For the last three weeks we have worked constantly on our new house. We spent the first week just repairing wall and ceiling cracks. Originally we planned to just repair a few of the biggest ones, but once we started changed our minds.
These pictures show some of the repair work we did. The cracks were everywhere!
Abby didn't like being in our new house at all that first week. I think she could tell it was uncomfortable and dirty. It's the only time she's ever needed to be held constantly. So Jim and I took turns with her, and some wonderful friends babysat for periods of time. We brought a rocking chair over to the house just for her.
The kids have enjoyed the freedom to run wild indoor and outdoor.
Here is a look at a few more cracks.
Our living room ceiling looked the worst and was the biggest headache. There were several cracks going through it, and one in particular that looked really bad. We thought the ceiling was falling apart there, but it turned out that it was just the popcorn texture coming off in a big chunk near a good sized crack. So we repaired that crack, re-textured that spot, and started painting the ceiling. When we'd painted most of it, the newly moistened popcorn texture started falling off in chunks all over the place! So we scraped the whole thing and started all over. This time we repaired ALL of the cracks, sanded the whole thing, and applied stone texture in paint. Then we painted it a second time. After the paint dried, we were very frustrated to see that it was peeling all over the place! So Jim spent half a day sanding those spots, and then painted a third time. The next day it was peeling again, but worse! At this point, we determined that the previous layer of paint must have been oil based, so our water based latex paint wasn't sticking well. Grr... We should have primed it first, but thought paint on paint would be fine. By this point, we'd lost three days just working on the ceiling and didn't have time to scrape and sand the whole thing again. So, I loosely sanded the peeling areas, applied primer, and painted a fourth time. Thankfully it didn't peel again. It's far from perfect though!
Here are pictures of the mess we made working on the ceiling.
In the meantime, we had lots of cloudy weather (which made it difficult to see well for painting) and our maple tree turned a beautiful color and lost its leaves.
After repairing cracks and painting ceilings, we spent a couple of days just taping everything.
The kids ran wild, and Alex had pants on occasionally.
I found some nastiness underneath the refrigerator when I set out to paint the kitchen.
I personally painted almost every room in the house while Jim was at work. I was so excited to finally paint these two rooms! My camera made this blue look a lot brighter than it really is.
Again the camera distorted the color of the room. Logan was curious how long our house was one day, so he measured it.
I moved on to the bedrooms next. Again it's hard to see the color, but I love this green we put in our room.
The girls' room is now purple.
The boys' room required a primer coat to cover the dark brown panelling.
The blue really improved their room.
While I painted we had a new heating and cooling system installed. Once our new furnace was operating, we cut these massive radiators loose and hauled them out. These things were several hundred pounds each.
Jim actually dropped one on his foot. It took two guys to lift it off of him. Thankfully he was wearing his hard toe shoes, so he wasn't hurt. It dented the toe of his shoe though!
We found lots of garbage behind those radiators. This corner filled a whole garbage bag by itself. Do you see the men's underwear there? YUCK!
How hard can it be to throw your dirty tissues in a garbage can? I had the pleasure of cleaning these messes up.
After the radiators were out, I worked late into the night (almost 1am) doing touch up paint and cleaning things up because the carpet guys were coming the next morning. Another evening, Annie and I went back over to start deep cleaning the kitchen (another nasty situation) after they'd ripped the old carpet out and starting installing the new. The first thing she did was lay down on the new carpet. The boys did the same thing when they first saw it. I walked around and around barefoot enjoying it. It's so soft and nice!
So now the new carpet is fully installed, the walls are mostly crack free and freshly painted, there is a new heating and cooling system, and I've made progress cleaning. It looks and smells like a different house! All that remains is to finish cleaning and packing. We move in on Saturday! The after pictures will be coming soon I hope.
