Ahhh... The Beauty of Community

Fixing up a house is a huge task. But having friends by your side makes the whole thing a little easier. Last night my sister, Jacke, and brother-in-law, Eric, brought over our new fridge. It's a Maytag side-by-side and it works great! What a blessing. Then they stayed and Jackie helped paint while Eric pressured washed the outside of the house. Our friends Jack & Jennifer came over and helped out too. Jennifer cleaned the carpet in the living room (which looks GREAT by the way) and worked on the other carpets while Jack helped me and Gavin paint. Our friend Les also showed up to help paint. We were able to get the hall and kitchen painted, the first coat on the master bedroom, and the carpet cleaned in the living room. Things that would've taken days for me and Gavin to do by ourselves! And not only that, but it was fun. Laughing and talking always makes the humdrumness of painting go by alot faster!!

I'm going back to the house today to try to finish up the paint in the masterbedroom. I'll post some pictures when it's done :)

Blessings Adundant

Wow, we have amazing friends and family!!! After just a day of posting things that we need for the house and things that need to do, we've had so many people offer to help out. Gavin's mom had some window panes replaced for us. My sister and brother-in-law gave us 5 gallons of paint and cleaning supplies. They are also getting us a refrigerator! It's a side-by-side and should be here next week :) My friend and her daughter came over last night to help us clean and pull up tac boards from the master bedroom. More friends are giving us shower curtains and window coverings, cleaning supplies, and even letting us borrow a carpet cleaner!! Gavin's dad gave us a couch, pots and pans, and bedding! And still more friends and family are planning to come over the next 2 weeks to help out. There's been blessings abundant! I can't begin to thank everyone enough. Thank you so much to everyone who is helping us out. It's such a huge task, but you're all making it easier. We love you all!

Work to be Done

Everyone's been asking us "what do you need for the house?" or "how can we help you with the house?" I really appreciate all the offers to help, but I can never think of stuff on-the-spot. So Gavin told me to sit down and make a list of the things we need to do and the things we need for the house. That way our friends and family will know and can help with what they want to. We're also planning a couple "work days" that anyone is more than welcome to come out and hep.... So here goes :)

Work Days:

Saturday, July 10th @ 4:00pm

Tuesday, July 13th @ 4:00pm

Friday, July 16th @ 9:00am

Things we need to do:

• Junk Removal- All the pipes, wood, glass, pots/buckets, etc. from the yard need to picked up and taken to the road. Also tear down make-shift shed and remove debris.
• Carpets- steam clean remaining carpets
• Cleaning- clean kitchen cabinets, drawers, counters, walls, sinks, and stove. Clean bathroom tubs, toilets, counters, walls, sinks, cabinets, drawers, and mirrors. Mop all tile floors. Clean fireplace.
• Indoor Painting- Repaint master bedroom and bathroom white, prime paneling and paint kids' room. Also scrape and paint concrete floor in master bedroom.
• Pressure Wash/Window Cleaning- Pressure wash outside of the house and porch. Clean all windows inside and out.
• Outdoor Painting- Repaint pillars, shutters, front door, and side of house white.
• Yard Work- Pull weeds and shrubs from around the front of the house. Kill hives and spider webs around exterior of the house (there's ALOT!) and spray for bugs inside the house.
• The Move- Moving our furniture and boxes from the duplex to our new house.

Things we need:

• Refrigerator
• White, interior, semi-gloss paint.
• White, exterior paint.
• Primer (for painting over paneling)
• Drop cloths
• One toilet kit
• 2 Cabinet hinges
• 1 can of white, waterproof Rustoleum spray paint
• Paint remover
• 1 Shower curtain
• Cleaning supplies- bleach, mildew remover, mop, floor cleaner, glass cleaner, paper towels, sponges
• Curtains

Bye-Bye Stinky!

Phew! That carpet in the master bedroom was DISGUSTING. When I pulled it up the padding underneath was still WET with pet urine and there was moisture stains on the concrete! It smelled awful. I'm so glad we decided to pull that up!

The guy who originally installed it glued the padding to the floor, so there's a ton of tiny little pieces of padding stuck all over the concrete. We'll have to take a scraper to it. The kids liked pulling up the pieces from the glue. Go figure! But overall it took less than an hour to get it all out, rolled up, and put by the road. Now it's just a matter of figuring out what to do with the floor!! Haha. We can't really afford to do much, so I'm thinking we could just paint the cement floor until we can get the floors redone. I'd love to eventually get hardwood laminate done, but that's a dream for another day :) Any ideas of a temporary fix?? Please feel free to share :)

Carpet in master bedroom

My little helpers :)

No more carpet!

Very sweaty, but happy to say "Bye-bye stinky carpet!" (Samuel was right there with me the whole time. He didn't want to play with toys, he wanted to tear up padding! Haha).

60 Cents

Today we went to do some cleaning (what we could without electric or water) at the house. We were able to clean up the porch and reassemble the porch swing, clean out the garage, pick up some junk from the front yard, and sweep the house and pick up trash. It was a productive day and things are already starting to look better!

