A Holiday Blogging Hiatus

Thanksgiving has come and gone, and I hope, like myself, that everyone had a wonderful time of it.  Our last few days before Tobe (Jared's mom) arrived were spent frantically painting, cleaning, and arranging, all with a dash of panicking on the side.  We were left with very unprofessionally done floors and no time to redo them, so Jared arranged for them to be fixed after the holiday.

We weren't the only ones having difficulty getting to Thanksgiving, though.  Tobe and her boyfriend James left Kansas the Thursday before Thanksgiving.  Although they had anticipated driving almost straight through, the truck broke down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, just five or six hours into their journey. They spent the rest of the day there, but were able to continue on their way after getting the truck fixed the next morning.  After leaving around noon on Friday, they were confident they'd be able to make good time through the rest of the adventure.  Of course, that would make things much too easy, so two hours outside of Memphis, TN, they sat on the interstate for an hour or more in bumper to bumper standstill.  My brother, Daniel, and I made this same trip after I visited Kansas for my Grandmother's memorial, and we too had the same problem outside of Memphis at just about the same time of day.  We're not sure why the traffic was so bad, but it didn't help the already delayed Tobe.

And it didn't end there, either!  After the traffic jam, the duo managed to get through the city of Memphis just fine...but with a detour that would add another two to three hours to the rest of the trip.  Instead of going towards Birmingham, AL, they accidentally went north-east towards Nashville.  At the end of a very long Friday, they stopped there for the night, hoping to finally reach Georgia the next day.  Luckily, they had no hiccups after Nashville, and they arrived at our house twenty-four hours later than they were originally expected.

Luckily for us, we were able to get a lot done in that last twenty-four hours.  After the floor crew came, Jack returned to do a few odds and ends around the house.  We also had to move the majority of our furniture so we had places to sit, eat, and relax as a family.

Thursday night, Jared picked up our new couch from Hinesville, and luckily, it did not rain.  We had picked this guy out months ago, and it was nice to finally get it set up.  It was really nice to have somewhere to sit!

I also got the master bath painted.  There is something so refreshing about getting rid of the brownish tan that used to cover every single wall of this house.  The less of that color there is, the better the house looks.

And slowly but surely, this shell of a house started to look like a home, for the first time in a LONG time.  We arranged the TV, brought out the other couch for the front room, moved coffee tables, hung A picture, and got the space acceptable for company.

And within the space of a few days, we had a very comfortable living space set up.  Tobe and James arrived late Saturday afternoon, and they quickly unloaded the bed of the truck, which was full of Jared's stuff from his mom's house.  Though James had come along for our Thanksgiving, he also wanted to make it back to Kansas in time to spend actual Thanksgiving day with his family.  So instead of doing ours on Thursday, we decided to do the big mean for lunch on Wednesday.  If you recall, I still only had half of my kitchen counters installed, and we were still waiting for the other half to come in.

Our luck was with us, though, and Tuesday night, the rest of the countertops came in.  This added so much glorious space, and it was nice to not have to worry about the makeshift boards falling into the cabinet below.

So for the first time since the middle of July, I had a fully finished, fully functional kitchen!

But wait, there's more!  Jared had been telling me that one of my birthday presents was coming in early, and that he wanted me to open it when it arrived.  I wasn't thrilled with the idea.  My birthday was two weeks away at the time, and I like to celebrate things on the days that they are meant to be celebrated.  I'm very glad, however, that I listened to him because we were able to use this beautiful new dining set for our Thanksgiving meal!  The circle top of the table has two folding leaves, so it fits perfectly in that space, and it's much sturdier than the set we had before.  The style was exactly what I had hoped to get, and I think Jared did a great job!

We had countertops.  We had a dining set.  We had a comfy family room.  We just needed all the food for Thanksgiving!  I started my prep for the meal days before by drying/toasting bread cubes for the homemade stuffing.

Tobe and I made the pies the night before using the Standley family recipe.  They came out fantastic, and ready to go!

Jared creepily prepared the ham.  Though I prefer turkey on Thanksgiving, this ham came out very, very well.  It was a big hit with everyone, even me.

Before the oven...

After the oven!  Delish!

We definitely put my kitchen through a good workout.  Clockwise from top left is candied yams, requested by Tobe (which she LOVED), green bean casserole, the traditional side dish, pumpkin pie, just getting warm after being in the fridge, and then stuffing, which smelled heavenly!

