Slow and Steady...kinda

We have been here for exactly one week now, and I think a lot has been done. I'm not sure though. haha. Finally, today, a week late the electricians came to hook up the dishwasher, garbage disposal, washer and dryer, and put in some more outlets. But, they didn't get it all done. I'm not supposed to use the dishwasher and microwave at the same time...sounds a little sketch. But they will be back on Monday. Or they better be at least! Also, I went to turn on the dishwasher but it sounds really bad and there is no water coming in. There is power though. And I am one unhappy person. Does that mean the plumber has to come back?? That could be a while. AHHH!

Erin and I moved in a couch, courtesy of my parents, so now we have somewhere to sit besides our bed. Because the kitchen isn't done, so there is no kitchen table or anything else. Comcast came today. This is a funny store, NOT! They were supposed to be here Tuesday between 4 and 6pm. I left Folsom at 3 and sat in sooo much traffic, only to arrive at my door at exactly 4:01. At 630, we call comcast and let them know that their technician never showed up. They informed us that the technician was there at 3:55pm!!! To which we replied, that is not between 4 and 6. Then they tried to get us another appointment for next week, and I was not having that after I hustled and sat in traffic forever to get there and then they left early?? Oh heck no haha. So I told Erin to hand me the phone, he told the lady, "hold on, my wife wants to yell at you." Thanks babe. I was nice, don't worry, but simply informed them that next week was unacceptable and they needed to have another time available for us this week. So, they came today and now I am happy.



Good news! My friend Kaitlin and her family just stopped by and checked out the house (I love visitors, please come by) and so I took a break from finishing this blog, and guess what!?! While we were talking, one of the workers stopped by to grab some of his tools and I mentioned the dishwasher problem and he fixed it!!! Praise the Lord!

I am working on a craft project...not sure when I'll finish it since I have to finish the rest of my house, but I have an idea. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of what the board looked like before I painted it, but it was this teal decorative board that said, "Always kiss me goodnight." I bought it thinking we could put it on our headboard because I think that saying is sweet. Erin wasn't having it. He also replied with, "Why do I need to say goodnight? I'm not going anywhere haha." So hence the project of what to do with it.

I am going to screw in the knobs and hang jewelery from it! Thanks Brit for the idea, forever ago.
More pictures:

We got all new drains put in. They tore up the concrete walkways along the house, ripped out of dirt packed clay drain pipes and replaced them with new ones so that they can actually drain into the street. There are literally trees limbs coming out of some of the pipes.

And last but not least, my house has a slide! hahah I think this is pretty funny

All Moved In

This last weekend, we had family help us move out/clean the apartment and by Saturday night we were living in the house! The workers did a great job of getting all the necessary things done by Friday so it was livable space. Such as: putting in our toilet and vanity in the bathroom, putting in our kitchen sink, and then getting all the plumbing done.

The electrician is coming today to add some more outlets around the house and to hook up power for our dishwasher and garbage disposal. And laundry! We have had the washer and dryer ready for 2 weeks but there is no 220 power source yet, needless to say our laundry is piled sky high and I am looking forward to actually do lots and lots of laundry tonight.

With this storm the last few days, our house has been freezing! We have not gotten HVAC yet and our wall heater is seriously from the 70's so we borrowed some space heaters and got my electric blanket! We are going to be complaining about how hot it will get in the house by next week :). But, there really is no sleeping in because the workers have been getting there at 7am sharp! And they are inside the house working on the drywall and stuff.

The only things left inside our house are: finish the 2 bedrooms (they removed all the old plaster and are putting up drywall), finish the wall in the kitchen, dry wall our dining area ceiling (from the ugly weird high school classroom ceiling tiles), smooth out the walls in the bathroom (and then I can finally paint it and put up the vanity mirror and lights), install bathroom fan, and then once all of the workers are done, we can tile our kitchen/dining area and entry way. We have been holding that off because of the heavy traffic and want to keep it looking nice :)

We still don't have internet hooked up, so it might be a few more days until I update my blog. I hope everyone is having fun seeing the transformation because I know I am! And then we can have visitors!!

