A couple more - just because he's cute

Here are a couple of Thom hard at work. Three cheers for Thom!

Some before-after shots

See some of the work we did this weekend. Before and after, respectively.

Some before-after shots

I can't move my legs

Back to work - I mean, the kind you get paid for. We spent a fabulous weekend starting the work on the house. Granted, we are both exhausted but I feel wonderfully fulfilled. There is such a sense of completeness to all of it, I can't explain it.

We'll have some pics up hopefully later today but here's what we accomplished since Friday:
1) Ripped down wallpaper in kitchen - found lead paint underneath (insert dread-inducing music here)
2) Primed and painted living room and dining room - found that fireplace surrounds looks fabulous as is with the Tamarind paint we chose to put around it
3) Ripped up carpet in hallway - spent remaining evening pulling up hundreds of staples and ridiculous tack strips

You know, three things doesn't sound like much but we worked our pompises off.

It was hard to come to work today - I want to go back and do some more work on the house!

IT'S OURS...now the work begins!

We closed yesterday morning at 10am and all went very smoothly. The chimney work was done on Tuesday and we went for an inspection of that and the wiring. We were surprised and pleased to see that they had basically rewired the entire house, even grounded the outlets and installed GFCIs, so we won't need to update this at a later time. The chimney work was also done and all was well.

We have spent the last day and a half starting the hard but rewarding work of updating the house. We got appliances this morning for the kitchen and bought paint. We have now primed the dining room but will prime and finish painting the living room and dining room tomorrow. I was tickled to find out that I could remove all of the wallpaper in the kitchen with one hand, no chemicals or scraping needed! The whole thing took me less time than taping one room to prepare for painting!

We also found out that the floors in the entryway and hallway are hardwood under the old nasty carpet and may be in very good shape. I'm off to find out how to best remove carpet from Mr. Internet.

We're making progress but I am completely exhausted!

T-minus 4 days

I think I may insane waiting for the last few days to pass. I keep having all these dreams that something goes wrong with our financing at the last minute and we can't get the house. I guess I just won't feel it's all over until we have the keys in our hands.

In my daily stalking trip yesterday, I see that the masonry people put up plastic around the chimney area but still haven't gotten any brick laid on the outside. They were supposed to have it done yesterday but it looks like it will be Monday or Tuesday. Our final inspection is Tuesday evening so I hope it's done by then.

We're already making plans to immediately go get our appliances ordered after the closing as they told us they'll take a couple weeks to be delivered. I feel like this is a huge decision, but it's probably really not. We're getting a new range, a new refrigerator, and a new washing machine. All Energy Star compliant - the washer is also a front-loader to save water. The kitchen stuff is stainless - and I'm excited about that. We'll wait on a new dishwasher and microwave until this summer, I guess. I'm hoping to find some stick on stainless sheeting, like I saw on HGTV, to put on the front of the current dishwasher to make it match better in the meantime.

Then, Friday and Saturday will be painting and cleaning up. We'll slowly start to move stuff over in the cars and probably put it upstairs until the flooring refinisher is done the following week.

I can hardly stand the wait!

Paint colors - take 2,802

I think we have made a decision on our paint colors, for the downstairs anyway. My other highlight is purchasing the amazing product called Walwik - reusable fabric cloths that remove up to 7 layers of wallpaper in one, fell swoop! I can't wait to try it out!

Here's the plan - check out the colors on the Color Visualizer at sherwin-williams.com:

Kitchen - take down wallpaper and put up Sherwin Williams 7679 - Golden Gate
Dining Room - paint SW 7731 - San Antonio Sage
Living Room - paint SW 7715 - Pottery Urn
Hallway - take down wallpaper and put up SW 7538 - Tamarind or SW 7717 - Liognier Tan

Considerations for upstairs bedrooms:
SW 7519 - Mexican Sand
SW 7639 - Ethereal Mood
SW 7748 - Green Earth

We need to also think about bathrooms too... blue maybe?

I spent a lot of time trying to narrow down the type of paint, much less the paint colors. Surprisingly, not all brands carry the no VOC paint yet. Sherwin Williams is the only place around Bangor that has it so we're going that way.

We'll have the painting done next weekend, hopefully - the floor refinishing guy comes a few days later! Woo hoo!