Of course, the mashed potatoes also were fab, but they weren't an oven dish.  I hope they didn't feel left out.

Even though a lot of effort was put into the meal, it didn't take long for it to be devoured and over.

And of course, we had our friend Rossiter come over.  As a single soldier, he didn't go home for the holiday but needed somewhere to go.  Unfortunately, he had just had eye surgery two days before and was still quite out of it from the painkillers.  So he slept until it was time to eat.






After we all ate, Tobe and James packed up their remaining stuff and got back on the road.  Jared and I enjoyed the rest of the long weekend, relaxing in our family room, but it wasn't to last.  With the end of Thanksgiving, we knew the floors were going to be worked on again.  So we moved everything back that we had brought out for our company.  The computer and green chair went in our bedroom, the couch and TV went in the spare bedroom, and all the other odds and ends got put either in the attic or junk room.  After having my house usable and comfortable for only a week, we are back to living in one room.  It wasn't easy packing up everything again.  I was so relieved and comfortable, having my house set up.  Jared will attest that it was nearly impossible to motivate me to move everything back.  I'm just looking forward to this week of floor renovations to be done.

After this week, I'm planning on taking a little break from blogging until Christmas break.  Jared will have almost three weeks off for the holiday, and we're planning on getting a lot done on the house in that time.  Until then, I'm going to try to relax and enjoy a little bit of down time.  It's been a long five months, and I could use a bit of a break.

See you at Christmas!

The Clock is Ticking!

We are down to the last little wire before my mother-in-law comes to visit.  And yet, we are still not done with nearly as much as we had hoped!  Of course, it would just be too easy if, for once, things went smoothly.  After the Rabbits finished and cleared out, the state of the floors was something that Jared and I were quite unhappy with.  Unfortunately for Glenn, since his carpenters didn't take care of things, it came back to bite him.  Because of the damage to the floors, Glenn decided to pay for them to be refinished in the rooms that had the most damage.  So his floor crew came in last week to do just that.  However, even they couldn't get it right!

The main issue with the floor crew was that they spoke very, very little English.  They asked me what color I wanted the floor to be, and I told them the color that was already there.  I wasn't really interested in going in a different direction with the floor color.  What was there was fine.  Clearly, they did not know how to pick a stain color, because dark mahogany was NOT what was there originally.  After they stained the front two rooms, Jared and I tried to tell them that the color was wrong, and we ended up having to go pick up a half pint of the right color to show them what it should have been.

The picture quality isn't the best, but in person, the difference is astounding.  The crew purchased the right stain color a little too late, and finished the family room staining around Thursday afternoon. However, in the midst of it all, the crew didn't understand that they needed to re do the front rooms.  It might sound ridiculous, but I don't see a point in "suffering" through badly stained floors when the whole point of the refinishing was to make them look better than before.  Also, I'm a believer in voicing an opinion when something isn't right.  Just because it would create more work for the crew to re do the front rooms doesn't mean that they shouldn't have to do it.  They messed up, they should fix it.  The problem came Friday, when instead of redoing the front rooms, they "sealed" over everything.  The crew, without a care in the world, "sealed" the floors in less than an hour and then left me stuck in the bedroom for five hours.  I say "sealed" because I'm fairly certain that based on the texture of the wood as it currently is is not really proper.  So Jared and I are NOT happy with the results.  The floors look streaky and the finish is rough.  Even though they were scratched and dirty before, at least the floors weren't water soluble.  After expressing the problem, yet again, to Glenn, he has determined that he will have them fixed...after Thanksgiving.

We had discussed getting the floors done properly this week, but the time frame kept getting smaller and smaller, so after the holiday, they'll be redone.

Now, on to things that are within my control...

With the Rabbits out, Jared and I are on our own with the rest of the projects around the house.  The family room needed a lot of love before it started to look decent, but Jared spent a few evenings painting the new ceiling, and now it looks fab.

This last Saturday, Jared had Jack come over to fix a few things.  Unfortunately, the main bathroom had an extremely leaky tub faucet, and without any actual water shut off valves, they had to hack into the wall to cap off the lines.  I'm not too bent out of shape about it, considering we have a working shower in the other bathroom.  It just means that shower schedules while the family is here will be a little interesting.  The rest of the bathroom works fine, although it's a little ugly, so for now, we're just going to pull the shower curtain over it.

