Thank you Bronchitis and Yahoo for foiling our plans.

I went to the doctors today after work for a pre-scheduled appointment, nothing to do with the fact that I'm super sick right now, just a convenient coincidence.  Anywho, I get there and my doctor does all her regular stuff and she tells me I have a fever, then listens to my chest and is like "oh, you don't sound good."  I tried really hard not to cough, but of course, I did, and the next thing I know she tells me I have bronchitis and I shouldn't be working on the house.  Nice try lady.  I left with my prescription refills and headed to the house.  Laurie met me there and Mike should have been there too.  He wasn't, so we started working.  An hour later, still no Mike, but I had missed a call from him.  Much to my aggravation, Mike was stuck at Yahoo, working on a big job that the deadline got pushed up on.  Needless to say, Laurie and I had quite a few moments where we were almost peeing our pants laughing.  Laurie got the second coat painted on our bedroom and I got the first coat of paint on the hall linen closet.  We also wrestled the garbage can to the street that is full of the stones from the fireplace.  I'm sure anyone driving down Parker Blvd. had a good laugh at us struggling with it in the slippery snow.  I wish we had gotten more done, but it is what it is.  The floor refinisher is coming tomorrow morning to refinish the floors so I'll have all day to be sick and try to get some work done in the rooms he isn't working on.  I should have a picture update tomorrow.

Updates from the last few days

The last two days have been only mildly productive.  I've had a really nasty cold since Tuesday morning and have been out of work, so I've been less than helpful.  My contribution has been sitting at the house with Mike painting trim, since it doesn't involve much moving, I just needed to get my arm going in a back and forth motion to get the primer on the trim.  Mike had to dig us out both nights since we've gotten a bunch of snow in the last few days, thankfully, our neighbor Mr. O'Connor let us borrow his snowblower last night.  It's nice having Mike's good friend Bill and his parents living across the street from us!  Last night, Mike's mom, Laurie, joined us and brought dinner with her, this stuff called fagoche, which is kind of like a cross between a stomboli and a calzone, she also brought oreo pie.  YUM!  Laurie trimmed and painted our bedroom with the first coat.  It looks awesome, no more institution mint green.  I sanded and primed the linen closet and Mike filled all the holes on the kickboards of the stairs.  After getting our quote from Lowes on the carpet, we decided against putting a runner up the stairs since they were going to charge us almost as much to do the runner as they were to carpet the entire living room.  Instead we've decided that we're going to paint the risers the same as the trim and have the floor refinisher refinish the treads and landings and we'll leave the stairs uncovered for now.  Poor Callie will just have to learn how not to tumble down the stairs. :)  I have a few pictures that I need to put up but I'll probably do that later tonight.

Our days seem to be getting less productive.

The work week has started.  It's pretty shitty actually.  Mike texted me this morning and said, "I'd rather be working on the house."  I couldn't have agreed more.  To help ease our minds, we both made calls on jobs we need to hire out while we were at work today.  Mike scheduled for the carpet installer to come measure tomorrow morning before work and I scheduled for the floor refinisher to come on Friday.  It's not much, but at least we felt like we accomplished something during the day.

It's going to be hard getting anything done during the week after work, but we'll try our best not to get distracted.  For example, tonight on my way home from work, I decided to stop at Rosa's furniture, because they're going out of business.  Anyone who knows me, knows I love a sale.  Mike hates my thrifty ways sometimes.  So anyway, I stop in just to browse and before I know it I've called Mike to meet me there because I found an over the range microwave I liked.  Mike shows up and 45 minutes later we not only bought the microwave, but we bought a refrigerator and a dishwasher.  All things we didn't really need, but we got a smokin' deal on them.

