July 30, 2015 Finished floors ("library" and spare bedroom)

July 30, 2015 Finished floors ("library" and spare bedroom)

This is the storage container we had - imagine it full!  Now it is happily empty.  We are getting closer to being moved in!

Dh bought this great new 'do-all' tool.  It did work great for sanding the floors!

You can tell by the size of the sander that it took a long time to sand all the floor in each room.  This picture also shows the wooden molding around the room after I scraped and sanded it.  It had a lot of Spackle and paint on it--that was a time consuming job; cleaning up the molding!

This is the "spare bedroom" (that was the teenage girls bedroom); it had white/cream colored carpet and two different tones of painted walls (and don't forget the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling!).  This picture shows the "STONE" color of the floors now.

Before:
This picture shows the padding that was under the white carpet.

After:
Spare bedroom, view two

The new "Library"

Before:

After:

This is the new "library", where we will be doing our lessons.  Soon it will packed down with wall to wall book shelves!  This picture doesn't do a great job of showing the "stone" color, but it is the exact same painting job as the spare bedroom--the lighting in the rooms needs help!  

Master "Before"

Master "Before"
(with Sophie!)

Master "After"

Master closet "after" (this room isn't Coconut Milk color, but Cream in My Coffee colored paint, for walls, and the floor is still the "stone" oil base.

.....

July 29, 2015

July 29, 2015:

Grampy and Dh had to take out all that plumbing on the wall

They put up all that new, white PVC plumbing plus a new filter..it took a few days to get it all sorted.

We needed a new kitchen faucet, and Dd got to help Grampy do it.  We also put in a reverse osmosis, for our drinking water at the sink.

Grampy had to put in new plumbing in some of the toilets.

Dd pulling out hundreds of staples and nails on the stairs going down to the basement...endless job!

Dd using the spray washer to spray off old *pink* paint...ugh. And she cleaned the concrete pad around the pool.

This is the master bedroom--it was dark blue, dark blue wallpaper and carpeting.  Now it has the "stone" oil base paint (on top of the base coats of Kilz) and the walls have "coconut milk" paint.  We just went and bought big 5 gallon jugs of the Coconut Milk, and gallons of the "stone" paint to make our lives easier for the time.  It looks nice and clean---and big change from how we found it a month ago.

This has the view of me the past month!  Bent over and working on the floors!  step after step after step of getting them to the finish line.

Here Dd is helping me to put out our laundry!  SO nice to use our line outside again.  Our HOA (home owners association) wouldn't let us do that back in Indiana.

I can't begin to rattle off all the critters we see each day---beyond our imagination!  I will save the details for another post.  But yesterday, Dh saw 4 female turkeys and their 18 young walk across our driveway!

A funny little squirrel for Chelle.  There are 3 or so baby squirrels in our trees, and they were so small and skinny when we got here.  Now they already have bulging bellies from being fed so well!

This is the "spare bedroom" in the basement.  It had two-tone painted walls and bad carpeting.  

Here Dh is painting the "stone" paint over the white primer, Kilz.

Another joy---we can finally grill again!

Dd has gone to 2 library activities--this one was a "Henna Class" and she thought it was really fun.

We have had our internet for a week now, but I have had too much to do to get back to our lessons just yet.  Dd has been on a reading and knitting kick; as she has been sick for almost a week....taking her in to the doctor on Friday.  We have listened to the Catching Fire and Mockingjay audio's these past few weeks--and completed them.  We are currently listening to our second Ranger's Apprentice audio (Halt's Peril?, I believe)----I have to quickly add that, Kendra, your sons would totally love this series!!!  If they liked: The Misadventures of Maude Marche, they will surely get wrapped up in the Ranger's Apprentice books/audio's.  I really like the narrator's voice on these---kinda Scottish and cool!  Also, started Redwall too...  I'll try to get Dd to write down the books she's read these past few weeks.  We still don't have our antenna hooked up to our tv, so she is happily watching her VHS tapes of the Anne of Green Gables series (and I keep getting sucked in!).

We did go to the movies on Sunday after church--we saw the Minions movie...and I can't really recommend it.  Dd and Dh have a special bond over those silly Minions, so there was no saying "NO" to seeing the movie!!!  The popcorn was great though!

