Words Cannot Express

The Family Room
The Family Room Take 2

The Kitchen (notice the hardwood floors)
Littlest Little One's room AKA The tool room

Room with a view

I hope you enjoyed the tour. As you can see I have a random sense of decorating and I enjoy using cardboard to bring in a different element into my color scheme. Moving is so much fun!

After Pictures Continued

I realized that many of my before pictures are somewhere on my computer. I just don't know how to locate and retrieve them. Enjoy the after pictures 'cause that's all I got.

Before and After

Here are some before and after pictures of the bathrooms. The top picture in the downstairs bathroom before. The middle two pictures are the upstairs bath before. The bottom two pictures are the downstairs bathroom after. That is all the pictures I was able to get on one post. There will be more to come.

Focus!

I wrote focus in the title in order to remind myself to do just that. Focus! Dan and I have both had trouble with staying in one direction since our flooring debacle. We tried to refocus our efforts on moving after we realized we would not get the floors done. With the help of some wonderful friends and their family we were able to move most everything on Friday night and Saturday morning. Everything had to go into the upstairs of the house since we weren't able to finish the floors. Dan, who has more perseverance in a day than I have had in my entire lifetime, returned to the house on Sunday to begin the process of polyurethaning. He had secretly hoped to finish it all on Sunday but in order to be consistent we deciding to add yet another day to the floor finishing process. In the end we figured it would make the story more dramatic.

Monday night at 8:00pm the floor was officially finished! Yee Haw! Now we just need to get some lighting installed, so we can see what it looks like. Tuesday we decided it would be best if we took the evening off. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a Tuesday evening so much in my entire life. Wens. night we took a few more miscellaneous items up to the house and met with someone to discuss options to take care of the sulfur problem with our water. Another thing I've learned during this whole process is that "options" are always expensive, no matter how many of them there are.

Tonight Dan is trying to prioritize what is the most important thing to work on in order to get us into the house faster. If anyone has any suggestions please feel free to offer them in the comments section. I'll give a brief overview of some of the things that need to be done before we can move in

1. We have no working overhead lights in the entire downstairs. Dan, assures me that this is not a big deal and he can have lights working in little or no time. I would feel pretty good about his assurances if there wasn't a list of 20 things that all are going to take little to no time to complete.

2. We have no working electrical outlet for the appliances. This also is not a big deal as we have no appliances as of yet to plug in.

3. We have a sink that needs to be installed, but we have no counter top on which to install it.

4. Only the sink works in the downstairs bathroom

5. Only the toilet works in the upstairs bathroom. If you notice, neither bathroom has a working tub or shower.

I could continue this list but I feel a panic attack coming on. This is something I can focus on. I think I should end this post for health reasons. I pray you are having a great day. I hope to return with news of progress and working appliances!

The Tale of The Hardwood Floors

No matter what anyone says, always install prefinished hardwood floors. In addition, make sure you buy the installation package regardless of the cost. It will by far be the cheaper option. I am speaking from experience. Dan and I chose to lay unfinished floors, since it was such a great deal. Well, this great deal has turned into a 6 week nightmare.
We thought we might just have them done in time to move our things in this weekend. Well, come to find out, you need to wipe off the excess stain no matter how dark you want it to be. Instead of applying polyurethane this week, we will be wiping off excess stain, letting it dry for 48 hours, and lay down protective paper. We will then move all of our furniture upstairs, so we can polyurethane next week. Ahhhh! I'm a little upset.
I love learning these little lessons. I hope to be giving better news on my next post. Have a great day.

Behind the scenes

I really wanted to have some progress pictures to show you, but alas the progress we are making is the invisible kind. Dan has been working hard and we've had friends come and help, but the kind of work that is being done is behind the scenes work. I have no patience for this kind of work. I don't see electrical wires or interior wall framing so they REALLY can't make a big difference, can they? Dan assures me that all of the work is very important and needs to be done and done well. I still don't see how it compares to say, paint color, hanging up curtains, planting flowers, or making sure that the appliances are installed

Because of our outlook on things we make a pretty good team. Dan pays attention to what he thinks is important and I pay attention to what I think is important. After we survive all the fights and the project is done, we look at each other and say "that wasn't too bad, lets do this again!" (that's also how we ended up with three children.) I'm trying not to get frusterated that Dan can spend 4 hours sanding walls and nothing looks much different. I AM very goal oriented and I AM NOT very patient.

I know that the inside is really what is important both in the house and in our personal lives. I am praying that I grow in patience and continue building a firm foundation for both the house and my personal life. This is a difficult process for me, but the house is a good metaphor to look at. The paint and curtains won't make a big difference in the end, if all of the walls are crooked, the electric doesn't reach all those pretty light fixtures I picked out, or the heat doesn't reach the right rooms. I'm glad Dan is taking the time to work on the inside. I think I might spend some time working on it too. I hope each of you has a successful building day today whatever your project may be.

Destination Procrastination

One would think that in the middle of a renovation, move, and end of a home school year, the mother figure of the family would be entrenched in packing, teaching, and wielding a paint brush. One would think....The reality in this family is the mother figure has been pursuing the art of procrastination. If anyone would like lessons in this art I would love to share my talent. I am a TRUE professional! In the past week I have shopped for curtains (not all together wasting time), visited a friend, and attended the Women of Faith Conference. I have to say that attending the conference was a time of renewal and I pray that God's Grace descends upon me to enable me to tackle the next two weeks.
Things I should have been doing goes as follows:

1. Write a list of what needs to be done.
2. Post on my blog (Look I'm already getting things done!)
3. Place add in newspaper for garage sale
4. find things in house to sell at garage sale
5. find a place in the house to place things to sell until they are sold!
6. Bake cookies to sell at the garage sale. ( I promised the girls about a year ago that they could do this)
7. Go grocery shopping for baking ingredients
8. Pack
9. Get boxes and tape so I can pack
10. Take kids on end of the school year picnic
11. Think about Father's Day
12. Think about our 10 year anniversary
13. When I'm done thinking, plan and execute card making and gift giving. ( We have already rescheduled mother's day, so this is an option for both Father's Day and our anniversary)
14. Paint SOMETHING in the new house
15. Find out what our phone # is in our new house. Apparently it's been hooked up, but I deleted the information that had the phone # in it.
16. arrange for propane to be hooked up at house, so the stove and dryer will work
17. Get stove, refrigerator, and dishwasher delivered
18. Remove the frogs from the pool
19. Remove algae from pool
20. Find out how you remove frogs and algae from pool
21. Stop thinking about EVERYTHING that needs to be done
22. Take it one step at a time
23. Check myself into the closest psychiatric ward.

I started this list a little tongue in cheek and sometime between the start of my post and now my heart rate has rapidly increased. I must be off so I can start crossing things off my list. I do want to thank all of you who have read my ramblings and have prayed for us as we make another transition. We really have great group of supportive friends and we are so appreciative. Have a great day. Hopefully we'll have some new pictures in the next few days.

Progress

We are making progress! It was a long week, but our contractor pulled through for us on Saturday. I'm posting pictures. It may not look like much to any of you, but to me it's the start of something beautiful.