Update! Update! Massive Update!

Whoa! Its been over a month since my last update. I am a terrible blogger-- what a lousy journalist! In any case, here are some pictures to update you on how our little house is going.

Phil and I are getting married in just two and a half weeks, which means we need a house to move in. We are confident that the house will be in move in shape by our wedding but some other repairs will inevitably have to be done after we new tenants move in.

Lets start with the master bedroom:

These pictures are from the beginnning of March. We had still yet to put the last piece of sheetrock up, the "cathouse" was still there, and the floor still had some sort of film on it which had been used to keep the tile down. At this point, all of the tile had been pulled up.

We got to work on the upstairs and made some progress, thanks to my dad (once again!). I came by one day and my dad said to me that, since he likes Phil, he doesn't want me to have a "doghouse" for him. He proceeded to cover the little closet/storage area that was in the upstairs bedroom (the green square you can see in the picture below). The funny story is that the man from whom we bough the house said that when he was younger he used that space as a place for his cat. I told my dad it wasn't a doghouse, it was a cathouse. Regardless, he closed it up.

You can see the patch more close up below...

My dad also put down plywood on our floors to prepare for the carpet people to come install. This gives them a flat surface to work on and it cuts the cost of having them level the floor prior to installation.

Pops also decided that he didn't like the light that was in our room so he pulled the cables and bulb down and took the light fixture out.

Now onto the kitchen:

We have installed insulation. By "we" I mean Phil and a couple of really wonderful friends who spend nights working with Phil at our house.

Phil and Dad spent a Sunday putting sheetrock up.

What a difference it makes, right?!

And our two other bedrooms:

As I have mentioned before, we have two bedrooms downstairs. For now, Phil and I have decided to keep one as a guest room and one as a TV room.

Our guest room is the smaller of the two and we painted it Behr Pensive Sky. We love that it is a subtle tint of blue (it is even lighter in person).

The TV room is now light yellow.

This is the fabric that I picked out for our shades against the light yellow.

Our living room:

The living room is now an oatmeal color. I just keep thinking back to the wallpaper that was up just a couple of months ago. I am definiely not missing the floral print.

The downstairs hallway:

I love the color chocolate brown and thought it was a perfect color for our hallway. Phil thinks its the perfect "transitional color," whatever that means.

The downstairs bathroom:

After about four hours of scrubbing, our bathroom is now looking more usable than it was before. Some industrial strength cleaning supplies (and an open window to keep me from passing out) did the job... for now. It is definitely calling for a second scrubbing before move in day.

Finally, the house with the red door:

I went to Maryland to visit family sometime in March and came back to find our house with a red door and black shutters-- just like Phil and I had planned. I really love it! It is looking more like home already.

Progress thus far...

We have been making pretty steady progress on the house lately and I have pictures to prove it!

Garbage Removal

My dad is a truck driver and was able to borrow this humon-go (!) dumpster from the company he works for. They use these dumpsters for demolition jobs. We saved ourselves a pretty penny for the rental fee and are only going to have to pay for the disposal charges. We cannot be more thankful for this! It is so great to have these things available to us. We also cannot forget to be grateful for the great friends and family that we can count on. Our friends Mike Giegerich, John Harmon, Phil's brother Andrew, and our brother-in-law Steve came to help us on Saturday 1/10 even amidst the snow storm. Mike, John, and Andrew were able to get all of our garbage into the dumpster including tile, plaster, toilets, pipes, etc. It did not seem like an easy task since I can only imagine how much all of it weighed and we cannot sufficiently express our gratitude.

MORE Wallpaper Removal

Meanwhile, Steve helped me get some more wallpaper down in the master bedroom. Doing wallpaper removal is like dying a slow death, or at least like living in a temporary purgatory. Its dreadful! On the bright side, we got to have some good conversations. This picture is of the area that we worked on. The wallpaper up there is really stuck on! If it wasn't of cacti, cowboys, and Indians I would really consider keeping it to avoid all of this work. We still have some more to take down but as Phil put it "Removing wallpaper in our house is so depressing that we can't have our friends and family do it for us anymore." So now its up to Phil and I to get it down so... I'm taking suggestions on how to incorporate a caricature desert scene into classy bedroom decor.

Bathroom #1

This is the exact light I envisioned in this bathroom. Phil got it without me even showing him what I was thinking about.

Now that I think about it, I notice that it's pretty dark in there. Perhaps we'll have to upgrade the wattage on the lightbulb.

While Steve helped me and the guys worked on filling the dumpster, Phil was able to work in the downstairs bathroom. It is really coming together. Phil has primed the walls and the ceilings are going to be done eventually (we're counting on my Pops for this-- he used to work for a painting company and I hear he is super fast at painting ceilings and windows so we're going to put him up for a test). Our friend Greg Allen put in our light on Wednesday and it looks great! Thanks, Greg!

Indoor Painting

On Wednesday and Thursday Phil was able to take an hour or two in the morning before work to paint a couple of our walls. I walked into the house and felt pure joy at seeing the difference that a coat of (WHITE!) primer paint can make. It is really obvious in the second picture. I still smile when I see it! Just close your eyes for a minute and envision what all of our walls are going to look like eventually.

Now, don't you agree that we might not be in over our heads.