By the time all this was over it was almost 7:30, we still hadn't eaten, nor had we gotten anything done on the day by day TO DO list I made during a boring meeting at work today.  Once we actually got to the house, we got the ball rolling.  Mike heated pizza in the George Foreman grill he bought me for Christmas and I started the second coat of paint in the living room.  We ate, I painted some and then Mike had to leave for band practice, which is now conveniently located across the street at Bill's house.  While Mike was gone, I finished the second coat and taped and trimmed the other two walls in the living room.  Upon Mike's return I set him to work rolling the living room walls and I headed upstairs to start sanding the trim in our bedroom to prep it for paint.  Mike joined me and we sanded and cleaned the trim and decided to call it a night around 11.  Not too bad for getting a late start, but we're already behind schedule on the to do list.  So be it.

Our improvements thus far

Mike and I decided to make today a short work day since we haven't really rested all weekend.  Mike's mom and I made pancakes and bacon for breakfast before heading over to the house.  Once we got there, we were dismayed to find that the ceiling needed another coat of paint.  I set to work on that while Mike met up with Kevin and Marc to get the Uhaul and drag all of our stuff out of storage and into the garage.  They came back with the first load as I was finishing up with the ceiling.  I painted.  They hauled our crap around.  It worked out quite well for me. 

Mike's mom and her boyfriend Chris showed up and joined me in my painting party.  Chris worked on stripping the magnolia wallpaper border from the dining room and removed the chair rail so we can paint it later.  Laurie and I worked on taping, trimming and painting the living room.  One wall is painted Nautical Navy and the rest are a color called Tightrope.  I also got the rest of the trim going up the stairs sanded, primed and painted with one coat.  Bill and Joe showed up at some point and helped with the second and final load from storage.  Once all of our junk was unloaded, Mike asked me what to do with the Uhaul since we still had it rented for a few hours.  I suggested he take the guys for a ride in the back.  So the guys took off on their adventure while we were waiting for our pizza and wings to show up.

The guys got back and we chowed down, our Realtor stopped by to see how we were doing and dropped off a bottle of wine and some mugs and we wrapped up our painting for the evening.  Mike worked a little bit more on cleaning the basement and I picked up our tools and supplied around the house.  We closed up shop and headed over to Joe's for a bit of relaxation and played with the Xbox Kinect.  It was a nice way to wind down the weekend.  We'll be heading back after work this week to get more painting and cleaning done.  We're hoping to have quite a bit done so we can move in next weekend when my parents come out with Callie.  Much to Mike's dismay, we'll also be getting Tony, my cat, back next weekend as well.

Now that you've gotten a peek at what the house looked like before, here are some updated pictures of our work this weekend. 

What looks like burn marks in the carpet from the fat old lady's recliner.

 Living room.  Here you can kind of see evidence of how nasty the carpets were.

Wood stove

 Dining Room

The kitchen.  It's tiny and will need to be expanded in order to meet my needs.  We're not doing anything to it yet, we need to look at our budget and see if we can afford to flip it now.  If not, we're probably going to paint the cupboard in the meantime.

The pantry is so filthy, I wouldn't even put food in it at this point.  I removed the accordion door because it was nasty and because of the shear amount of cat hair permanently stuck in the crevices.

Master bedroom with the carpet rolled up.  Nice hardwood floors under all the carpets upstairs.  We plan on having them refinished in the near future.

 This room is going to be my crafting/sewing/whatever I decide to do with it room.  I got it in trade for Mike having control of the basement.  The nasty blob is the carpet we pulled up and the white powdery stuff is from the carpets degrading. 

This is the littlest bedroom and will be our spare room.  Why waste a nice sized room on guests.  :)  More powdery white stuff.

 Close up of one of the many cat pee stains in the hardwood floors.  I'm worried as to what it will take to get the stains out.  Hopefully the refinisher has magical powers.

This is where the changes really start!

Marc, Kevin and Joe destroying the wood stove.  This is after they dismantled the chimney.  Marc gave it a good tug and the wire mesh holding the fake bricks on gave way.  There was a ton of dust and concrete everywhere.

The guys again dismantling.  As you can see, it's a bit dusty in the house.

