Insanity

The past three weeks have been a mad dash to get the house habitable as quickly as possible. Habitable might still be a stretch, but I am writing this post from my bed in the new house! 

We hired all the guys. (Our electrician is actually a woman, but you get the gist.) On the whole they have been pleasant and friendly and easy to work with, despite the logistical issues of plumbing vs. electrical vs. drywall vs. tile. I think our biggest setback has actually been scheduling around Thanksgiving. Seriously people! Quit holidaying already. (J/k)

We had a rare night out a few weeks back, and I was showing these pictures to friends who were asking how the house was going. After I asked one of them how things were going for them, and he said "Well I don't have any pictures of my water softener on my phone, so..." We are, apparently, old.

 In line water filter, or something like that. 

Our petting zoo of kitchen appliances! We have guys taping and mudding drywall as I type so hopefully these will be in the right spots soon. I made the Sears guys week when I walked in and said, "Mr. Darryl, I'm ready to buy". 

We got spray foam insulation. It is messy! It makes the Mr. very happy. 

The master bedroom. It is no longer this clean. The Mr. made the lights work and installed the ceiling fan all by himself. Still waiting for the electricians to connect the 'receptacles' aka outlets.

The kids playroom and the master as of 48 hours ago. I love love LOVE how the paint colors have been working out. Hotel Cincinnatian Abbey (valspar) for the kid and Palladian Blue for us (Ben Moore). Pantone Ecru in the landing. 

Bathroom floor!

Master floor. We used Rejuvenate to seal the floors, although the master didn't get the full dry time before drywallers were walking through it. We will see what it looks like when it's clean. 

About 3pm yesterday.  Pantone Ecru on the walls. Grandpa T did all the cutting in around the crown molding without tape. Amazing. 

About 9pm last night. Liquid level over electric heat. You might remember that we took out the heating duct to this room when we enlarged the wall opening downstairs. They will put the tile in today. 

My current view. In a blessing from the past or a show of gratitude or whatever, I discovered that someone had but screw holes exactly 40" apart which made it possible for me to hang six sets of blinds in about 40 minutes with my eyes crossed from exhaustion. Thank you, house. Thank you. 

Trees please

Our house is looking a little... exposed lately.

The Heat Is On

A few weeks back, our heat went out at the old house. You know, the one where we sleep, shower, brush our teeth, etc. We got it back on in a few days but OF COURSE this was the weekend where we had an open house, the dog was home alone, we were staying at a hotel, and I had to work Saturday and Sunday. I don't know that anyone was bothered by it (or at least our realtor didn't say anything about it) but we had a few couples come through and it seemed like one of them was pretty interested.

Then we had a showing with the heat actually on. Then we answered a bunch of questions about the roof, the insulation, the furnace, the next door neighbor's dogs, etc. Then they made us an offer. We countered with a few things. They countered with a few less things. We signed, they signed. Hooray!

The offer that they made us was contingent on the sale of their house. Considering that we have been on the market for seven months without an offer and still have plenty of work to do on the new house, we didn't have any problem with that. Our realtor reviewed the listing and felt that they were serious about getting it sold.

The maple tree next door

Then a day later they got an offer on their house! There was much rejoicing.

Then we heard that their buyers want to close in THREE WEEKS. That would mean that we would close in FIVE WEEKS.

Then there was much panicking.

Naturally, any of these things may fall apart or not work out or whatever. But as someone told me today, you know that it's real because it's so inconvenient. If it were convenient it wouldn't work out.

Before this all started to go down, I had to put it any requests for time off in December. I took a look at the calendar and said, I think that I will take off a day just in case we are able to move, so we have something to work towards. And if we don't move, oh well, who doesn't need a day off two weeks before Christmas?

At the time everyone was rolling their eyes at me, like, yeah, you are never going to move on that day and it's so premature of you to be taking time off work and blah blah blah. I'm not going to lie, I kind of feel like a genius right now.

A very stressed, tired genius.

