A wonderful weekend!

We worked on the house all weekend again, it was great. My husband installed the new bathroom window Saturday while I stripped paint off of the siding we removed. I also vacuumed the basement and sprayed it with a spider deterrent which will *crossing fingers* hopefully work!

Sunday the stripping paint work continued - as well as some sanding of the siding so it's ready for primer. I think I want to run over to buy some Benjamin Moore primer instead of the Behr we bought if I have time tomorrow when I'm working from home. Then we can prime the boards we have stripped so they're ready to go back up.

This week - the main goal is to get the house clean for company, just hitting every room with the vacuum and cleaning the bathroom, nothing fancy but just finding time for that alone will be tough with everything we have going on.

A weekend at my sister's house in the sweltering heat! Well the attic was definitely sweltering at least and that's where we were.

Projects included installing lights in a bedroom, closet and hallway. Installing outlets in 3 bedrooms. Installing a new light fixture in the hallway. - these projects were completed by my dad, my brother-in-law, my husband and I.

My husband also found time to cut down a small pine tree for them and my sister and mom worked in the gardens all weekend.

The weekend was rounded out by some good food and good conversation. We got home for dinner sunday night and have since been working on stripping paint from the siding we removed from the house and filling the nail holes.

This coming weekend will find us still stripping paint, also probably hitting the stripped siding with a sander and a coat of primer. My husband wants to try installing the bathroom window if we have time.

Wow the month is half over and I haven't blogged at all.

What have we done this month so far?

Well July 4th weekend we went up to Lake Pleasant with my husband's family - it was great fun. We drove up friday and stayed through sunday. The weather was great for being on a lake but we made the best of it and had a blast. My niece is absolutely adorable and so much fun to spend time with that it really doesn't matter what we're doing as long as we can get her giggling.

I spent the following week after that finishing the new door we had ordered for our future TV Room. I stained it and then polyurethaned it all week (had to let it dry between coats and sides). It was all ready to be installed this past weekend when my family came out for our belated fireworks celebration. We spent Saturday at my uncle's house ending with our annual fireworks craziness (30 minute show it's up to now). Then Sunday we finished the install of the new door which looks great!

Oh and most importantly - I did some sewing last week (while finishing the door) - I should have pictures shortly so I'll give details then!

Okay sounding like a broken record but we've had a very productive weekend again ;)

Friday night we started right out with a bang, removing the aluminum siding on the lower left side of the house where we will be replacing the windows. We needed to do that so i could measure the windows and we could get an estimate for ordering new windows that will fit perfectly hopefully.

After cleaning up in the dark we just crashed Friday night and slept late Saturday. Then after I measured the windows we went to Marvin and gave them the information, I'm still waiting on the quote which I was hoping I'd get that day. Maybe monday.

Then home to spend the rest of the day in the basement. While my husband finished taking the aluminum siding off the porch (3 sides left on the turret to go) I cleaned up and organized the basement.
Here was my completed task list that I was feeling quite happy about:
- Organized the aluminum siding into bunches by size and tied together
- Organized storage in the basement with some new shelves we purchased (after I put them together)
- Vacuumed the basement.

The goal is to make the basement easy to work in next weekend since my brother-in-law is coming to do some plumbing for us, we don't want him to have to deal with cobwebs and stuff lying around so we're nice and organized now.

Then today we removed the old drain pipes (cast iron) from the downstairs bathroom, saving my brother-in-law a step in the plumbing project. We should be all set now for next weekend.

And to complete the weekend I'm now logged on to work to finish up some stuff. We have a deadline Tuesday that we're trying to meet so I figure i"ll work today and maybe i'll take next friday off to clean the house.

Another extremely productive weekend...

It has been a while since I really blogged consistently, it's difficult because work is busy, house stuff keeps me busy and everything in between.

This weekend however my parents came out to help and help they did! My husband and I got started Friday night (actually I worked Thursday night too)...

