House

Tomorrow the house gets listed with MLS (multiple listing service).  We have had two people come look at the house. One last Friday and another yesterday. We haven’t heard anything yet on what the response is.  We are still finishing some details on painting and molding.  It’s been a long road but it is nice to see the end.  I sanded three interior doors this weekend and got a few coats of primer on.  Here is the finished kitchen. We are so pleased with the outcome and love the back to 50’s look we have given it, without breaking the bank.

Remember my bed?  Well, I have been working on making some changes, slowly, so we can still have some food money!  It’s done and I am so pleased and everything I got was on sale or at a great affordable price.

I’m trying to figure out how I can make it work, showing the house, keeping it clean, and not making everyone else int he household crazy in the process.  This is my plan.  Hubby and I are going to start getting up at 6am to go for a walk before he goes to work. Then I will work on picking things up, cleaning and making sure things are orderly. That way I have a good jump start on the day and won’t feel behind by the time the girls get up.

Ask me how it goes.  I’ll need the accountability.

Susan

PS-I posted at Classic Academy also.

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House photos

The Kitchen.  Yeah, it is done.  This is one side of it. It is a galley kitchen. When I get the dishes done and the other counter cleaned off I will take more photos.

This is the family room. Yes there is a laundry basket and a cat in the photo!

This is the deck I painted.

View of back yard.

Girls bedroom, three views.

It looks like we are finally going to get the house listed tomorrow after 4 long months.  We’ve learned a lot and I think we are better off because of this experience.  We will start working on the other house and move in as soon as we can.  Most important things to do over there is clean and paint.  The previous owners didn’t leave the house in great condition. I would have cleaned it anyways before moving in, but I got dirt and grime to do away with. Yuck! Hope you enjoyed the photos.

Susan

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It’s crunch time

We are exhausted people!  This month is absolutely insane. I have so much to do, feed people, school, keep the house spotless, classes to finish up, recitals, birthday (mine that is…stay tuned for a possible birthday giveaway).  We didn’t make our May 5th deadline to list the house, due to my minor setback with a a virus. Hopefully next Monday is the big day.  This week is clean, clean, clean…and I am not looking forward to it one bit.  I’m feeling a bit stressed and I think hubby might be too. I know what would really help me…a bit of quiet time with the Lord. I really feel a bit lost in my walk lately. I need to find my way back.  I may also need a big bar of chocolate!

Susan

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Prayer please

So for 4 months our lives have been turned upside down with remodeling this house and the pressure to get it sold and sold quickly.  The market is down, the house isn’t quite finished, there is cleaning to do still and things to move and about three projects that need to get finished in the next 4 days.  So far I’ve done well. I’ve handled the stress with ease.  I was flexible, I worked, I packed, I cleaned.  In the midst of all that there was a moderate amount of school that got done.  Now Monday is our self imposed deadline and I am a bit in freak out mode, except you don’t really see me freaking out. It’s all happening in my gut. Last night my stomach started hurting and continues to hurt today. My conclusion….an anxiety attack.  Please pray for me and our house, that someone would walk in here and love it instantly and offer full price for it.  Is it asking too much?

Susan

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Week End Update

Things are coming along folks. The light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter an oh how pretty it is.  We finished painting the deck this weekend. We needed to put two coats on and had to wait two weeks for it to stop raining, snowing, hailing, between coats.  The cabinet doors are finished. Can you shout hurray with me.  Half of them are up with handles on.  Wowsers does it look great.  I painted my front door.  Yes it really did need it. It is a fir door with a bad stain job. It was looking very ratty and we really needed to make sure the curb appeal sparkled.  We toyed with just getting a new door, but frankly we are just tired of spending money on this house.  Can you believe we make at least a weekly trip to a home improvement store?  I primed the door yesterday and painted it today. It is a dark reddish brown and goes well with the green house and white trim.

May 5th. That is the day we are shooting for.  We have more to do still but I think the hardest parts are done.  Please pray for stamina because frankly we are pooped out, burned out, and just plain tired of working.  It would be so nice to have a quiet boring nothing to do kind of weekend.

In other news, I opened an etsy shop. I  tried to get the linky/logo on my side bar but it isn’t working. I only have one thing listed so far. No, I am not really making a bunch of jewelry at this time, but I hope to add more things to it in the future.  It’s called beadattitude.

Susan

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Painting cabinet doors.

Well, just as most of the projects have gone since we started three months ago, this is taking longer than we thought. Last weekend it was sunny, bright and oh so warm. It was a day we live for here in the Northwest. Today was cold, bitterly cold, wet, with even just a few snow flurries. That makes for slow drying time. All the painting is being done in the garage, the obvious place, and with a limited amount of space hubby needed to figure out how to paint 22 doors and where to store them while they are drying. He is so brilliant. He built this amazing tower with arms sticking out and on each set of arms rests a door. Not only that, the whole thing does not tip over when all the doors are in place. Side two of the primer coat is being put on and hopefully it will be dry by tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow we can get one side painted with it’s top coat. Hopefully it will warm up.

Susan

PS–No painting today. We woke up to snow on the ground. We had sunny skies, clouds, rain, hail.  What strange weather we are having. We were able to move quite a bit of stuff out of the house though. It is feeling so good in here. What am I possibly going to do with all the stuff in the other house. Did I tell you we are loosing about 300 sf?  Yikes!

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Where have I been?

Sorry folks for being so sporadic in writing. I was thinking ya’ll might be getting bored of house repair info. Shoot, I’m getting bored of writing about it.  We are still plugging away and making progress. I think the end is in sight. We hope to list the house by the end of the month. That gives us about a week and a half. Yikes!  Heres what we’ve been working on, just because I know you are dying to know…

*sanded and painted all the drawer fronts in our kitchen

*finished building the doors to the cabinets, hinges attached, hung, tweaked and hung again. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, there are exactly 22 doors.