So the list of things that needs to be done before we can really live in the house looks like this:

• Finish wiring (ceiling fans/new lights have been mostly installed in two bedrooms and the landing)
• Finish plumbing, including installing the water heater and water softener, which has to be contracted out
• Ceilings and insulation. Ceilings need to be placed in the two upstairs bathrooms, the mudroom and the kitchen, and new pieces of the dining room ceiling are falling all the time. (Most recently due to someone dropping a hammer through the joists, I think?)
• Drywall in the mudroom, kitchen and dining room, upstairs bathrooms and laundry room
• Floor patching/leveling and vinyl installation in the kitchen/mudroom
• Plaster patching after wiring is finished
• Scrubbing wallpaper glue, priming and painting in just about the entire house
• Sealing bedroom floors and moving quarter round down to the hardwood
• Installing the downstairs sink and upstairs bathroom (toilet, sink, tub, tile, lights and fans)
• Installing new appliances and rehanging all the cabinets
• Painting the cabinets in their new configuration
• Temporary counter tops, kitchen sink, kitchen faucet, trim around the new window

So we are in the process of figuring out what to hire out, what to keep, what to do first and how quickly we can realistically get it all done. We might end up in a situation where we move our stuff to the new house and stay somewhere else for a little bit. This list is roughly in order of priority, but some of it is also happening concurrently. I had a great day with one of my girlfriends scrubbing walls yesterday, which made the whole thing so much faster and more fun. We're hoping to get a few more volunteer days in for cleaning and painting, and then my sister will be flying in for the holidays so I'll have an experienced unpacker on site. 

In other news, the two trees in front are getting cut down next week, and we have a 'wood rack' in the garage for firewood. Firepit here we come!

The Kid selected colored Icicle lights for our first Christmas decorations. We hung them up because we do what we can to eat our pizza festively and also it's hard to eat pizza in the dark. I actually kind of like them on the inside. We will see if the weather supports our efforts to hang them outside.

Let there be light!!!

Notice anything different?

For the first time in several months, we have lights!!!!!!!!!!! (!!!!!!!)

We have lights in the basement and the attic, and it only took one weekend.  ONE WEEKEND. 

We bought a ceiling fan for the playroom upstairs and are hopeful that we won't actually be threading new wiring through the plaster, just making new connections and putting new outlet boxes on. So we could be ready to paint in the bedrooms in another week or so. 

SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

*That's the Kid's new-to-him bedframe in the picture above. $100 on Craigs List. Solid vintage brass. Score!

Also, I painted the exterior doors. Palladian Blue, Benjamin Moore. Apparently I suck at cutting in so I never took real pictures for you. See how the angle of the shot completely obscures my crappy edging?

Not all our internet purchases are happy ones, unfortunately. 

But I got a great deal and fast shipping on one half of a Gerber Viper toilet with elongated bowl! I'm going to order the tank tonight but apparently I need a fair amount of extra pieces and such. And a toilet seat. I'll have to consult The World's Most Meticulous Plumber before we make our weekly (or thrice weekly, depending) run to Menards.

We left the attic light on because 1) we can! and 2) you have to climb into the attic to turn it off and 3) we have the fancy ugly florescent bulbs so it's using a minuscule amount of power and 4) it's really nice to have the house look inhabited. With a broken window. Cause we keep it so classy like that. 

Outdoor Update

We've been making a lot of interior progress - pipes! Wires! Boxes! More insulation floating from the attic! - but lately the outside things have been a little more photogenic. 

The Mr. bought himself a new toy. Because he was going to cut down the branch using just the pole? In the dark? With me and the Kid to help? Or something more deceptively logical yet equally implausible.

So of course Casey came over and was dying to try it. His kid helped the Mr. hold the rope and they managed to get that branch down. It was completely hollow in the middle, of course. Unfortunately (?) the tree hasn't toppled over yet so we're still applying for permits and such to get it taken down. 

Casey really came over to work on the inside of the house. There goes the water heater. 

We don't have a lot of trees at our old house (85% of the reason we need to move) so the Kid has only experienced leaf piles at Grandpa's house. Which he LOOOOOOOVES. Total win that we could make one happen in the front yard. 

You would think with all the Pinterest research that I do, I would have realized that two doors = two wreaths. Oh well. It was a fun fall break craft project that the Kid and I whipped out in half an hour or so. I was sober when I took this picture. Seriously.

We had a bit of a challenge in that we have no porch lights (nor any lights except work lights on extension cords for that matter) and it was time for trick or treaters! Our original plan was to create tombstones for the front yard, but our expectations were a little high and there wasn't time to craft them appropriately. 

The Kid and I trawled the Target aisles for weeks trying to figure out what we could do. We ended up going with one large spider web light and a longer, three swag spider web light. The lanterns were end of summer clearance at Target ($4 each, maybe?) and have proven to be super useful in our pioneer lifestyle. We've given notice on the storage unit and the first load of tubs to come over were the Halloween decorations. The fake jack o lantern is from my parents house (I only know that because my mom wrote her name on the bottom... no idea why) but we use the little Target battery tea lights inside. 

