The First Two Weeks...and I Take That Back

So the first two weeks of work on our new home is behind us.  

When are we actually moving in?  People keep asking, naturally.  And the answer is:  we do not know.  I had hoped that we would move in 2-3 weeks after we closed.  Well, it has been 2 weeks and 3 days now...so that hope of mine?  Not gonna happen.  Do we have 1-2 more weeks?  3-4 more weeks?  Longer?  I don't know.  And I'm trying real hard to be o.k. with that.  

In the meantime, we are trusting the Lord on the timing of selling the house we are currenlty in, our "in town" home.  I am so thankful that we are able to stay here and get stuff done at the new house...and not live in the painting/demo-ing, fixing-up.  And we don't feel rushed or pushed.  We're getting stuff done as quickly as we can...and trust that the Lord will bring the buyer for this house at exactly the right time.  

The first week the children and I headed to the new house most days as soon as we finished lunch and school...and spent and hour or two doing work before heading home for rest-time.  Then after supper with Jas, all 7 of us headed back out there to do another hour or two of work before heading home for bedtime.  

And then this past week the children and I took our Spring (Not-so-much-of-a) Break.  Which means that we spent all day out there, packing a lunch...until afternoon rest-time.  

So...what have we done the first two weeks?  

Paint...

Elisabeth took pictures of Dr. Kathy and I painting her room

...and paint...

An even better shot of Dr. Kathy.  (Just be glad I didn't include the "rear" shots, Dr. Kathy!)

...and then...

...paint some more.

Our dear, sweet, we-owe-them-so-much friends, Dr. Kathy and Arica offered to help with the painting....and we have put. them. to work!

5 hours into painting this day,  Arica and I got slap happy, singing early 90s songs...paint fumes anyone?

G sometimes helped me with painting.

I am very happy to report that all four bedrooms are DONE!

I took pictures of the kiddos in their respective (did I mention DONE?) rooms:

All three of their rooms look about the same color in these pictures...which they very much are not!  A good "natural light photographer" I am not!

I would like to say that G-man is making this awed face because he is in love with the color of his room...

...but the truth is that he was staring in amazement up at the light and fan on his ceiling.

Yes, we have some bold colors going on in the bedrooms.  We have officially made our mark on our new home!

When the children and I have gone out to the house for quicker work trips (where I didn't need to get into painting)...I have done some yard work.  Now I wouldn't say that I love yard work...but I have always, since childhood, loved wielding hedge clippers on bushes that needed a good trimming!

And this house offers plenty of opportunities for trimming hedges.  

I mentioned how much I loved that our new house has established landscaping...

...but that landscaping has been neglected for well over a year...and needs some major attention.

Here is one "before"...

...and "after" shot:

And while I didn't think that our new home had azalea bushes, it turns out it does!

But instead of being lush and beautiful...they are scraggly and sparse.  Not pretty.  I've already pruned back the bush in the above picture.  To the ground.  It will look much better in two or three years!

And now I can't wait to get my hedge clippers on these azalea bushes in the backyard:

Another place I can't wait to get started with the hedge clippers?

The playhouse!  Oooooh, these pictures just make my hands itch to hold our trimmers!

Aaaaah, the beauty of a freshly trimmed bush...it makes my heart smile:

Yes, it was dark when I finished with this...we've been staying at the house until late!

Our backyard has a short picket fence around it.  The fence is in bad shape (falling down in places) and it is way too close up, not encompassing the real extent of our property.  We plan to take it down and use all the space that we have!

Here is a picture that shows our jungle that was growing right behind our picket fence.  The kids called it their "corn maze" and loved walking through the tall stalks.  It wasn't corn, I don't know what it was...

...but now it is gone, thanks to my dad who drove his tractor down from his farm just down the road and mowed it down:

The little white things you see sticking straight up in the background are our neighbor's newly planted pecan trees.  Our property will be surrounded by a beautiful pecan orchard...in 20-30 years.