*power washed deck twice, and one coat of a paint/stain on the deck.  Still waiting for the rain to stop so we can put on coat 2.

*A few things taken out of the house to brought to the new house.

*more toys decluttered from girls rooms and packed up.

*fireplace trim attached—yeah it is completely finished.  Let’s just say it’s been a long time waiting.

Still to do before we list…

*take cabinet doors off, and paint.

*apply laminate to left side of kitchen and add the tile backsplash.

*clean, clean and clean some more.

In other news—-

We were really blessed recently to have been GIVEN a piano.  I had it moved to the new house and it is beautiful in it’s upright 1920’s glory. It used to be a player piano but the mechanism was taken out. It is in wonderful condition, just needs a tuning and the girls are absolutely thrilled to have their own piano. Next year we begin lessons.  Princess is showing a strong aptitude towards music. She has a beautiful voice, but has not enjoyed choir this year, so next year she will get to learn the violin and piano.  Right now, she sings her choir songs and figures out how to play the song on the piano. She can play several songs, and had not been taught a thing yet. To me that is amazing. She is even starting to write the music down on music paper.

We bought a car. Yep, this week we saw a Nissan Xterra for sale just two houses down and decided to check it out.  Hubby has been driving a clunker truck to work, he commutes on the freeway. The seat is broken and he sits lopsided in it. Sometimes the key doesn’t work in the ignition and it takes several minutes to get the car started.  The door lock also has issues.  We test drove the car, drove it again, hubby crawled underneath, because he is that kind of guy (one of the things I love about him) and then made the decision to buy it. The bright yellow bumble bee is sitting in the driveway right now.  It’s a mans car and I am so happy for hubby to have it. It does scream “name me” though.

Yesterday I was working on teaching fractions to Princess.  She is adding fractions with unequal denominators, and it is a concept she must understand before moving on.  So I took two paper plates and cut them up into pie pieces and we talked about equivalent fractions and if I gave her 1/2 of the pie and her sister 2/4 of the pie, who has more which obviously neither do.  So Pixie who has a small sense of humor, doesn’t like jokes, doesn’t get jokes pipes up and says, “what I want to know is what kind of pie is it?”  Ha, what a hoot!

I guess that is about it for now. Aren’t you glad that I got you all caught up?

Susan

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It’s Friday

I have groceries to buy, school to finish up for the week, and other miscellaneous errands. I am looking forward to another productive weekend in getting this house ready to sell.  One of the things that I have enjoyed in this process is working with my husband. I enjoy the projects, seeing things get done, walking around the home improvement store holding hands and getting a quick bite to eat without the kids.  Even though our work will not be done when we sell this house, I am looking forward to the work we need to do at the new house. I am looking forward to making it our home, finishing it with the perspective that this is our forever (on earth) home.  It’s a bit difficult waiting, but I know with each step we make here, we are closer to getting there.  What are your plans for the weekend?  Hope it’s a good one!

Susan

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Photo time

I’ve talked enough about the house, and now I finally have some photos to show you. I was hoping to wait until it was all done but decided to at least post a few in the middle of the project. The kitchen is looking better. The paint on the cabinets is finished, the walls are painted, the new counter is on one side as well as the tile back splash. Hubby is working on the doors now. We found some drawer pulls that we bought for our last 1950’s house and didn’t use but took with us when we moved here. It just happens that we have exactly enough for the amount of drawers in this kitchen. I must really like this era, because we will be moving into our third 1950’s house.

My friend walked through the kitchen last week and we talked about getting valances for the windows. She said she had the perfect fabric for it and she gave it to me. So Friday another friend came over and helped me make these adorable valances that really pull the kitchen together.

This is over the kitchen sink-

This is on the bay window in the breakfast nook. I couldn’t get far enough back to get the full window, plus we still have some remodel junk supplies in the kitchen that I wanted to keep out of the photo.

Since it is hard impossible to find a curtain rod that will span a bay window we used sticks of wood that I stole borrowed from the garage. Thankfully my friend has no fear of a chop saw (since she amazingly planned and built and entire wood playhouse that looks like the Ingalls residence) and cut the pieces to fit about each window. We then cut our fabric, sewed to make a long strip and pleated them by stapling it into the back side of the wood. We rolled the wood over and nailed it to the wall. I hot glue black grose grain ribbon to the top.

This the the kids bathroom. We added the bead board, painted it, bought the vanity cabinet from our local home improvement store and the powdered marble vanity sink. It makes the bathroom look so much bigger and gives it a wow factor. I love this room now.

And this is our bedroom. It’s just cleaned up and decluttered. I could kick myself for not buying the matching quilted pillow shams when I bought this quilt. I also am in search of a nice but inexpensive king size bed skirt. I really dislike spending money on that sort of thing, but it also bugs me to see the bottom of the mattress. When we get to the new house, we are definitely going to make a head board. I am thinking of a recycled door or shutters or something like that.

This is the top of my dresser. I love it nice and neat like this. Someday I hope to get rid of the IKEA furniture and buy something I really like.

Edit:  Sorry about that–I thought for sure I put this photo in.  What a lame-o! 

Well, I hope you have like the tour so far. I will post more when things get completed.

Susan

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quick update

Just thought you all might like to know that my sink is in and I finally have an operable kitchen.  Hubby’s birthday was yesterday and instead of going out to dinner, a nice home cooked meal awaited him, along with a from scratch cake.  It’s good to have the sink back.  I heart my sink!

Susan

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