We had between 150-200 trick or treaters, so it was well worth the effort! Such a great night, and the Kid had a fantastic time walking around the neighborhood and seeing his friends in their costumes. It was a timely reminder of why we want to live in this house and how these months of hard work and bleeding money are going to pay off. 

Eventually.

Walls walls walls

We have a laundry room! Or nook? Closet, perhaps?

View from the master bathroom.

View from the hallway. Can't wait to teach the kid to wash his own clothes!

Apparently there were ceiling lights in the dining room at one point. Eagerly awaiting their triumphant return.

We also have a new wall between the bathrooms. 

Can I just say how proud I am of the Mr? If you had asked me in May if he was about to start framing walls and plumbing  houses I would have tried to let you down very easy, cause I'm nice like that.

Let the sun shine in

If you know me, then you probably know that's a 40 Year Old Virgin reference, and that Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen and Romany Malco are bare chested singing and dancing inside my head right now. (Hopefully inside your head now too). Because NOT ONLY do we have a toilet that flushes without buckets (!!!!!!!!) we also have an amazing new window!

Guys hard at work. It's hard to remember how high off the ground the window really is...

Like, standing on scaffolding high. 

There was no way I could get the picture to balance on my iphone. The window is so bright!! But you can see the Mr.'s recent plumbing progress under the window. 

So I took another picture to show much light we're getting in the dining room these days. 

Now that the center section is gone, we can see so much further into the park (over our neighbor's shed), but there's a lit path that's visible into the park, and I think it will be really lovely in the evening. 

In less exciting progress, after much vacuuming and mopping, the Kid has a place to play and actually has indoor toys on site! We're still waiting on the new electrical wiring before we can paint, but we'll be painting like gangbusters in a few weeks. Tentative plan is to reseal the hardwoods, move in, and have them refinished professionally later. Yes, it would be better to do this before we move. It would also be better to be millionaires. 

So we're not millionaires, but we do have giant dancing light up fountains on 'our grounds'. 

So here's a gratuitous fountain shot from our morning walk with the wagon. 

Next time I am going to ride and he can pull me. 

P.S. I thought that I might take a video of the Viper flushing, but then I thought, no, that's weird. People who read blogs on the internet probably know what flushing toilets look like. Rest assured we are BEYOND THRILLED about the flushing of the toilet. RIDICULOUSLY GRATEFUL to be able to use the bathroom in our home without having to go outside! (Giant bottle of hand sanitizer outside the door.)

Celebrating functional commodes with steak and sushi (and water that comes with umbrellas)

Behold, the Bucket Flush is BACK!

The big day has finally arrived - the day when we can go to the bathroom in our own house!!! I contemplated taking a video of it flushing, but I opted against it. If you haven't been without a toilet for months, you probably wouldn't have appreciated it in the same way. 

The Mr. is to be highly commended for his hard work, dedication, and new found skills. We're a little ways away from having running water yet, but the supply lines are connected through the bathroom. The tile came down for the water supply business, and he's already put it back. So getting running water to the toilet will be a basement project, not a bathroom project. 

Daddy's little helper helped for about 10 minutes before there was yelling and water all over the floor. Fortunately, our neighborhood block party was taking place so I walked while the Kid rode his bike around the corner and we hung out with our neighbors.

While we were at the block party, I got a text saying the Mr. needed another pair of hands. Clearly bringing the Kid back to the house would a) impede progress significantly and b) take a long time, since he had teamed up with the neighbor kids and was having the time of his life. I happened to mention this to one of our neighbors, and he stepped away from the grill, handed me the tongs,  picked up an extra beer for the Mr. and headed down to our house to help install the toilet. One of the many reasons that we can't wait to move in to this house!

The toilet is now installed, does not leak, and the tiles have been reattached to the wall. Hopefully they'll be out of the way enough that they won't pop back off. We have some grouting to do, but what else is new?

The Mr. headed back to our old house, took a shower and got cleaned up and came back for the end of the block party. It was a great afternoon, with lots of great people to hang out with, delicious food, and a pack of kids gleefully playing in the (barricaded) street. We came back for the cars and the guys had to test out the new toilet. Buckets of water obtained from our own hose! (The white bucket is actually empty, but he really wanted to carry a bucket. And a flashlight.)

The sun sets over the park, lighting up our whole cluttered porch. We can't wait to live here.