Thursday night - I continued moving the pile of dirt away from the fence back to the foundation
Friday night - finished with the pile of dirt! Removed more aluminum siding off the front of the house (started that project last weekend).
Saturday morning - dump, Lowe's, dump, aluminum siding, parents arrive. Framing (2 doorways) and Electrical (removing old stuff in the basement).
Sunday - Electrical and more electrical (it's a slow going project) while my husband did some more framing and other odd jobs.

All in all a VERY productive weekend and I felt so good Sunday night falling in to bed! Hopefully next weekend my husband and I can keep up the momentum and the following weekend my sister and her husband are coming out to help with some plumbing!

What a great weekend, I love weekends with family and getting stuff done all mixed in.

Friday night we bought some more flowers for the garden and planted those (in the dark) :)

Saturday we worked on framing, then had company, then worked outside some more.

Sunday we finished up some framing, then I worked outside on gardens and moving dirt. It was a productive but relaxing weekend all in one.

We also had some roofers come Saturday and start on the project of repairing our slate roof. It's actually in really good shape for the most part, just one area was losing some slate and they repaired that, and the chimney we removed needs to be patched with slate. Plus our "turret" is leaking but it's not the slate that's the problem it's the "flashing" type metal gutter or something like that, we're trying to decide what to do there because it's very high up.

Unfortunately I've been fighting some serious neck pain/headaches the last few days, it's very annoying and I'm not sure what exactly is causing it but meds don't help. Hopefully that will clear up soon.

Celebrations weekend!

Well it wasn't as big a weekend for me as it usually is but I just bought a house so I have other things to celebrate as well as xstitch :)

Saturday my friends came up to my house, then we went over and shopped. The shopping turnout was actually a little smaller than usual but we each found something we liked. I usually have a hard time not spending too much but it was actually kind of hard to find things I wanted to buy this time unfortunately :( Our favorite shop was not there again :(

I did however buy 3 things - a french book of fantasy patterns which is adorable, a Scandinavian pattern that I've been meaning to get for a couple of years now to do up as a gift, and a kit which wasn't actually in stock but the shop will mail to me this week. It was the only thing I saw that just grabbed me.

Hopefully next year will be bigger but for now it's good I saved some money because this weekend was pretty expensive. We had to buy a lawn mower finally and mowed the lawn. Sunday I did some more work outside, put up our Compost bin I ordered and moved some dirt to our fill area by the foundation. I also cleaned our demo area up a bit and started doing some paint stripping last night.

I'm really looking forward to next weekend, I believe we're doing all house related activities. It may be the only weekend we're both home to get the framing that's left done and maybe start on the electrical. Then I can work on the rest of the electrical next weekend when my husband is away.

A wonderful long weekend!

And a great birthday! I took Thursday and Friday off last week to work around the house. We now have 3 rooms demo'd. The bathroom needed a new subfloor due to rot, so that's down and we started reframing the bathroom since it was lacking some studs...

Friday afternoon we spent outside starting a small garden for my new birthday rose bushes. We'll see if i can get them to grow :) Of course all the while we were doing all this I was fighting a nasty cold :(

Saturday I slept in and relaxed most of the day which was great because i think it helped me get over the cold finally. Sunday I spent the day cleaning (fighting dust from the demo still) and then sewing. I finished the flower girl dress and my sister's jewelry for the wedding. I also adjusted the straps on my dress for the wedding.

Tonight I'll pick up the last bridesmaid dress to be hemmed, hem it tomorrow probably, and i have a bracelet for my mom I want to restring (pearls) for her in case she wants to wear it. Everything else is all ready for the wedding I think!

No house work will get done most likely until after the wedding - so maybe next week we'll finish the framing and supports we're adding.

Demo update...

We had a very productive weekend with help! My husband's parents came out (surprised us!). It was wonderful. His dad is a demo maniac and basically did 3/4 of the demo himself! By dinner time Saturday night the room was completely demolished (ceiling too). Sunday we finished the cleanup and pulled out the old wiring.

We did hit a few unexpected things that will be a little more work but all hopefully manageable. Plus after demo we found that most of the walls are 2x4's, just the one interior wall is 2x3's so that makes things easier.