Also on Jack's to-do list was covering the holes in the living room.  The hole in the ceiling is no more!

Other than a few more coats of joint compound and tape, this room is pretty much paint ready.  I will not miss the ugly mustard yellow paint...

My weekend was spent making the family room pretty.  As we move through the house with our renovations, I'm never sad to see the paint color go.

The new light yellow is so refreshing after the baby poop brown that used to occupy every single wall in this house.

The color is called "Barcelona White."  We had to pick a color that would coordinate with the couch we have picked out for this room, and that proved to be tricky.  We haven't purchased the couch yet, simply because we didn't have anywhere to put it before now, but that is on the list of things to do for this week.

The far wall we painted in "Gravity" as an accent wall to bring out some different tones in the couch.  The picture isn't the best, but it does look super fab!

And Jared stretched his electrician's wings and installed our new ceiling fan all by himself.  Although, he managed to get the entire thing assembled and ready to go without connecting the wires in the very top...haha.

This room is not without a future...The bathtub on the other side of this wall seems to have some serious issues, but we'll have to address them at a later date.  The main thing is, it's not leaking now, so it should be fine for the time being.  However, the old sheetrock and patch has left this wall looking like a wrinkled old man, even though you can't see it in this picture.  We'll have to tackle that eventually.






And lastly, I was informed yesterday that Tobe, Jared's mom, is coming in on Friday, not Saturday as was originally planned.  As happy as I am to have family visit, I'm seriously about to go whirlwind crazy on this house to get it sort of ready.  We still don't have the rest of our counters in the kitchen, which could prove interesting when I'm cooking.  The living room needs to be painted, but I have to wait on the joints to be done and feathered out.  The master bath needs to be painted too.  All I need to do there is pick out a color, and that is proving to be difficult!  We've got to rearrange the house, too.  The cat room is getting turned in to our guest room, and Ullr's old room is being turned into the cat room.  Ullr doesn't really need a room anymore, as he's got the yard.  When this next week is over, I'm going to take a long nap and just chill for awhile.  Until then, I've got PLENTY of stuff to do!

The Aftermath

It's been an official two days since the Rabbits have been "done" with our house.  After a very long three months of surprises, bad attitudes from the Rabbits, and a little bit of stress in between, Jared and I are VERY glad to have the guys out of the house.  However, it seems as though Pete left us a parting gift by way of a huge mess and several issues in his work.  Though the Rabbits are technically done with their work, our house is far from being ready for real living.

Before I get to the bad things, there are a few pluses to this story.

Our laundry closet is just about functional.  The stacking washer/dryer that we got didn't come with the kit to secure the dryer to the washer, so we are waiting on that to come in.  Due to a last minute decision, we painted the room with the reject pint of color that bought originally for the kitchen.  I think the splash of color is super fun!  Though lacking baseboard and crown molding, this room is pretty much complete!

We also got half of our countertop order in Thursday night.  The bar part of the counters was ordered incorrectly, so, as if we haven't been waiting long enough, they will be in at a later date.  When I first laid eyes on the counters, I had a moment of panic when I realized that there was just something wrong about the way the kitchen looked.  And then it hit me.  We had picked the countertops under the assumption that we were going to use our first choice in paint color.  The cabinet/countertop/wall color combination was just NOT doing it for me.  After all this time, I was so frustrated to find that, at the end, it seemed nothing could go right.  So, even though I am still not impressed by my previous choice, I'm reminding myself that it's infinitely better than what we did have!  I do think that eventually, something about the kitchen will have to change, be it wall color or countertop color.  I know what you're thinking; why would I want to get new counters so soon?  Actually, I've been looking around on the internet for ways to improve laminate countertops, and there are some viable possibilities out there.  I would honestly rather recover the counters than paint the entire kitchen again.  Still, all these contemplations are going to have to be pushed back to a time when the house is not in a state of disaster.

Also installed Thursday night was the counter in the new bathroom.  This beauty turned out MUCH more to my liking, and I'm very pleased with it.  I'm already contemplating color schemes for the new bathroom.  And yes, it's DONE!

No more twenty minute round trip showers!  We have a fully functional bathroom!  It was finished a week late, but the point is, it was finished.  Friday evening, after the Rabbits had cleared out, I reveled in what is a convenience for the civilized world.  Even though I had been able to take showers at Jared's work, the sheer inconvenience of it made my disposition during our renovation slightly dim.  Now that we have a functional albeit unfinished bathroom, the house has started to feel more like a home.