Today I finally, finally finished the floors in the "library" and "spare bedroom" in the basement.  We had to pull up the carpet, pull the carpet stripes, and foam (stuck to the floor and had to use "stuff" to get it off.  Then Spackle, Spackle, Spackle all the holes we created by digging out the nails from the concrete.  Then paint trim and then roll floor with Kilz (sealer that is oil based and white). Then sand, and paint the floor with a "stone" colored oil based paint..(first the trim, then the roller for the majority of the floor, on each coat)  wait a day or two and paint floor again.  Then Polyurethane, coat 1, coat 2, then sanded, sanded too much and Spackle showed...so had to paint with oil based paint again, then Polyurethane again---coat 1, then coat 2, and finally coat 3 and I am DONE. Oh, I forgot to mention all the work I had to do on the floor molding around the room---add another 5 hours per room to the tally.  I have spent 3 weeks and claim today is the day I have finished the floors in those 2 rooms!  Now, we have to wait 5-7 days before we can bring furniture into those rooms!

Meanwhile, I have been painting upstairs in the main rooms--and progress is going up there too.  We are getting really close to being able to go back to Indiana and get our furniture.  Since we have been here, our dishwasher broke after being used 4 times...wah!  I finally found a dishwasher that actually did a fantastic job and I felt okay with not washing each dish myself; and it broke!

Speaking of our Indiana house that is STILL for sale...we did have an offer come in this week, but they had to move in by this Friday; and we couldn't make that deadline.  They wanted to rent the house before they could get their loan paperwork all done, and that seemed a bit sketchy to us.

That is it for now---I am getting so excited to get back to our lessons!  I wish all this work would get done faster.  I thought it would only take me a *few* weeks to get it all done, but everything is taking so much longer than I thought it would.  Dh's work has been horribly crazy---in 5 days last week, he worked 57 hours--at least.  This company is better than his last company, but still WAY more than I hoped it would be...all I can say is: Poor Guy!!!

Oh, another major accomplishment---up until the day we moved in here, we had been taking our apartment stuff to this 26 foot rented space, at a Storage Solution type place---air conditioned, etc. so your stuff won't get moldy or ruined.  Then after we got our keys to our new home, we have been bringing back our boxes from the apartment, and the ones from our house in Indiana.  On Friday, Dh got the last load (a metal rack), and that ended our work.  I counted that I did at least 13 loads in my extended mini-van myself!  I don't know how many loads my Dh did!  It takes at least 2 hours to get one load; if everything goes perfectly...and there isn't any traffic.  It is a great relief to us to have that storage space cleared out, and, bonus, we don't have to pay for another month of rent there!  That was a lot of work to do ourselves, with one mini van!  I keep laughing at myself, b/c I told Dh that if we were to ever move, I would insist we have a moving company do it...there would be no way I could move our whole library by ourselves!  But, guess what--we did!  Box after Box!


July 21: Well, we got our internet turned on yesterday!  You know we called AT & T two weeks before we moved out of the apartment and they said they would have it going on July 1st!  Oh well.  We have internet now.  Now, to figure out how to get our antenna to work so we can watch Dr. Pohl (Michigan Vet) on Sat mornings!

We are still painting the "library" and spare bedroom.  The library has it's second coat of paint, and the extra room has one coat.  Next we will put down Polyurethane in the library.

We are listening to lots of audio books while we work, and Dd has finished a bunch of books.  She is more keen to read than work, so she has spent a lot of time reading.  She has also been cooking a lot.  This morning we will try her homemade Yeast Rolls, and a "cherry" butter she made.

I'll try to post some pictures soon.  I've been trying to read aloud the Bronze Bow book, but haven't done a good job remembering to do it each day....bad momma.

Oh--we have been going to the "teen classes" at the library each Tuesday, and we met "Lori", who just finished hs'ing her four children last year.  She gave me the name and site of a Christian homeschool group in our town!!!!!  We may be really close to finding new friends!



July 6: Quick check-in here---just figured out how to access my blog from the library.  Our internet company (AT&T) is having difficulty getting our service provided--so I am without access.

We are doing fine; working very hard at getting our new home live-able.  Dh and his father worked for days getting our water fixed.  We've had a few set backs.

We had a "showing" at our Indiana house on July 4th....we still ask for prayers that our Indiana house would sell.  We are SO thankful to have found a home in Michigan and are out of the horrible apartment---I've got new stories about that place, but now isn't the time.

Prayers appreciated for us this week---lots of work and Dh's parents parents who visited for a week went home on Sunday.  We miss the company already!!!!