Now it's time to start putting things back together, we won't be putting up drywall as soon as we had planned as we have some extra framing to do but I'm optimistic that we'll have the wiring done by easter for my dad to inspect and then we can do the drywall after that.

That was pretty much our whole weekend. I did get my craft room set up though, even though i haven't used it yet. Maybe tonight i'll get some sewing done... except this nagging headache all day may put me to bed early :(

Demo has begun!
We're starting with the blue room... first we removed all the trim (trying to save most of it), then had to open up one of the walls just to see what we were in for.
Behind this wall are 2x3 studs. This house is old!
Here is step one of stripping the trim down. We did two coats of stripper and got down to the wood. Still need to do some serious sanding to get them paintable. This is the side trim for the doorway.
And here are the windows, we removed the trim and the weighted windows. The plan is to redo the windows and possibly keep the weights (update them a bit and add insulation though).

yea this will be a big project, but so far we're just taking it down and putting it back up (with insulation). Hopefully we won't hit too many surprises.

Surprise #1: The wood floor was laid down after the baseboards so the baseboards really can't be removed without being pretty much ripped apart. So much for saving the baseboards. Maybe we'll have better luck in the other rooms.
Surprise #2: The studs are 2x3's instead of 2x4's. Not sure what type of things we'll run into with this.
Surprise #3: The walls are 2 layers of plaster board or something EXTREMELY hard to break through. Demo is going to be a slow process!

Unpacking...

That's what my life mostly consists of. This weekend we moved everything out of the blue room so we could start the demolition in there. This meant moving more stuff upstairs and strategically arranging things all over.

Sunday I finally organized both the kitchen and diningroom. All our food/dishes are in cabinets, hopefully in spots that will fit them for a long time to come :) It was a tight squeeze but I got everything put away (including my new wedding china finally).

So step one or two of unpacking is complete. Next on the list I think is putting clothes away! That's a tough one since we're lacking in the closet space for hanging up clothes!

More info on demolition to come with pictures...

Whew! That was crazy but our furniture and most of what we own is now in our new house! Things are no where near organized and unpacked but I've started!

It was so great having the whole family over for the weekend, and room for them all to stay with their dogs even! I really love our house! I got it cleaned up (and mopped) Thursday so the floors looked great. I also cleaned out the cabinets with a wet rag. With no electricity all day I had just water (at least warm water) at my disposal. Worked out great.

Unfortunately days of being on my feet moving and packing and unpacking stuff really wore my feet (and hands out). My feet were hurting really badly and swollen, so were my hands. I had to take it easy a couple of times.

Saturday we got all the furniture moved in, leaving mostly just the basement stuff for me to move. We also did some small repair projects around the house with everyone's help. It was wonderful. My soon to be brother-in-law is a plumber so he fixed up some leaky pipes for us, helped put in a new toilet and new sink faucet. My dad puttered around and unlocked doors, fixed a light, showed us things for our future work with the windows and doors. He couldn't sit still, always doing something.

Then some great news, we took a peak under the aluminum siding and the original siding and trim are under there! Under the porch they're in good shape too! So this summer we'll be checking that out and repainting under the porch (and the porch). We're very excited, although we have no idea what kind of condition the rest of the siding is in yet.

Our new washer and dryer came on tuesday, the washer is all hooked up in the basement. The dryer we are going to move upstairs hopefully this weekend and get hooked up. They sure are purrrty!!!

And it's back to work for me this week. Working some long hours to meet some deadlines friday but looking forward to this weekend when we plan to actually start some demo so we can insulate the walls in the back room!

6 day weekend coming up!

Just have to get through a long day of work today. I took 4 days off work this weekend to facilitate everything we need to get done around the house. I'm so very excited!

Thursday the electrician is coming and I'll mop the house and clean the kitchen while he's there.

Friday I'll mostly be moving things in.

Saturday the family is coming and we'll move all the furniture in and be officially moved in (cable gets switched too!).

Sunday is for visiting with family, unpacking and relaxing.

Monday will be unpacking for sure and I'll go over and clean the apartment.

Tuesday my new washer/dryer will hopefully arrive! I'll unpack and figure out how to hook them up!!!

