We are spending most of our time these days working on the new house. After both Rob and I worked for quite some time, we finally got the linoleum removed that was glued to the hardwood by the door. The flooring man said he could sand the rest off–hurray!!!
Aunt Janet has been on the paint crew the past 2 days with us. Yesterday, with my brother-in-law, Ron’s, help as well, we got the layer of Kilz on the walls all over the house. Today, we got most of Patsy’s room done, as well as a good start on Lovana and Ja’Ana’s. (They will share). Tomorrow, we will see what we can get done!
Michaela was delighted with a train calendar the former owner left in the shop. Rob gave it to her, because trains are one of her absolute favorites! She was a good helper yesterday, too.
Ja’Ana pulled purslane out the the garden area for a long time. Those huge piles in the back of the garden are pulled and she will move them to a compost pile soon. It got too hot and she came in. She and Lovana both painted today for quite a while, too. Yesterday, Lovana unpacked a few boxes of food items and kitchen things. J did some more today. We can’t unpack other rooms, but the kitchen and garage can be filled as boxes come up in the small loads we are moving in our van each day. The rest can be stored in the shop until the floors are done. We are pretty committed to emptying the one storage unit before the end of August to save on rent. They will charge us for the entire month of September, even if we take the things out on the 1st. Hmmmm……Not a hard decision!!
This is a rare shot of Rob and I with 5 of the children. We took some time to mourn the passing of a close family relative this morning. It was a beautiful service and it was nice to have so many of the kids with us. The young lady Rob has his arm around is our oldest daughter, Abbie. The young man by me is our son, Anthony. The rest, you already know. Clearly, there were several relatives with phones, all calling out for everyone to smile at them, so everyone is looking around, but….life is like that sometimes–kind of messy!
Wow, what a huge undertaking to get the house ready to move in…but so rewarding I’m sure. The girls must be so excited to have a place to call home again! I’m enjoying all these posts on seting up your new house. I hope someday soon we will also be doing the same, though most likely a couple years away. For now, I will live vicariously through you!
I’m glad you are enjoying seeing what we are doing. I’ll say, as soon as we realized we needed to paint all of the main rooms, twice, we started rejoicing about how small the house is!!! I’m not very experienced with painting, but am learning as I go. I’ve painted a few times, but usually have moved before we needed to paint, or in the case of our previous house, did it all when there were no baseboards, etc. so didn’t have to be so careful. Whoever painted previously wasn’t very careful, so there are blobs of paint where they shouldn’t be, lots, so I just keep telling myself that I can’t do worse, so just keep going:)
I wasn’t very experienced with painting when we bought our “fixer-upper” house we previously owned. I know this sounds crazy, but I used a children’s paintbrush (one of the larges sizes) to cut along the edges. Over time, I got better with the regular paint brushes, but it took a lot of practice.
Those little mini rollers were also very helpful (small diameter ones with fluffy roller, not the big diameter half rollers), as they could cut closer to the edge and get rid of the brush strokes. They also get into the wall corners or places with lots of bumps and creases (like cabinets) really well too.
We have been using those little paintbrushes that come with watercolors to paint along the edge and today we have to paint down a couple of cracks between moldings with them. I should say Rob is–he has such a steady hand, more than I do:)
I am also loving these progress reports on your new house! Please keep posting them!
Kim, I’m glad you are enjoying them. I’m planning to fill you in on every step of the process!
Becky, congrats on your new house.. SO happy for you and your family. We [my husband and I, Our children are grown], just sold our house, and moved into an old house that is much smaller than our other house. whew…downsizing is hard.ha
We too, had to deal with the smoke/old carpets.. Had to paint everything. We have been moved in for 4 months.. We worked on it for nearly a year, before moving..and worked on downsizing our other house. So happy to be finally moved in. And have found places for everything..
Know you will be so happy.
Oh, good, Judy, you give me hope! As I have written before, we have been at this downsizing for a long time, too. I have begun to wonder where I’m putting a few things—-Glad you found places for it all!
Even though painting with Kilz is an extra step, it will probably reduce the number of color coats you need. I’m so excited for you as well! So I assume that is your sister? I love the picture of you guys with the 5 kids. I’m glad you were able to get the little landing area up. I noticed that on the previous pictures and knew that would have bugged me. 🙂 It’s already looking so different in the pictures! I live on the side of a hill, so always kind of have flat lot envy.
Thanks! That lady in the pictures is my Aunt Janet. We are super close and she’s been helping us a ton.
I have to ask, too. 🙂 Are you planning to paint the paneling? I ask because I love the look of painted paneling. We had something like that in one house, and it felt cozy to me.
At this time, we are leaving it alone because it’s not very dark. If we find that the smoke smell lingers, we may paint it.
Lovely picture. I didn’t know about Abbie and Anthony. Whew. A big crew. It’s going to be lovely and I know you will make it a very loving home.
Barbara, We’ve actually adopted 8 in all:) Only the 3 youngest live with us now.
Your new home is looking good. I am so sorry to hear of the death of your family member. Your family has had so much thrown at you in the last year. I did enjoy the picture of all the the children and the pictures of Janet and Ron All of your family has been a blessing in many ways and I love to read how helpful they have been.
Thank you. We really appreciate all their support. They have helped us so much with their support!