Last week started on a rough note, hence the lack of updates. We were overworked and sleep deprived which made for two grumpy, inefficient renovators. One night I vacuumed up all of the sanding dust throughout the house with our trusty Oreck vacuum. After I had nearly completed my vacuuming, I saw clouds of dust spewing out of the vacuum. This is when I realized that I never put a bag in it. Vacuuming FAIL. It took me an hour to blow all of the dust out of it and get it cleaned up for use again. Trent put Conleigh’s crib together wrong about three different times. Many choice words were spoken this night. Trent is the Put-It-Together guru and I am the vacuuming queen, so the fact that we made these ridiculous mistakes speaks to our tiredness.
I am happy to say that we are FINALLY living in our home! We moved our bed in last Wednesday and officially started staying here as a family on Friday.
We got our utility sink installed and hooked up our washer and dryer. Excuse the mess, by the way.
That utility sink has been a LIFESAVER. If it weren’t for it, I would be washing dishes in the bathroom sink. Eww.
The biggest thing that has changed since the last post is that we have wood floors! Everywhere! Saturday morning our living room, dining room, kitchen and guest bedroom had really dusty concrete floors. By Saturday night all of those rooms had REALLY dusty wood floors!! Hallelujah! Trent had anticipated that they would only finish about half of what they did, so we were pleasantly surprised with the completion. Trent, his friend Austin, and Ramon the carpenter, are now all wood floor installing pros!
Check out how dirty these floors were:
As you all know, I am an OCD clean freak, so this mess was KILLING me! I had to keep reminding myself to be thankful that there were floors, and that the dust was insignificant. NOT EASY. Once we were able to pull the tape up, I began vacuuming and mopping, which is when I think my blood pressure stabilized. That is until I realized most of what looked like dust was floor glue. Mind you, this floor glue is not your Elmer’s glue. This stuff is hard core.
These buckets cost about $100 a piece and weigh like a million pounds. Okay, more like 80 pounds, but sheesh, that’s a small human. They are VERY heavy, simply put. Not only is this stuff heavy and pricey, it sticks like a fly in honey. Once you touch it, it’s on you for life. Or for the next week or so. The same goes for the glue on the floor. Unfortunately, the guys were working under a time crunch and in poor lighting, causing them to track glue EVERYWHERE. Thus far I have spent about 5 hours crouched down rubbing mineral spirits all over the floor in an attempt to remove it. I still have about half of the house left. Lesson learned here is clean the glue up right away. It cures after 24-48 hours and it’s removal is making my life miserable.
Since the floors were knocked out on Saturday, Trent had all day Sunday to install the quarter round molding in the bedroom wing, all baseboards in the common areas, and crown molding in the dining room. I thought the house looked good as soon as the floors were in, but all this trim made it look so polished. We still need to caulk it all, but for now it works.
Last night Trent installed our dining room light.
After lots of searching I finally found a ceiling fan that I liked from Overstock.com. We received it last week but need to special order the down rod for it, so Trent rigged some temporary living room lighting for the time being.
Trent also built our kitchen:
Just kidding. He will start working on the kitchen this week. This IS our kitchen for now though. Not pictured is a fridge and a microwave, so we aren’t roughin’ it too bad!
We still have a long way to go as far as unpacking, decorating and renovating go, but we are so happy with what we have accomplished in one short month!
I think Ugly House graduated to Pretty House last night. From the inside at least. I can’t wait to get art, rugs, curtains and nick nacks in their place!
Project Ugly House 