Making hay while the sun shines

Thursday we closed on the house.

Friday, my dad and grandparents came with a truck of stuff from their storage unit that had been saved for us in the new house.  Since their arrival, Spaceship Husband and I have been working basically nonstop, with the help of our various guests.  My family left Saturday evening, and my best friend (since 7th grade) came down on Sunday around noon with her hubby’s truck and a lot of elbow grease (and a lawn mower).

The schedule, thus far, has been as follows (you can see photographic progress here ):

Friday

• Unload truck into Garage
• Strip wallpaper from Dining room – discover gold foil wallpaper underneath green speckled mess.  *fabulous*
• Strip wallpaper from Kitchen – discover cute-ish floral wallpaper underneath.  Why did they paper over it!?
• Strip magenta layer of wallpaper from front bedroom – discover magenta woodgrain wallpaper is papered over a painted wall, that has two more layers of vinyl wallpaper underneath

Saturday

• Clean oven
• Strip wallpaper from entry way
• Continue stripping wallpaper from front bedroom
• Partially pack apartment
• Fix the back sliding door, clean all sunroom windows.
• Tour of entire yard with Dad the tree-ologist for info on shrubs and yard care.  Discover previous owner left behind a two garden hoses, both in good condition.  Yay!
• Buy mold-killing/mildew reducing/covers up awful neon peach paint primer, some really cheap but pretty flowers for the front bed ($3 for 25 marigold plants = good!) and a lot of other stuff, at Hardware store

Sunday

• Scrub walls in master bedroom and bath to prep for priming
• Clean bar area, remove all hardware and shelf paper
• Prime bedroom, bathroom.  Nearly die of paint fumes – apparently mold-killing primer is good for making sure there is no mold in your lungs either.  /hack /cough
• Pack up all the wallpaper junk, place at the curb for trash guys

Monday

• Pack all books, craft closet, master closet, living room
• Load truck
• Truck goes to house and is unpacked
• Hardware store trip #1 – paint samples, ceiling paint, trim paint, more rollers, a shovel, lightbulbs, cabinet hardware testers, and some light faceplates
• Unpack books, break down boxes.  Watch as ceiling fan falls on husband who is trying to remove it so we can paint the ceiling.
• Paint ceiling in bedroom and bathroom, swatch grey-blue bedroom paint.  Double coat.  Hem and haw.  Decide grey blue is nice, esp next to bedroom fabrics
• Finish stripping all wallpaper from front bedroom, totally destroy that sheetrock too.  Decide that under no circumstances will I ever utter “you know, I think we should put up wallpaper”.  Also decide that no matter what someone tells you, ALWAYS put primer under stuff, and ALWAYS take the wallpaper off before you put up new.  Yeeesh.
• Hardware store trip #2 – bedroom/bathroom paint!, more rollers, light plates, outlets that aren’t almond or dingy grey for the kitchen, MORE cabinet hardware testers, a 62lb bucket of drywall mud for plastering, and more lightbulbs.
• Pack up more of the apartment – computer room is looking kind of bare, as is living room.

Of course – I did not NEARLY do all of this by myself – I’ve had SO much help – I don’t know how we’d have gotten this done without the people that have volunteered time and various tools to help us out. Since we’re trying to get at least the bedroom and the kitchen done before we move in, this has been a HUGE time sink for us – and all the help means we’re literally getting double the work done. (I totally owe my best friend… but I know I can repay the favor when she and her hubby move in the next year or so – they’re starting to plan for buying a house!)

Not only have the extra hands been great, having a pickup truck at our disposal means that we’re cutting down on moving costs later when we have to pay the guys with the truck to schlep our furniture over to the new place.

So far the only snag is with the electricity – way to go house inspector of FAIL not noticing that there’s a problem with the electric lines that go to the meter, and we have to get an electrician out to fix it.

Tomorrow, the bedroom will get painted, the yardwork finished, and we’re doing our first wall plaster/texture learning bit in the front bedroom (that way if it sucks, it’s not in the entryway).  If it doesn’t suck, we’ll start on the kitchen!