friday and Saturday from 7am-2pm if you know me, are in the area, and are interested. More details will be on Facebook tomorrow!

I said in a comment that all I really knew how to do so far was paint and unscrew things. But, today I learned how to caulk! Not a massive skill to learn... but my resume just increased in size by 33%. lol.

That's all for today, but I'll have another update (with pictures!) very soon!


****At some point in the near future I'm going to have a giveaway. However, I'm not going to do one until I have more followers and it will only be open to followers. So, if you aren't a follower but you read my blog... go click on the little "Follow" button on the right! It'll make me happy!****

Small Changes

Please excuse the terrible photo quality. I'll be borrowing my brother's camera for awhile to fix this problem!

Could that possibly be real paint? Why yes, yes it is! We haven't done much  painting, just a swatch on a couple of walls, but I am in LOVE with this color. We can't get the paint on the walls until we've painted the ceilings. And we can't paint the ceilings until we've removed all of the previous owner's belongings, which is not something we thought we were going to be responsible for and it's slowing down the process considerably. However, this weekend we did get some work done!

Yesterday we got tired of sorting and packing, so we worked around everything to get some more of our remodeling done! 

Here's the back door before we did anything to it. We will be replacing this door entirely, but we want to paint it to match the house for now so that it isn't an eyesore when nothing else is that color! We won't be replacing the doors for awhile because we have more pressing items to purchase first (new flooring for the kitchen and bathroom, new kitchen sink, complete remodel of bathroom, etc) so this will keep things looking nice until that time! So far we've only primed the door, but it should get its first coat of paint tomorrow.

Joey got to work on caulking some spaces that needed it. I really didn't think it'd make that much of a visual difference, but I was stunned when he finished!

Before

And voila! This wall is going to look amazing after we paint it. I can't wait!

After

Here's Joey hard at work...

The trim looks so much better now too. I took a before/after picture to show the difference! It looks so much better without that gap!

Before: Left, After: Right

While Joey was being super productive, I was also hard at work. I went to work painting trim and door frames here and there all over the house. I did some in the kitchen, some in the living room, all of the bathroom, and most of the hallway!

My high tech painting gadgets.

 
Here's your first look at the hallway (and mine too, that's the first time there has been a lamp so I could actually see it!). This picture was taken from the living room looking toward the bathroom. The first two doors are both closets and the farthest back doors are each bedrooms. This hallway is wired for light fixtures, but there isn't currently one in there, so I improvised with the lamp! The paint for this area will be that pretty blue!

That's all for now. We've made a time line for the rest of our progress for the next few weeks, because move-in is rapidly approaching! We move in 23 days on July 20th and have so much to do before then!

Leave me a comment, if you wouldn't mind! They make me happy! ;)
 

Memorial Day Weekend

Since the last time I've posted Joey has put a couple more coats of joint compound on the ceiling and the wall. The initial area of the wall he started on is now ready to be primed! It is finally nice and smooth and looks like a normal wall. I'll post a picture after it's been primed, but here he is finishing it up:

The ceiling still needs a coat or two, but it is getting close.

We did find another spot on the ceiling and one on the wall that also need fixed, so he put the first coat on those spots today. Here is what he did on the wall...

Step 1: Have a patch of wall that is damaged. Like so.

Step 2: Cover with fiber glass mesh tape.

Step 3: Apply joint compound. Repeat until smooth, allowing for 24 hours between coats.

Step 4, as I learned today, is to NOT stick your figure in the middle of the joint compound that your husband just finished smoothing out. Oops.

 I said the other day that Megan pulled a bunch of cabinets and drawers out and removed all the hardware. I really meant she pulled a ton off... seriously....

That is 6 drawers and around 8 or so doors. Megan is a rockstar.

One of the backs of the drawers was originally made out of a tomato carton. I think that this is awesome.

All of the drawers had liner in them. So, I pulled it out of all of them (to be replaced or painted later, or both until I make up my mind). I went ahead and primed the drawers today because Joey had time to sand most of the doors and drawers! I also primed the edges of all of the doors that were sanded today. Yay teamwork!

I also had time to get a bit more priming done on the walls in the kitchen. I started priming the trim as well. I left this board untouched for now, because Joey's height was marked on here when he was 7, 8, 9, and 10 years old. It's too cute to cover up until I've at least transferred it to paper. But, all of the other trim around this door is now primed and ready for paint!

I'll make a post soon about some of the treasures I found while going to garage sales and antique stores this weekend. I found some great stuff that will go great in the kitchen when it's finished! 

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend!