Big Progress!

This weekend was a very productive one, much to the help of my wonderful sister and her husband. We are so lucky to have great family and friends who are willing to come lend a hand. It really felt like a turning point. M and I spent Saturday painting the very first room- the half bath downstairs. Having a painted room really changes the feel of the house. I wanted a bold color for the powder room (a.k.a. half bath- apparently some people don't know the term powder room?) and although I had my doubts at various times, I think it came out great. When we initially opened the paint can, it looked like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese sauce- very bright orange! But as we put it on the walls, with 2 coats, it deepened and looks great in natural light.

Meanwhile, W & L were working hard to install door jambs throughout the house. Some people think hanging doors is easy, but they're probably thinking of pre-hung doors. We're starting from studs and building the jambs, since we're using original 5 panel doors.

On Saturday, we had our new washer and dryer installed. I did laundry in my own house this weekend!! I've never enjoyed laundry so much.

We also took advantage of some President's Day sales and bought all of our kitchen appliances! Although we can't install them until the floors are finished (at least a few weeks out) it'll be great to have them here and ready. We also bought a lot of paint (also on sale) for many of the rooms. There's only one color that I'm uncertain about but it'll probably look fine once it's up.

The last lifestyle improvement was bringing in the TV from the garage. It's one of the big old TVs and takes up about half our "counter" space in the basement, but it's really nice. On Sunday, we fell asleep in front of the TV- something we haven't done in months!

W has to continue to come up with creative ultimatums to keep the crew coming. Yesterday they didn't show, but they seem to respond to threats. So today they came and worked on several things, most exciting for me is the back door stairs. Again, it's been months since we could walk straight out to the garage.

So I'm really hoping that these workers will be gone after this week or the next. They could easily finish up the outstanding work if they showed up every day this week, but that's a big if. Either way, I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And thank goodness, because each day I feel a little bit bigger!

Floors and Bathrooms again!

As my frustration mounts, my posts have decreased. But there is some good news to post, so here goes! W has been working feverishly and things are looking good. He spent the past week working on the flooring in the back of the house. It has been refinished at this point and it looks beautiful! Now that this floor is good, the crew can install the fixtures for this half bath, and we can get a washer and dryer! We bought a set yesterday and they should be delivered next Saturday. I'm hoping to my laundry here at the house next weekend- no more trips to the laundramat! Here's a before and after refinishing shot (different ends of the room, but same space.)

Side note: last weekend, I spent 3.5 hours at the laundramat as a result of a machine malfunction. Very annoying. A very fun Superbowl Sunday for me. I am going to LOVE having a washer and dryer again!

We've had a trickle of workers coming to the house, despite them saying these weeks would be the final "big push". They've started to retile the bathrooms (after completely gutting them back to studs) and it's looking good. And they've done some work on the dry wall patching. Not too much outside of that from the crew though. These guys drive me nuts.

Here's a picture of the master bath. There will be 2 shelves in each corner.

Guest bath. They replaced the tub when the gutted the bathrooms to redo them.

At this point, I'm very ready for a completed house. I'm really tired of sleeping in the basement. I crave a normal settled house with furniture. As I enter the third trimester of my pregnancy (next week I think?) I'm really feeling the need to establish our house. I know W feels this pressure too. There's very little that I can actually do to help speed things along though, since I don't have many of the required skills. Clearly W does! Take a look at his new shop in our dining room.