Marc and Mike taking the stove out the front door.  We're keeping the stove to install in the garage for heat.

The remains of the wood stove.  Its pretty nasty looking still at this point in the process.

The stairs and hallway upstairs are all hardwood.  We plan on leaving them natural but having a runner for Callie.  

The living room after we tore the carpeting out.

The stairs with the trim painted.

The bay window with the trim painted.  It looks so much bigger now compared to when the trim was brown.  There is a picture of it in the previous post.

Mike cleaning in the basement.  You can see the dust in this picture too.

Dining room without the wallpaper border and the chair rail.  The paint is peeling in here and the kitchen so we're going to wind up having to scrape the walls before we paint them.

Rolling the walls.

The wall with the window is painted.  We are waiting to paint the far wall until we patch the hole from the chimney.

Our blue accent wall.

Original House Pictures

These are all pictures that were taken the day of our inspection, way back in November.  You can witness the previous owner's bad taste in decorating.  I wish you could see the layers of filth and cat hair.

The cool built in cupboards that will most likely have to be destroyed to make the teeny tiny kitchen bigger.

Front door.

Stairs...pretty self explanatory.

View from the front door, into the kitchen.

Our living room, complete with nasty wood stove circa 1970.  Notice how it's not even centered on the wall.

The only improvement made in the house in the last 15 years.  The bay window.

Dining room, complete with magnolias on the border.

Looking into the kitchen.

Our walk-in pantry.  This will also probably be sacrificed.  The built in cupboards are on the outside wall to the left.

Bathroom.

I wish you could see the soap scum and mildew.  GROSS!

Toilet.  It's hard to see but there is a poop stain on the seat under the rest thingy on the right.  It was still there when we moved in...TWO MONTHS LATER.

Sink.

Master bedroom.  The previous owners color choices were impeccable.  I'm sure that somewhere, bright blue, mint green and royal blue go together.  Also, the throw rug she had was covering a huge hole that had been worn in the carpeting.

Another view of the color scheme...and the chipboard closet doors.

Day Two - Sorry still no pictures :(

Leaving the house tonight, it looked like we got so much less accomplished today than yesterday. Even though it doesn't look like much, we did get quite a bit done today. Mike started at the house this morning while I went into work at the mall, which was a bit of a bummer. He ran to Lowes and used our Christmas gift cards to buy the Kiltz primer and paint for the living room and trim, along with some other things. Mike's mom, her boyfriend and his brother all showed up to help as well. They got the garage swept out, the trim in the living room sanded and mostly primed and the holes filled in the walls, all while I was at work.

When I finally showed up, the Time Warner guy was at the house installing our internet service. We waited for him to leave and then Mike and I had to run to Lowes again to buy ceiling paint for the living room. All of the ceilings in the house are in great condition but there was one small strip that hadn't been painted in many years due to being covered by the fireplace we ripped out. This was a bummer, but we want to do things right the first time around. We picked up the ceiling paint and I found a gallon of mistint on sale for $5 and it was an alright color so we bought that too. We'll find a use for it. I'm totally turning into my dad. :)

While we were at Lowes we decided to pull the trigger on ordering the carpet for the living room and the runner up the stairs. We ordered Stainmaster carpet with the matching pad in a color called Civic. It's a bit hard to explain but its an off white with flecks of brown, green and black in it. We just have to wait for the installer to come measure and order the carpet. We should have it installed in the next two weeks. We're pretty excited about the new carpet. Mike's favorite part of buying the carpet was that they did a stain test at Lowes with Kool-aid. I missed this part, but according to Mike they sprayed our Stainmaster carpet and a non Stainmaster carpet and the Kool-aid just beaded up on the carpet we ordered. Pretty awesome.

