The Work Has Begun!

The past week has been just a blur in my mind.  Tuesday we signed closing papers on the new house.

Wednesday morning I left for a work convention for 3 days and a crew started with demo on the front porch of the new house.

Thursday is rained cats and dogs so work was halted.  Friday it was rain, snow, and wind.  I got home Friday night and prepped for working on the new house while hubby headed over and got started on a few things.

Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dawn and hubby was off to work on the house before I could get the eggs scrambled.  Once we got ready, the kids and I headed over for a bit and posted lists in each room of the things that needed to be done so people could .  

My mom, brother and cousin showed up to help right about the time Little Man and I took off for the first of many coming trips to Lowe's.  I ordered flooring and bought light fixtures and odds and ends.  Then we headed to Walmart to replenish food, snacks and paper goods for both houses.  

By the time I got back they had already made great progress starting on drywall patching, removing kitchen cabinet doors and drawers to prep for painting, clearing gutters.  

Thank goodness for mothers who think of these things - my mom had brought a crockpot of sloppy joes and another of pulled pork so everyone could eat when they got a break and I didn't have to cook.  

So I took the kids back to the other house for a nap and got some of the normal things done like laundry and dishes.  Then I started a pot of white chicken chili for dinner.  

By the time I went back over to check progress (the bonus of the houses being next to each other is having access to both and being able to run back and forth across the yard to fetch all the things we forget...) they had ripped the carpet out upstairs (which tremendously improved the smell and general ICK factor.  

I was so impressed by the progress they had made in Day 1.

We all slept like the dead...  While we got moving a little slower, we put in another full day cleaning and drywall patching and getting reorganized for the next phase.

My biggest project for the day was to tackle this floor.  While we will be laying a wood laminate over the top, the dog smell lingering was noticeable after we took the carpet out of the upstairs and seemed to be the only thing that still smelled unpleasant.  We definitely did not want to have odor problems after we lay the new floor.

So I started out with my mom's steam cleaner which had worked wonders on the grime on these doors...

But seemed to be no match for the goo on the floor.  So it was good ol' fashioned PineSol and hot water with a scrub brush.  Gross, right?!

But it made an immediate dent in the yuck factor too.

And the finished product (thanks to hubby helping me finish the job - boy, my arms are still sore!) is a world of difference and the smell was definitely better walking in the next day.

We also laid down paper to protect the laminate flooring until we get more of the heavy projects finished.  

This will be one of my next projects - tackling the wallpaper that is left.  The previous owners tried to scrape it but it looks like they did it with a screwdriver because they made hideous marks in the drywall and took a lot of the drywall paper with it.  Those brown patches at the bottom near the stairs are missing drywall paper not wallpaper.  

Then at some point they tried a bad job of fixing it with drywall joint compound but it is badly damaged and they did a bad job with the mud.  We haven't decided if its salvageable or if we'll be replacing some of the drywall all together.  

But my mom's steamer and a regular scraper seem to work just fine.  Not my favorite project but another one that will make another big difference in house the place looks.

Lots of little projects like replacing ripped window screen - my brother and cousin did a great job on the ones upstairs.

And scrubbing the master bath shower and tub - thanks again to my mom!  This is another one we are not sure if it will be saved or not.  It has some chips and the acrylic on the bottom is pitted but I may try one of those repair kits and see if it can be saved for now.

And updating all the light fixtures (these are being replaced by the ones shown sitting on the bench above.  These little things are making a difference very quickly.

And then there is the cement which is finishing curing and looks awesome (I never thought I would be so excited by concrete...).

These guys did a great job and we are very glad we hired that project out to the professionals!

This isn't even all of the cement that was cleared.

And those big rocks were buried just under the concrete on the walkway so no doubt that is a big part of the buckling problem.  They are leaving me a few of those big rocks for landscaping.

I think that just makes a huge difference to the look of the outside of the house.  Fresh paint on the trim and gutters and some hanging baskets and it will be awesome!