Families to the rescue!

Thankfully, we have been blessed with helpful women and hardworking men in our lives.  We had a whole crew of people come up to help us get the house ready to move in.  My parents arrived on Thursday night and got a tour of the house.  By Friday afternoon, my sisters and Jordan arrived and started helping right away.  The boys had a blast demo-ing the bedroom wall.  I think they secretly love tearing stuff down.  The girls got right to cleaning and painting. 

Brandon and I had already purchased tickets for the Darius Rucker concert on Friday night (for Brandon's birthday) so we left my fam to their own devices at our old townhouse and headed out to the concert. 

By the time we got back  (around 11pm) it looked like there was a carbon monoxide leak in the apt!  haha, they were laying all over the floor mostly sleeping or barely awake watching tv.  I guess we worked them too hard! 

Brandon's parents made it to Erie late late Friday night and agreed to sleep in the new house with Rosie!  Saturday morning we all got straight to work and Marianne was well on her way primer-ing like a pro.  The women literally painted for a day straight (unbelievable). 

The men were able to put dry wall up for the walk-in closets, close off the kitchen and expand the foyer entrance.  In just a day, our families had transformed our house into more a home than we ever would have been able to do on our own.  We are so lucky!

On Sunday, we were so happy to stand up for Mallory as her godparents.  She did a very good job in church.  She is such a sweetheart and the cutest little thing.  It was nice to take a break from house work to spend time with family and our goddaughter (and Stef & Justin!) 

By Sunday evening, almost all of our vistors had headed home.  Rudy made the roundtrip of a lifetime to drop Marianne (and Rosie!) off in Pittsburgh then drove all the way back up to Erie to stay and help B with the mudding of the dry wall (ugh).  B and Rudy worked all day Monday and then were joined by Koch for more help.  The guys got all of the dry wall mudded and ready for painting by Tuesday night.  Again- could never have got all of that done by ourselves.  We have a lot of payback for all of this help!  Big thank you party to come in the near future!

Bathrooms & Bleach

While Brandon was at work yesterday, I headed over to the new house to get some unpacking (more random kitchen things) and the bathrooms done.  I was armed with bleach in any form I could get it (wipes, toilet bowl cleaner, spray...).  I was determined to feel comfortable and clean in our new bathrooms.

We have two bathrooms in our new house.  The first is our master bath that I love, but is really teeny.  It has a stand alone shower on one side and a stand alone deep tub on the other.  My favorite part about the bathroom (surprisingly) is the stain glass window in it.  So random, but I like it.  I think we are going to paint the bathroom the same chocolate mousse color as the basement since I love it so much!

Our second bathroom in the house is the guest bathroom, which is absolutely hideous and ridiculous in every way.  No matter how much I clean- there is no helping the ugliness.  At least now it is suitable for washing up.  The bathroom needs major renovations- please feel free to come up with a list of ALL the things wrong with this bathroom- but it will need to wait for another time.  This bathroom is not a move-in need, so it will be a project for another day, unfortunately.

Before it snows...

Since it will probably start snowing VERY shortly, here is a view of our yard while it is still green.

We have almost a half acre and a nice big area in the back including a fire ring. Brandon hopes to put some horseshoe pits in the back. We also have a shed that was put up by the previous owners...we don't hate it!

Our deck starts on the side of the house; off of the sun room and wraps around to about the fireplace room. We are hoping to extend the deck a little farther next summer and it needs stained.

We only have neighbors to the left of our house and to the front. I met our next door neighbors yesterday and they were kind. They have two teenage daughters who are "certified to babysit by the Red Cross" Woohoo! On the right of our house is a vacant field. Currently there is not any plans to build more houses there:)

Brandon paints for 12 hours straight..

Yesterday, Brandon took up post in the basement at around 10am and did not stop painting until about 11pm. Our new basement is that huge?! Also contributing to the time consumption was the fact that half of the wall space down there is concrete bricks; forcing B to have a three-step process to the paint: 1. Paint the brick cracks (hah) 2. Paint the outline (top, bottom, sides) with a mini-roller 3. Paint the middle with the big roller. So, it took forever...and still isn't done! He has only about 2.5 walls left (one of which is brick) and hopes to finish it on Monday (he's working today).

Anytime I needed to help B downstairs, I enlisted my ever-handy face mask. Safety first when it comes to the dove... Brandon spent the whole day with my itouch listening to the same 24 songs on repeat...I thought I was going to lose my mind. Finally around 9pm, we changed the playlist and apparently the music had been driving B crazy too, but he didn't know how to change it- hahhah. The paint looks soo good and reminds me of chocolate mousse. Surprisingly it doesn't make me hungry, it kind of feels comfy.

While Brandon painted the day away, I was upstairs busy working on multiple projects including cleaning the windows and general cleaning of the sun room. For a eco-friendly and seriously works window cleaner use the following method (thank you Marianne!)

4-6 tbsp of white vinegar

bucket of hot water

wipe windows with wet rag (from the preceding mixture)

Dry window with newspaper

You will find that there will be not a streak in sight..plus- its safe for the environment AND you get double bonus for REUSING newspaper:)

After I got through the sun room, I had to take down the blinds on the sun room doors because the previous owners had really made a mess of them and ended up taping them together (?!?!!) Now its really creepy at night, because through the sun room doors, you see straight to the window deck doors and out into the field...eek!

Next was to the kitchen to wipe out all the cupboards and drawers- nasty. But I'm glad its done. Each trip I made back to the house, I keep bringing random things (giant steamer pot, crockpot, mixer, etc) I labeled all the cupboards and drawers with masking tape and a title so it will be easy for whoever is helping us to put stuff away (plus, now Brandon might know where to find things!)

I ran back to our townhouse for trick-or-treaters last night, but alas, I had only four show up! Whoa, left over candy.

Finally, I masked off the nursery, upstairs hallway, and foyer in preparation for this weekend. It still feels like a long road, but we are slowly making progress!