Upon our return to the house with the ceiling paint, Mike started on trimming and rolling the ceiling while I painted the first coat of paint on the trim. The trim color is called Horseradish and is just your basic off white trim color. We're painting all of the natural woodwork in the house, mainly because it is in awful condition and secondly because I hate the orangy color of it. Once that was done, I moved onto sanding the trim going up the stairs, priming and getting the first coat of paint on. This was a bit of a discussion between Mike and I of what parts to paint and what parts to leave natural. Our final decision looks great.

Mike's mom left at some point during all of this and came back with chicken and broccoli casserole and still warm from the oven brownies for dinner. While we were pigging out, Laurie primed the area that was behind the fireplace. So far the living room looks awesome. Mike and Brian worked in the basement cleaning and tearing down some nasty shelving. I painted some more trim and Laurie cleaned the fridge, which was full of cat hair. I know I mentioned it yesterday, but the previous owner was NASTY! Who lets your freezer get full of cat hair? Gross. Brian came up to help Laurie, but mostly to pick on his mother, I stayed out of it. Laurie and Brian left and Mike and I stayed just long enough to get some more junk cleared out of the basement and I removed the filthy accordion door off the pantry.

It sounds like a lot of work and it was a lot of work to get done in one day, its just too bad it doesn't look like we got more done. The good news for impatient me is that Laurie and I should be able to roll the living room first thing tomorrow while Mike and his friends empty our storage unit. We have to be out by Tuesday or we'll have to pay another month, so we're just going to move everything to the garage. We did a pretty good job of labeling the boxes, so hopefully I'll be able to find my transfer cable tomorrow to upload pictures.

We're Homeowners! Let the remodeling begin.

Oh, where to begin. Mike and I closed on our house today at 1pm. This was an interesting process, it felt a bit like something out of a movie. We arrived at the county clerks office downtown and stood there like two lost sheep, unsure of what to do next. A nicely dressed woman came up to me and asked, "Are you Sarah?" A few moments later a man came and asked us if we someone else. Finally our representative from our attorney's office found us. It was bizarre. We sat down, signed what felt like a million papers and then waited, and waited, and waited. Our deed finally came through and we were done. Two months of waiting and finally our house was actually ours. No more midnight drives by the house, no more afternoon runs past the house, it was finally ours. At this point, we were so famished, we didn't really care about going to the house, we just wanted Olive Garden. We ate our celebratory lunch and headed on over to start our work.

Our first order of business was to meet with Elia, the "picker" we hired to come take away the junk freezers, washer and dryer the seller left in the basement. Elia was quite efficient and before we knew it we were standing in the kitchen thinking to ourselves, what did we get ourselves into? The house smelled like cat pee. Quite awful. We pondered our game plan until some of our friends came to help us out. Bill, Joe, Kevin and Marc showed up and helped to remove/demolish the wood stove and the mantel.

While the boys were working on that, I started removing the carpets upstairs. We were surprised to find that the hardwood floors under the carpeting was in pretty good condition. The number of cat urine stains under the carpeting was quite disturbing however. Mike's mom came over as well and took up residence cleaning the bathroom. We all thought the bathroom was a lost cause and was going to have to be completely redone, but Laurie managed to get it sparkling. Based on the amount of soap scum and mildew in the shower the previous owner couldn't have cleaned her shower in the last year...disgusting!

The guys managed to get the wood stove out without too much of a hassle and quickly started on cleanup from the concrete and stones that were everywhere. Once that was done, Bill and Joe took off, but Marc and Kevin stayed and helped to finish ripping the living room carpets out and joined me in pulling staples and carpet tack strips out of the floor. This was a pain in the ass. I have two blisters from it and Mike sliced his hand open. We continued to prep for tomorrow's long day of work by washing the walls in the living room to get them ready to paint.

As Mike and I were getting ready to leave, we took a good look around and are happy with our purchase. Already it looks like a completely different house inside thanks to the help of our awesome friends we got a ton accomplished. Thanks guys!

I took before and after pictures but I don't have the transfer

cable for my camera. I'll see what I can do to get pictures up ASAP. :)