Unfortunately that was pretty much the extent of the good news.  The bad news is, the Rabbits didn't clean up ONE BIT.  The aftermath of their stay here is all over the house, and Jared and I have a long few weeks of cleaning ahead of us.  Keeping in mind that Jared's mom is coming on the 17th, we have a lot to do.

Just because I feel like venting a little, how difficult is it to throw away a little bit of trash?

Even though the Rabbits are done, the family room needs to be sanded in preparation for paint, and Glenn has a crew coming in Monday for that purpose.

Even though there was some patchwork for Jared to do in the living room, we really didn't need all this sheet rock.  Yet here it is.

Perhaps the biggest annoyance has been this discovery.  Someone spilled a large amount of PVC glue on a complete box of unused tile.  Not only is the tile ruined now...

The floor has been affected as well.  The poor floors in this house have taken a beating since the Rabbits first started working.  If I could show how horrid the floors look in a single picture, I would.  The thing that really gets to me is that the gorgeous hardwood floors were one of the redeeming qualities about this house when we first discovered it, and now they look terrible.  Though I'm happy to have the Rabbits gone and their work done, I'm not happy with the fact that the floors really need to be refinished because of them.

Now on to Jared's mess!  Saturday was our kick start into our work on the house.  As Jared was moving some unnecessary items into the attic, the finicky light switched off, making it impossible for him to see.  This caused him to misstep, and he slipped, falling through the ceiling in the living room.  Among the sheet rock and foam insulation that crashed to the floor, the packing peanuts that someone back in the day decided to use as insulation created this giant mess.

When I came around the corner, Jared's leg was dangling through the hole, but I was so spooked, I didn't even see it.  I ran up the stairs to the attic to see if I could help, but Jared being the super man that he is had only a little trouble getting himself out of his predicament.  Luckily, other than a scraped leg and a small amount of bruising, he's just fine!  Our ceiling, however, is not.

After opening up the hole to make it easier to patch, Jared joked about making it into a skylight, which I quickly denied.  Among all the other projects on hand, I think this has been the accident of the site.












As of today, we have thirteen days until our company arrives.  Tomorrow (Monday) the sheet rock crew is coming to finish the family room and any other random spots that need to be sanded.  By the end of the day, pretty much everything should be paint ready.  Tuesday, the clean up crew will be in to get rid of the Rabbit's mess.  Wednesday, I'm planning on painting my butt off.  Ok not literally.  The pantry in the kitchen and the family room need to be painted.  Due to time constrains, the bedrooms, bathrooms, and living room are lower on the list of things to be painted.

We also have not had time to assess the main bathroom.  It's usable, though pretty gross, and with company coming, we're at odds with what to do with it to make it bearable.  So even though the contracted work is done, we are far from close to the end of this whole experience.

The Ghost of Deadlines Past

Our deadline came and went.  As annoyed as I am to still have things going on in my house, I know that Glenn is doing the best he can.  This poor guy has been bending over backwards for us to try to stay on budget and still make a little profit out of this deal (I can't be too mad at him for that, he's got to make a living somehow), but when it comes down to it, he's probably just going to break even on this house.  Jared and I are grateful for everything he's done, even though keeping on Pete has not really been efficient.

A few weeks after I returned from Seattle, Jared and I made a deal with Glenn about having everything done and out of the house by the 26th.  Well that just flew past us laughing as it went.  I swear I could hear it saying, "Haha, your house isn't done yet!"  And after lots of planning and re planning, I think I can say we should be done by THIS week.

But let's back up a bit.  Though Pete is still technically on our job, Glenn brought in his fastest crew once again to tackle the obnoxiously warped ceiling in the family room.  Over the years, this ceiling has just sagged and sagged until it looked so wonky there is no way anyone would take off the popcorn texture.  Even with the camouflage the surface bore the resemblance of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  Ok maybe I'm exaggerating, but the job still had to get done. So instead of going through the messy process of stripping the texture, the new crew just sheet rocked over it.  As a quick fix, if you can stand to lose a little tiny bit of ceiling height, this method works really well.

