The Tired Homeowners... day 3, 4, and 5

Whew. We have been over at the house every day working. My back and neck are sore!! But I still think it is a good sore. I've slept better than I have in weeks too!

The last few days, we have been doing things that you don't really see much. Not in a dramatic way, anyways. They are still important though. I mopped all the floors of the house. Mom washed down the walls and trim in the front bedroom. I took out the air grates and returns and spray painted the older ones black. I washed the baseboards and around the windows in the living room. I cleaned the half-bath.

Justin took off all the quarter-round molding in the whole house. He also took out all the staples that were left over from the carpet removal.  Justin taped off the windows in the front room so that we can paint the trim.

All of these are important, but I just want to paint so we can have a new look. But even before we paint, we have to make sure everything is washed down from the layer of grim that is covering it. Then there is the taping... And in some place, we need to patch the drywall that had issues. Painting is the easy part. It's everything else that takes a long time.

Almost forgot- how could I?- on Sunday Justin and Zach ripped out the cabinets in the kitchen and also the ones that were shoved in the crawlspace in the basement. That took a few hours. Then Justin got the Bagster out and had to break everything down to fit in it. That took a while too! I guess that was a project that actually had visual results!! However, since the cabinets had been up for so long, there was definitely damage to the plaster that we need to fix before we can paint or be ready for the contractors to come in and redo the kitchen.

Speaking of the kitchen, the cabinet guy and our contractor came over today to get final measurements so that the counter can be ordered. The wall the stove was on had a few adjustments to make, be we got it figured out.  Justin also met with a hardwood floor repairman to get an estimate on fixing a damaged and uneven section of the floor. We'll have to see how that turns out.

Two bigger things that we are trying to decide on are when to sand the floors down and when to have the ductwork cleaned. Ugh..more money. We will probably try to rent a sander, but it is hard to know how long to get it for... and I think we should clean the ductwork after we sand. Even if we tape it off, it's hard to prevent some leaking.

All in all, we are accomplishing things a little at a time. It's so great to be back and have family around to help. My dad even came over when we weren't there and cleaned up the branches from the tree that we had trimmed this weekend. That was so sweet of him!! Our neighbors are great too- Bert helped us get the water switched on and fix a problematic leak. Plus we are borrowing step stools and the like from him. I have been overcome with a sense of blessing the last few days. Even though we are tired, we are so glad that God has led us here and is working everything out. God is good!

 It took everyone to get this side down...Trust me they weren't that happy when it was still up...

I almost forgot to write about how I Shop-Vac -ed the vents. So gross. They are better now- not so much pet hair, pens, or wood strips. But still, need to be cleaned professionally down in the tubes!

This just shows the condition of the floor and baseboard. Justin already took off the quarter-round molding, but I'm sure that we will put new molding back on later. It's so grimy! I hadn't mopped yet in this picture though.