I couldn't be looking forward more to a busy 6 days! It's all really happening finally. So you probably will not hear a peep from me until next week :)

Our House:
I'm sure I'll have more pictures to share as we start working on the house. This one was taken the second time we went to look at the house. We've already made some improvements (cleaning being number 1). The outside improvements will have to wait until Spring/Summer. With my sister's wedding in April I'm thinking June will be the earliest we do any real outdoor improvements.

Even doing all the work ourselves, the current estimate for just supplies for all the work we want to do inside the house is up around 60,000 dollars! That includes a kitchen remodel and putting in a master bathroom.

This is why we need to redo the kitchen eventually:
Number one - no room for a dishwasher! We're going to have to cut out some cabinets to put one in pretty soon and eventually we'll redo the entire kitchen, put in an island, new cabinets, new appliances etc.

First project however we're starting small - we're redoing a back bedroom:
This bedroom will be our home gym for now. Maybe in the future it will be a library or something but for now a gym. We have to redo the electrical throughout the house so this will be my first try at that, we need to put in new windows. Take down the plaster, add insulation and then dry wall.

We're so excited!

We Did IT!!!!! We bought a house!

We're so excited. It's a beautiful Victorian style house, 2600 sq. feet approximately with a full basement and full attic (room to grow). It's currently set up as a duplex but we'll convert it to a single family. It's got lots of charm (including a 3 story turret running up the side!).

The first project is to switch the electrical from fuse boxes to circuit breakers. We have an electrician coming to do that this week hopefully. Then I'll be removing all the knob and tube wiring and rewiring the whole house. We'll slowly redo the downstairs, room by room, replacing the windows and insulating as we go. It will cost a lot but it will be so worth it!

We've always wanted to have a house we could make our own. This house has beautiful wood work which we hope to restore and just so many details we love. It's going to be busy for while!

So far all we've done is cleaned (I vacuumed floor to ceiling upstairs and downstairs) and changed the locks. Next up is to clean the basement and attic. Then do a wet rag cleaning of baseboards and everything. Then this weekend we officially move in (been moving stuff over there slowly so far. I do not anticipate a lot of non-house related activities getting done in March :)

2 more days!!!! And we'll own a house!

We're closing at 11am on Thursday so really - 48 hours left to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1 more week and we'll be proud (very proud) homeowners! I think we squared away the last of the details (i hope) and we're just waiting to hear for sure if that's the case.

I started the bustle on my sister's wedding dress this week. I added the hooks last night and I'll do the eyes tonight. Then that will be done!

Tomorrow i'll measure the flower girl so I can get a start on her dress this weekend. And I bought my shoes so I can now hem my dress for the wedding. Hopefully I can stay motivated this weekend to get it all done.

Oh and I get to see my niece-puppy this weekend when I go down to bring my sister her dress. Her puppy is getting big and it's been a long time since I saw her (more than a month now!).

Very good news - the house passed for FHA financing!!!! We are going to be proud owners as of Feb. 26th.

For Valentine's day we celebrated by going shopping at Home Depot for a couple of things we need right away, couldn't wait and had a gift card from the wedding to spend so I got a shop vac with accessories! I'm so excited - now I have a reason to pack pack pack!!

We will officially be moving March 7/8th. Posting will continue to be sporadic is my guess for now. This weekend I hope to do some sewing though so I will try to do some pictures of anything I can (can't post a pic of my sister's wedding dress obviously).

I have a good reason for being bad about posting (two reasons actually) -- I really wanted to have pictures the next time I posted (still haven't taken them) OR I really wanted some news about the possibly house purchase (no real news).

We are still waiting to hear if the appraiser approves the house for FHA financing (this is very risky so we don't want to get our hopes up without this). We SHOULD hear by today or monday - i'm guessing monday at this point. IF it somehow manages to pass, then our closing date should be Feb. 26th! I REALLY hope it works out but you really can't tell at this point :( We could be back to square one trying to find a house!

So I keep trying to stay focused at work but it's hard because i can't stop worrying! Haven't been able to stitch or anything either!