Let's Move In!

It's been 11 days of hard work but the worst is over! We did it! Also, I'm exhausted. My feet hurt. It's all been worth it though. I love the changes we've made.

There are things that still need to be done like paint the trim around the doors, add a second coat of paint in the master bathroom, paint and hang doors, etc. Yay. More painting. :|

BUT, all my big projects have been completed! 

Putting the sealer on the floors:

I LOVE how they turned out. There are tiny imperfections throughout (small cracks and holes from tack strips) but those just add character! I'm so happy with the color and how the concrete accepted the stain. 

Check it out! Ignore the black marks on the walls. I got crazy with the stain...

The stain I chose was New Look's Smart Color in Hazelnut, diluted and sprayed on with a plastic pump sprayer. When the sprayer was working, it worked great! However, it kept getting clogged! We ended up cleaning it out three times before we finished all the floors. Very  frustrating. I already liked the color but wanted more dimension. We let that dry all day and then I came back after work at 9:00pm and sprayed on more Smart Color in Black. Because I didn't want to wrestle with the pump sprayer and end up throwing it through a window, I just mixed up the black stain in a plastic spray bottle. It kept splattering a bit so I would keep blotting here and there with a rag so it didn't look like there were huge drips on my floor. 300 squats later, my floor looked exactly how I wanted it! 

Tonight, my fabulous cousins came over to help us with baseboards. Before Scotty got off work, Phil and Dad worked on baseboards and Amber and I went to get a load of stuff to take to the house. We got pretty creative with our packing and also lifted a lot of heavy things to make us feel really macho. 

Phil, thank you for your skills! And your saw and nail gun...

My eyes lit up when I saw this: 

And THIS: 

You can see the burnt orange paint in the bathroom in the above picture. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product. I'll get it later. 

I just wanted to stand in the living room and stare at it all night. I LOVE taller baseboards. We chose 5" base since we took the floors out and had more to cover! Oh darn...  ;)

So much cleaner and more finished-looking!

We also started to set up our bed frame. I really need to change the bulbs in our room. So dim!

I hung this 'ol thing up tonight. I'm still not 100% on it in that spot. i just don't know where else to put it. What do you think?

I can't wait to move more in this weekend! I'm ready to make this a home!

More updates coming soon! I already have a couple of projects in the works.   

We got the keys! Let the games begin!

The waiting is over.  We can now do things like this: 

That's right, honey. You're so mighty. You show that sign who's boss.

We got our keys and within five minutes were ripping out old stinky baseboards and moulding. Everything is so GRIMEY. But I can't worry about that now. We are about to tear the place up anyway. The deep cleaning will happen eventually. 

Here are a few of the place before we started ripping it to shreds today:

Living room view from kitchen

Kitchen view from living room

My office/guest room. Which, we ended up deciding to keep the carpet in here (the one and only room that will have carpet).  It's not in terrible shape and I can get it shampooed. 

Dirty door with dirty hardware.  I'll be getting a new handle. What fabulous/obnoxious color can I paint this door?!

It's pretty overwhelming but I just need to focus on one thing at a time. While dad helped with baseboard removal, I got started on removing all the cabinet doors.

"Oh look, I'm smiling and having the grandest of times! Operation Espresso Cabinets is SO enjoyable!"... 

It was all sunshine and rainbows until I gathered my collection in the garage.

 *Cue my BEST unamused facial expression.

Lawwwwwwd help meh! Can you say "over-freaking-whelming"?!  This wasn't even all of them! Watch out cabinets, I'm comin' for you tomorrow...when the water gets turned back on and I can wipe off all those sticky food stains and handprints. I cant wait to come back and start sanding. Wooooo power tools!

We will also be prepping those dirty walls for painting. We may have to re-spray some texture back on after we scrape that caulking from the chair rail we removed. I can't wait for it all the be one clean color! It will be so much easier and more calming to my peepers.

We are keeping the laminate down while we paint to avoid having to protect the floor.  BUT I did want to lift up a section to see what we're working with.  Because I want to stain the concrete floors, I was really hoping for the concrete to be in good condition. Specifically, NO CARPET GLUE. 

Oh, hi, fake wood floor that doesn't match! Let me just lift some of you up. Show me your goodies. Please no glue, please no glue, please no glue.

YOU. IDIOT.  HI carpet glue! There still might be hope. If we can remove all traces, I'll do the acid stain as planned.  If not, I'm still staining, I'll just have to do a water-base stain to cover it. I'm not doing an overlay (More time and money). We will just have to prep the concrete really well. 

We also started to put together the new living room fan and realized it didn't come with the extension rod and the one on the existing fan did not work. Luckily, good ol' Home Depot opens at 6:00am! Did I mention I am a slave driver  dedicated, hardworking individual? 

Well we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow so I should go to sleep.  If I have any trouble drifting off, I'll just count cabinet doors... Stay tuned for updates! 

New homeowners elated to have just taken on thousands of dollars in debt.