Slooooow progress, and a little help from our friends to speed it up

Now I am three weeks into my Spring semester, and Richard is working overtime almost every week with the classes and extra shifts that are all a part of his training for Duke Life Flight. The time that we are able to devote to house projects had diminished rapidly, so progress is slow.

Two weeks ago it seems that everything in the house decided to leak.  First the washer hookup, which Richard fixed.  Then the kitchen sink piping, (which had no kitchen sink connected to it), which Richard fixed.  And then the bathroom sink--our only functioning sink in the whole house--which again, Richard fixed.  I am so thankful to have such a handy husband!  He is becoming quite the experienced plumber, electrician, carpenter, etc, etc...  It seemed that every time we took a step forward, we got pushed two steps back, and this was very discouraging for the both of us.  We would never get a working kitchen at this rate, and we'd be forced to eat these microwavable meals forever!

Our friends Matt and Kate came by one evening to drop something off at the house.  Kate, after taking the tour of the house, said "you're getting your kitchen this weekend! we are coming to help you."  I knew that they would definitely come and help us for a full day, but I certainly didn't expect for us to have our kitchen by the end of it, given our poor time estimate with all the other projects.

Last Saturday Matt and Kate spent all day with us and by the end of a full day's work we now had our kitchen counters and our sink in place! I could not believe it!

By Tuesday Richard had connected the sink, Wednesday-the oven, Thursday- the dishwasher, Friday-the pantry shelving!  We have our kitchen!!!  (except for the cabinet doors, but those are more cosmetic than necessity)

Thursday night I cooked for the first time since before Christmas! We had slow-baked lemon and ginger salmon, fresh steamed broccoli and rice!  And I could not pass up the opportunity to use our amazing oven to bake cookies to top off the evening!  And at the end of it all, I no longer had to cart dishes to the bathroom sink to wash them! I just rinsed in our KITCHEN SINK :) and put them in our DISHWASHER!  (I'm a little excited if you can't tell).

I've been unpacking boxes and organizing while Richard continues to work on the kitchen. Painting progress is slow. It took me 4 hours to prime 2 window trims, and another 2.5 hours to paint just one.  I've got the molding and window trim in the whole house to go.  At this rate I will graduate from PT school before I finish painting this house.


Updated pictures coming soon...

Our First Anniversary

January 3rd was our first anniversary, and Richard surprised me with a quick getaway from all the projects and the mess at our house by taking me to a bed and breakfast in Mebane, NC. I am so glad that we took some time off from the house just to enjoy each other.  And our cake, wrapped sufficiently by Brad Parker, was still delicious even a year later.

Christmas Break, week 3= cabinets…

So Richard and I slept through much of Christmas after our exhausting week.  It seems any time we sat down, the 2 of us would be asleep in only a matter of seconds. :)  It was a much needed break.

After Christmas my parents travelled back to NC with us. We still had some remnants back at the apartment (much more than we thought), and we had to be moved out by the 28^th.  We put my parents to work: moving boxes down our 2 flights of stairs, taking pictures off the walls and spackling the holes, and cleaning EVERYTHING in the apartment!  By around 4pm Monday the 28^th, we were officially moved out of Beach Lake! What a great feeling!

We had all pretty much been working non-stop all day, so at this point we took my parents to our favorite Monday night restaurant in Durham—El Rodeo-to enjoy their 99 cent margaritas, and to celebrate our successful day.

 boxes everywhere!

That evening and on in to the next day, my parents, the experts at moving, hit the house hard- unpacking boxes left and right. By the end of their time here, Richard and I could actually walk through our house, and use our closets!

After they left, Richard was working the rest of the week, so my painting projects continued. For two days, working 12-14 hours straight, I painted the kitchen cabinets. What a tedious project!!! But when they finally dried on the third day, it felt great to be able to unpack several more of those kitchen boxes.  There’s hope for this old house.

Christmas Break, week 2= moving!

The week of no sleep! Rounding week 2 of Christmas Break, Richard continued to work away at the flooring in the kitchen. We just knew we had to get it finished before we had the movers bringing all our stuff in!  Casey, a friend of his from high school, came to help on a Sunday afternoon.  They finished laying the the new subfloor, and rolled out the vinyl and trimmed it appropriately.  Richard and I just had to seal the cracks between the pieces of wood and then roll and glue the vinyl floor... sounds simple, right? The movers were coming on Tuesday, and Richard was working Monday!  Late Sunday we patched all the cracks in the subfloor, and by about 1am we decided the taping and gluing of the floor would just need to wait until the next day. We were beginning to feel the pressure of the clock ticking very quickly now


Meanwhile, I was packing at the apartment, which I have relatively little experience with.  I packed all afternoon Sunday, and all day Monday until Richard got home from work.  At that point we headed over the house ready to finish that kitchen floor!  It proved to be a very challenging task-maneuvering vinyl- on that I will certainly not do again!  But by 2am, we had a floor!!! And what an accomplished feeling that was!

But still no rest for the weary- we travelled back to the apartment where we packed until around 4:30am, slept for 2 hours, and then got up to pack again!  After all, the moving company would arrive at 8am.    The rest of that morning is a blur.  TROSA, the moving company, got there on time, and we were loaded and then unloaded at our new house within 3 hours. We couldn't believe it! Luckily, Richard's friend from work, David, came to help us out with the move.  Richard directed the movers, while David and I jumped from room to room putting felt bottoms on all the big furniture so that we wouldn't scratch up our newly finished floors.

After all that excitement, Richard and I took an afternoon nap, only for a few hours, and then he headed off to work night shift around 6pm.  I stayed at the apartment to continue packing our smaller items and begin the cleaning!

The next morning was Christmas Eve, and I was picking Richard up from work at 7:30am to begin our trip to Georgia. :)

Oh, I forgot to mention, we had our first snow at our house early in the week, and it was beautiful!

Christmas Break, week one= painting

Wow, it's been a long time since we've posted so I'm going todo a few quick summaries...

Christmas Break: I had 3 weeks off from school and my task was PAINTING!  My classmates at UNC are amazing and really helped out alot. One day I had 6 people over here working: Megan, Stacey, Kelly, Estelle, Monica and myself.  We painted all the ceilings in the house, closets in the bedrooms, linien closet, pantry, walls and accent walls in the bedrooms and living rooms.  Now that's ALOTof paint.  And Kelly, thankfully, intrepreted the heirogliphics of the Ikea cabinets to get them most of the way built. All we had left was putting doors and shelves on them by the time she was finished. 

Richard continued to work away at the flooring in the kitchen, which was quickly becoming our biggest nemesis...