One Step At A Time

Things have been *insert clever synonym for crazy here* lately.  We moved most of our stuff over to the new house last weekend, and now I'm just waiting for the Mr. to be able to help move the rest of the stuff this next weekend.  Living out of suitcases and boxes is not my idea of fun, especially with 4 kids...no bueno.

We got a lot accomplished, though not even close to everything.  I originally thought that I would have the month of July to work on the new house, then the month of August to move and clean up the rental.  Take it nice and slow.  But then our landlord told us that she would have an easier time renting the place in July or August, so she really wanted us out as soon as possible - without losing our deposit, which is why we were waiting out our lease to begin with.  We never could pass up the opportunity to save money, even if it makes things insanely difficult for a while ;P  Oh well!!  Our parents on both sides have been such an amazing help to us, so we really, REALLY can't complain.

Okay, people have been asking for updates, so here's a list of things so far...I think this is everything, anyway.  It's late and my brain is not functioning 100%, so sorry if I forget something:

We started upstairs, because that's where we will be spending the majority of our time.  

• Baseboards in all the rooms (except bathrooms and hallway) have been ripped out because of cat pee and generally just being disgusting and harboring enough hair to make about 10 cats...
• All 4 upstairs bedrooms have been painted, including ceilings.
• Both hallways have been painted, including ceilings.
• Several of the corners of the playroom drywall were taken out by Brian because of cat pee, and he re-drywalled them by himself.  Such a stud ;P  (Pardon the awful construction pun).  

• Fans installed - there were none upstairs.  We live in Texas.  This was an awful decision by the builders...
• Fire alarms replaced - the ones they left were not hooked up and had no batteries.
• Doors taken off and sanded, several primed - by me ;)  They're my project.

Face protection is very important ;)

• Windowsills in bedrooms primed and ready to be painted - also by me.  Aw yeah!

Still to do upstairs:

• Texturize the newly dry-walled sections
• Paint the playroom
• Paint the bathrooms to not look like poop caves
• Replace all baseboards and some door trim
• Finish painting the doors and trim

Downstairs:

• Study - we finally found the source of the cat pee stench that permeated this room.  Brian ripped out the baseboards to find that they had painted over wet cat pee and put up new baseboards right over it.  The paint peeled right off the wall.  He sprayed it with enzyme cleaner and primer, which did absolutely nothing.  So, he ripped out the corners of drywall - soaked in cat pee clear through to the other side...and into the studs...and into the insulation.  He sprayed the studs with enzyme cleaner and replaced sections of the insulation.  And still the smell persisted.  It had been implied to us that the carpet had been replaced fairly recently by their realtor...this was not the case.  When B accidentally peeled back the corner of the carpet while doing the drywall, he was confronted with a dark orange stain.  He kept peeling and came to discover that the ENTIRE CARPET was peed on, stained, and ruined.  Needless to say, he ripped out all carpet, padding, and scraped up the nailboards.  We are now left with a disgusting bare cement floor and a conundrum of what to do with it.  I feel really sorry for those animals - I don't know what they did to them, but I've never seen a well-taken-care-of cat do that before.

• Dining room - SAME STORY AS THE STUDY.  I know.  Ridiculous, right??

• Kitchen - haven't done much in here yet, except rip the shelves out of the pantry BECAUSE THEY WERE JUST THAT GROSS.  And it was cathartic.

This was AFTER trying to clean it.  The bottom shelf had even been sanded with an electric sander and 80 grit paper designed to strip stuff off.  SO NASTY!

Ripped out the baseboards, too.

Don't forget your ear protection - that junk gets LOUD in enclosed spaces!

• Laundry Room - I ripped out all the baseboards and shelving by myself - I felt like such a hulk.  It was awesome!  Brian painted the ceiling and I painted the walls - we picked a color that was quite outside of what we normally would do, but we both really like it :D

So gross...

I am unamused...

Oops, hammer went right through the wall.  Oh well, B fixed it ;)

Take THAT, horrible shelving!!!

After B patched and texturized it.

The new laundry room color :)  I LOVE it!

Still left to do downstairs - way too much to even list.

In general around the house:

• Had the floors professionally cleaned and had a cleaning lady come in and work on the bathrooms and floors
• Bug guy came and did his thing - with all the grossness in this house, there was a pleasantly surprising lack of bugs that I had seen.  Still, wasn't taking any chances.

Okay, think that's it for now :)