I Told You I Would

I told you I would be mentioning funny stories from work, but my house is consuming my life! Sorry. So here is one for you:

On Tuesday, I was on the register at work and my two co-workers were in the back room. There were like 3 people in line, and all of a sudden I look over at the condiment bar, where everyone puts cream and sugar in their drinks, and there was this homeless woman looking at me and talking loudly (to me?). She was saying nonsense of some sort while grabbing handfulls at a time of our napkins. I then addressed her by saying, "Is there anything else you need besides all of my napkins?" I usually would not have said this if it clearly wasn't someone who was crazy and yelling. She replied, "They're not your napkins!" "But they are for our customers," I said. She then grabbed a handful of drink sleeves (who needs a handful of those??) and then she yelled, "This is a hospital!!!" and ran out the door. The end.

Things I am working on besides the house itself:
 Turning 22!!
Changing our address and setting up the mail to be forwarded.
Ordered change of address cards that I can mail out to family and stuff.
Cleaning our apartment. I have deep cleaned our stove, oven, outside of fridge, outside of kitchen cabinets, and the shower so far. Still have to do a lot more. Cleaning the apartment is the last thing I want to be doing when I still need to clean our own house a little bit more by Sunday....Anyone like to clean and likes me and wants to help??? :)
Working at Starbucks.
NOT cooking. It's kinda been bitter sweet because I love cooking so much but I am so tired when we get home on average at 9pm every night from the house. So it's been eating out or eating something microwavable!
Slowly packing and moving things into the house/basement.

Here is a picture of the progress they are making on the kitchen in the house!! I am so excited. My sink is huge and the countertop is about 8 feet longer than the one at the apartment!!!

These are old door knobs and old hinges and then the ones we stripped and I added new glass door knobs! I got 2 more for my birthday and I love them!!!

And, after Erin's dad took out the stump in the backyard, Erin went and planted some tomatoes and peppers!! I think we are going to be making salsa this summer!!

One more week!

Wow, time has been flying by and there is still so much to get done before we can live there! Right now I am blogging on our air mattress in the apartment, since Saturday we moved our bed, mattress, desk, and kitchen table to the house!
We are a little upset about the lack of stuff being done at the house though. There is no kitchen countertop, no sink, no drain or anything on our side. There is also no bathroom toilet. It has been that way since the 2nd. There is no bathroom sink. The plumbing needs to get done before everything can go back in. They started demo-ing the other unit without telling us first, so there is no toilet over there either, just a kitchen sink. Needless to say, it all better get done this week because we are going to be living there on the 15th no matter what.
We are hoping to get carpet installed in the living room and our bedroom on Friday so we can move everything in and be out of the apartment on Sunday. This week our granite countertop came in and our kitchen sink too. So It's all ready for the contractor to install: They need to cut the granite, cut and lay the sink, put in the garbage disposal, and build an attachment for our dishwasher! Then I will be happy with the kitchen :)
As for the bathroom, tiling is done and they need to fix the plumbing at the toilet and sink. Then they can finish with tape and mud on the drywall. Then we can put in the vanity and toilet, and then we can paint and use the bathroom! All needs to be done by Sunday the 15th. I need a toilet and a kitchen sink. Is that too much to ask? :)
On Saturday, Erin's dad came up with his stump grinder and got rid of this huge stump in the back of the house. It took about 45 minutes to grind it up but about 45 minutes to fit in alongside the back of the house each way. It was a tight squeeze. Amy helped unload all of our wedding presents that we had stored away! It's like getting married all over again, there are so many things I have never even opened, I am getting so excited just thinking about it!

We got our granite countertops delivered on Friday too. I like them alot. I ended up buying 18 feet of granite, hehehe. There will definitely be some extra since we only needed 13 feet. Hopefully that will look better than the last ugly peach colored countertop in the kitchen.

They have also removed the super cracked plaster in the closet of our bedroom, brought it down to the lath and then put up new drywall. They just need to mud and tape it and then it will be ready to move my clothes into :)

They did the same with the back bedroom. There were 3 bad walls with cracks that were poorly repaired, so we are starting over with drywall too.

Lot's of dust and plaster everywhere! I asked them to save the curves of the ceiling and they were able to. I think it adds a lot of character to the house and the charm so I am so glad they saved it! It should look really great when its done and there is new paint and new carpet!
Erin and I are really having fun seeing a house get remodeled and being able to see all the different stages. It's not something everyone gets a chance to be apart of, just remind me to stay positive while I'm living there in the construction!