Noah was walking around the back of the property with me when I was taking these shots after dad mowed.  This is a gratuitous shot of my handsome fellow:

Work continues elsewhere in and around the house.  Jas has finished stripping all the pegboard off the walls in the laundry/mud/pantry room.  And Noah and I helped him take the linoleum up.

The problem with doing all this work is that the house (except the beautifully painted rooms!) now actually looks worse than it did two weeks ago when we closed on it.

I know that is to be expected...it is just kind of disheartening to look around and see piles of rubbish and unfinished projects.

I began taking down the border in the dining room.  After 45 minutes, I'd accomplished exactly...NOT MUCH!  3-4 inches, maybe.

And I calculated that at that rate it would take me approximately 120 hours to do the whole 60 feet of border. waaaaaaaa..........

But thankfully, Jas got involved, figured out a much better system of border-removal...and the progress will be much quicker now.

What I've already learned from my time spent taking down this wallpaper border?  Wallpaper should be outlawed.  There is absolutely no reason on God's green earth to put up something that permanent!

Stepping down from my soapbox now...

While the children are willing to help when we ask them, there are lots of things they simply can't help with (like standing on top of tall ladders removing wallpaper).  

So what do they do while we're out there?

They have played hours and hours of soccer in our front yard:

The go-getter on the right side is Arica's son, Brody

They have spent time reading...

(BTW- This happens to be my idea of heaven-on-earth... reading a great book, while being surrounded by more great books that are just waiting for you!)

Elisabeth was reading through the Josephina series from American Girl

They have been having lots of fun playing card games...

...and coloring.

And when Mrs. Vicki brought over hand-me-down toys for Mr. G, the older kids decided the toys looked like lots of fun!

Vicki is furiously nesting, as she leaves for China in 3 days to bring home Miss Claire!

And while the kiddos play on one end of the sunroom/playroom...this is what the other end looks like right now:

Doesn't everyone need a sink and potty right in the middle of their sunroom?  Oh, and lots of insulation.

But, we always make sure to be back at our old house for rest-time in the afternoons...and sometimes the kiddos are so wiped out from all the soccer and other goings on that they actually.....sleep:

But Mr. G needs lots more sleep than the biggies do, so he has a temporary setup at our new house:  his pack-n-play is in mine and Jason's walk-in closet. It is the quietest, darkest place...

...and he has already spent many good hours here!

The "long pole in the tent" for us to actually get moved in, is the work taking down the common wall between the kitchen and family room.  Once that is done, we'll be ready to move in, and just keep working on any/everything else that needs attention.

Ok, I mentioned that Jas wanted to hire someone to take down the top part of the wall between the kitchen and family room.  I take that back.  We had wanted this work to start just as soon as we closed, but two weeks later and after frustrating interactions with two different guys...

...on Saturday afternoon, Jas started doing the work himself:

My dad happened to stop by just at the right time...and he got to help Jas take down the big metal hood over the stove

But my dad didn't only come to help work, he also squeezed some playtime in.  Mr. G loves "papa"...and papa's hats!

Elisabeth was fascinated with the chalk line that Jas ran, as a guide for the fun he was about to have with his sawzall.

Jas is planning to hire an electrician to fix the slim-shady job that someone did on the electrical work in this area...but we hope to do the rest of the work ourselves.  (With the majority of **my** work being cheerleader, although Jas knows that I am happy to help in whatever way I can!)

With the money we'll save by doing this work ourselves...Jas is thinking that we should replace the countertops (they don't bother me...but he doesn't like them).  And we will also install some can (aka "recessed") lights in the kitchen ceiling.  We'll lose the lights above the cabinets (seen in the above picture), so these can lights will be wonderful.  (And when I say "we", this time I really do mean it.  Jas and I installed the 7 lights in our current dining room's ceiling several years ago.  I was the one who went up in the attic to thread wires through.)


And our marathon continues....