Also mostly completed was the door to window project.  I've adjusted fairly well to the absence of what used to be our main traffic door.  However, pretty much everyone else has not.  Even Ullr goes to the window sometimes.  As amusing as that can be, I'm glad that we got rid of the door.  With the new back door, this entryway was just not necessary, so arranging furniture in this room would have been nothing short of a nightmare.

Finally, we have made a good bit of progress on our master bath!  Though the Rabbits were not supposed to be on this project, the new crew was pushed out due to Pete's attitude and refusal to work at all if we were going to take this away from him.  Lovely!  However, with Jack and Pete working (mostly Jack), this bathroom is on its way to being usable.

The plumbing was finished last week, and the water resistant cement board was put up by the weekend.  Jared tried to sell me on the color, but I wasn't having the hunter green with patches of white as my bathroom color.  I've yet to even think of colors for this room.  That is one of the fun parts of this whole process.  Picking out colors is always fun!

By last night, this is what the bathroom looked like.  The tile was laid, and the vanity was put in.  Though petit, this bathroom will be a nice addition to the house.  Jared also got his first lesson in tiling, and went on to tile the laundry room in the same night.

The toilet still has to be put in, and they still need to grout, put up the shower walls, and install the doors to the shower.  The counter top and sink will be installed when the counter arrives, but we are so close to having a fully usable bathroom!

We've also got a paint-ready laundry closet.  I know the picture isn't that fascinating, but it gives you some reference.  As I said before, Jared laid the tile in there all by himself!  Even though this whole process of living through a reno is not exactly a cakewalk, Jared is loving the learning process that has come with it.  With his construction based background, I'm glad he's had a chance to see what really goes in to a major renovation like this.

Of course, the Rabbits will only be here for a little while longer, and then it's down to Jared and I to finish the house.  Never in our wildest dreams did we think we'd still be renovating this late in the year.  We've also got company coming for Thanksgiving.  Jared's mom and her boyfriend are driving down to stay with us for the week of Thanksgiving, and we are slightly worried that we won't have everything done by then.  We're trying to be realistic about what we can get done by then, but as our list to the left shows, there's a lot to do.  But wasting no time, we've already started on the first item on the list...

Even though our lot is just under an acre, we did NOT fence in the entire thing.  Leaving most of the jungle on the outside of the fence, we were only left with this tree and surrounding brush to maintain.  The tree itself is perfect and provides a great amount of shade, but the brush that surrounded and choked the tree was full of thorns and and was becoming a problem.

Jared has already done a fair bit of work around this tree, and every time we work on it, it looks better and better.  After pulling out several bushes, fallen tree limbs, and lots of thorny vines, there is one deeply rooted bush that will NOT budge.  Jared even used thick chains and a Dodge Ram with a hemi to try to uproot the beast to no avail.  Hopefully we can find some way to remove the brush, as it has been overtaking the tree and honestly is kind of ugly.

This vine had been growing climbing the tree for who knows how long, but it's nearly 80 ft span had to come down.  That poor tree has had so many bushes and vines climbing it, I'm surprised it's in as good of shape as it is.

It such a good looking tree, I would be very upset to lose it, but I have seen some spots on the leaves, so it could be sick.  I'm hoping that by removing the brush and vines surround it, we help it get better.  Also, I took this picture on Sunday.  This is what our Fall colors look like!

Underneath all the brush, we found this little terra cotta pot.  Clearly someone tried to beautify this yard once upon a time.  There's no telling how old the pot is, since the previous owners didn't live here.  The giant cement block on which the pot is sitting is also underneath the tree.  Jared has plans to move the block, but I'm certain he would need super human strength to do so.

Our little kitties have just about had it with their confinement in one room.  I'm taking comfort in the knowledge that it won't have to be for much longer, but Loki here just has to have his taste of freedom for a little while.  We let him roam the house for an evening.  Freya, however, was much too scared to even leave the room (big surprise).  Very soon, Loki and Freya will be able to roam the whole house!








As we approach the end of this reno, I'm itching to paint and hang trim and buy furniture.  Hopefully we'll have a successful Thanksgiving.  I've never hosted a Thanksgiving by myself before, so this should be an experience!  Also, even though the Rabbits are going to be done and out of our hare (haha), Jared and I still have plenty of work to do in this house.  As I've heard from everyone who owns a house, you're never done improving your house.  Ever.  I'm just hoping we get it to a presentable state before the mother-in-law arrives!