Monday

Today was a good day. I got to the house after work and looked in the kitchen. The workers had taken out the old counter top! Which is great. They also started doing some plaster repair in one of the bedrooms! And Erin grouted the bathroom tile. My dad and mom and sister all came up to help as well. We finished stripping the door, now it just needs to be primed and and painted and it is going to look amazing. Colleen started lining the drawers in my kitchen so I will start by slowing moving in some kitchen stuff. But not too much because the kitchen is going to be a mess pretty soon when the are working on the counter top and plaster repair to one of the kitchen walls. The plumber should be at the house on Tuesday to do some work.

I found some vintage looking hardware in the unit we are remodeling, so I put it in our bedroom.

The door knob I bought this weekend from Anthropologie, one of my favorite stores. The plate and door knobs on all of our doors are cool and vintage looking, but were painted over. So I am stripping the paint away and bringing back the brass look. I am doing the same on all door hinges too. The door knob fits perfectly on the hardware. But, it was $38... So I will have to pace myself with putting them on every door :)

Moving in in 2 weeks!

Well, another week has gone by and I feel like we have done a lot but there is still so much that needs to be done. On the bright side, most of the stuff that still needs to be worked on/finished are things the contractor is having other people do! The bad news is we need to be fully moved out of the apartment by May 15. That is in 2 weeks!

This week we finished painting our bedroom and living room. The living room has curved ceilings and then comes down the wall to the wood trimming. So, it was a little harder to paint than just a room with actual corners. There is a TON of prepping involved in painting this house. Since it's so old and was a rental, there are layers and layers and more layers of paint. So, when there are chips in the wood or door frames, it's very easy to peel off more paint and have large parts stripped away. Then you have to sand it down or completely strip the area of the old paint and start over. I could easily do this to every part of the living room, but only have so many days. With that said, I am only focusing on the door frames and fixing those up and just painting over everything else.

My mom helped me fix up one door this Saturday. I had scraped off some of the paint and she stripped the rest of the door with a paint stripper. It's going to look so much better when we are done and have it re-painted. Then you will be able to see the details so much better with all of the groves not covered in layers of paint. Keep an open mind, it's a work in progress.

I am planning to do this to as many doors as possible in the house, but this one side of the door took all day to do, and it's not even done yet. So I am thinking this will be a long term project that I can work on over a long period of time. One door at a time. Just to let you know, there are 4 doors that connect to the living room alone. It could possibly take me the rest of my life ahaha.

While my mom and I were working on that, Amy, Erin and my dad were busy tiling our bathroom!!! YEAH! Since there is only 1 bathroom, we needed to have it tiled before we moved in. On Monday we are grouting it and then hopefully once the plumber does his stuff, we can put in the new vanity! Then, the contractor has to re-drywall the bathroom walls. I will put up before and after pictures.

Those are before, we took off the wood paneling, took out that mirror, vanity, the ugly wall heater is coming off too. This is the in between look. And it looks better in the before pictures than right now haha.

I am a little stressed out because like I said there is a lot to be done before it's ready for us to move into. We are getting the new carpet installed probably around May 12 or 13. But before then, 2 bedrooms need plaster repair and I need to wait until that is done to get the carpet in. But then I want to paint the walls before the carpet goes down too. Then the bathroom dry wall needs to be done before we put in the new vanity, a fan needs to be installed in the bathroom too. Then the plumber needs to put in new plumbing before the vanity goes in. And did I mention that the kitchen sink doesn't work right now, so our only running water was the bathroom sink?!?!! AH! But luckily there is the back unit that is vacant, so we were using that bathroom and kitchen for water. It's so stressful how I can't do anything that needs to be fixed, I am just waiting on other people to do it. One day at a time.

I am really grateful for everyone who is helping us with the house, thanks!!! If you want to come visit/help, let me know :) Here are some more pictures. (Before and after)

 It's a work house! My kitchen is never allowed to get his messy after this is over :)

And last but not least, what mine and everyone else's hands looked like after working all day Saturday. Seriously dried out and bleeding knuckles, all for the house!