After some discussion we've decided that we are definitely

pulling up the carpets. Underneath is cement. So for now we're going to paint the cement and try to get some carpet remnants until we have the funds to purchase new floors. But we're more comfortable with cement floors then with pet-stained, smelly carpets! And I found $.60 while sweeping so we giggled that now we've started our flooring fund :)

We also talked to a man at The Pix this morning who owns a lawn service. He comes into The Pix all the time so he recognized Gavin. He came over to the house and said he'd mow and weed the entire lot (about 2 acres) for $35!! Woohoo! Hopefully we can get the lawn service out there this week! That will make a huge difference.

Before and After shots...

The Front Porch

(That Foosball table is for sale! Only $15, you come pick it up :)

The Garage

In waiting...

We've been in waiting for the old renter to clear all his stuff from the house and yard. He was supposed to be done by June 30th. Not the case. Today I got word that the broken down motor home and Geo Tracker are gone, the scrap metal is getting picked up from the yard, the engine hanging from the basketball hoop is gone, and he has said he's "done" and not coming back. However, there's still a lot of broken glass, shards of wood and metal, trash, junk in the garage, an old Foosball table, and other "things" we found that made me upset (but I won't go into that). Now I've been told that the house is ours and we can start making changes. Whatever he left behind can be thrown out or given away. Sigh of relief. :) Just knowing that we don't have to wait anymore to get started makes me feel less anxious. The neighbor has agreed to let us use his electric and water (extension cords and hoses) to start cleaning if we'd like. Side note: I was happy to learn that we can turn on the electric for 2 weeks at the new place while keeping our current electric on, without paying a deposit! So now we just have to pick an official "move-in" date...

Day One Photos

View of the house from the driveway. Obviously there's some serious yardwork to be done!

A view of part of the backyard. It's gigantic! The tracker and the motor home are supposed to be towed out of there soon. There's ALOT of junk out there that we'll have to remove and make it a safe area for the kids! But the basketball hoop is ours :)

This is a view of the garage and the kids room from outside. Garage needs to be cleaned out (rid of junk) and there's a small whole in the ceiling that needs to be patched. Not sure if door works or not, but we'll look into that. Bottom left window on kids' room is broken and needs to be replaced. This is a room that was converted from the garage, so it's quite large.

This is the kids room inside. Like I said, it's huge. Carpet needs cleaning, one window pane needs to be replaced (that mattress is covering the broken window right now) and I'm hoping to paint or remove the paneling. It's too dark and not so cheerful. Big closet. This will make a great room!!

This is the guest room. It's in good condition :)

This is the kids/guest bathroom. It's grossly dirty and the vanity is very old. We'll replace it someday when we can afford it. There's also a 2 inch gap in the flooring right in front of the door where they didn't finish.

This is the kitchen. Door leads out to garage, hall to the right leads to kids' bedroom, guest bedroom, and bath. Needs major cleaning, fridge brought in from garage, and new countertops. Right now counters are white with green fleck formica. Can't really afford to do anything with that yet, so they'll stay "as is" for now. Appliances are really old too, but if they work they're good to go!

This is the dining room (looking on from the kitchen). Front door to the right, Gavin walking into den, master bedroom directly ahead. The area is HUGE (much bigger than I expected). Needs a good cleaning. Trying to convince hubby to paint over paneling or take it down... we'll see, there's paneling in almost every room. I really like the dining room.

This is the den (living room). I love the rock wall with the working fireplace!! The carpet is a bit stained so we'll see if we can get it clean or if we have to replace it. One of the broken windows is right behind Gavin, that will be replaced as well. Overall, this room is my favorite.

This is an extra room off the master bedroom. Door leads from Gavin's office. We'll use it for kids' schooling. There's a burn whole in the carpet (right where the kids are) that we'll have to strategically place furniture over until we can replace the carpet.

This is Gavin's office, right off the master bedroom. It just needs a couple nicks in the paint fixed and it's ready to use.

This is the master bedroom. It's actually kind of small and awkward compared to the other rooms. Probably my least favorite room in the house, but we'll get it right. Dining room is to the left, to the right is an opening that leads into the office and the kids' school room. We may put doors there to separate the rooms, or we may paint to make them flow together and include Gavin's office as part of the master suite. Directly ahead is the closet and the bathroom. Bathroom has some weird design painted on the mirrors that I'm going to attempt to remove and also there's mirror tiles on the wall to the right that we might remove.

Another view of the master bedroom and the extra rooms off to the side.

This is the master bathroom (and no that's NOT Gavin's pepsi!). It needs to be cleaned and there's weird little flowers painted on the mirror and walls that I'd like to change. Other than that it's in good condition.

This is the back of the house. That satellite is enormous and looks like it could channel the International Space Station! It's very old and no longer working. Not sure how to remove it but it's really ugly!

Overall, it's a great house and we're looking forward to making it our own.