Becoming Home.

It's been a long 3 weeks since I last posted. It's not that I've forgotten, or didn't feel like it, or even that I don't have anything to say. I'm just tired. Plus, there's not really been time.

Well, we cleaned. A lot. And some more. Then we bought the first round of paint. Here is most of it (I somehow managed to miss 2 cans when I took this picture). So, $300 later, this is round one of paint purchases. The clerk at the store told us she liked our style. "Most people pick pretty basic, pastel colors," she said, "You guys chose bold colors. I like that."

Let's see. The girls' rooms have each been painted (except for minor touch-ups.

 These are Julie's closets (the doors). The 'hallway' between leads to a door into the master bedroom - which will be permanently sealed off sometime in the not-so-distant-future.

 This is the 'barn-door' to Julie's room. Chocolate brown was a nice choice for this wall.

 One of Julie's closets open (oops, pre-paint).

 Hard to tell the color, but this is more of the Caribbean blue. I love this corner of her room. There are lots of trees right outside and she has a great view of the sunsets from here, too!

 Chocolate meets Caribbean.

And again.

Jen chose a light grey (with blueish undertones) and a deep teal.

 Grey wall...

 

 ...meets teal 'shoe' closet...

 

 ...meets white closet...

...meets teal wall (exterior doors).

The girls' bathroom has yet to be painted, but at least the toilet has been installed. The sink has issues, so is unusable for now. Poor Dan! Every time he fixes something, we find 2 or 3 more things that need to be fixed! We are all trying to pitch in and work together, but some things only Dan can do!

The main wall in the library has one coat of olive green paint on it. We haven't had time to get the second coat on and now that everything has been moved in, it's even tougher to get the job done. The diningroom also has only one coat of paint (moss green, this time). That room is not as full, and will be easier to get to...but not yet.

The kitchen, however, has both coats of paint! I decided that it would be harder to paint in there after we moved in, so I started it the weekend before we moved. I finished the painting the day before we moved in. I was here all day on the 21st - waiting for the phone and internet to be installed, as well as the delivery of our new refrigerator. Plus the painting, of course. It's really hard to tell the color in these pictures, but it is a deep brick red.

 This shot looks out through the entryway, through the courtyard, up the steps and through the main gate, to the street beyond.

 Looking back at our new refrigerator (on the right is the window that looks out into the potting shed).

Looking toward the master bedroom. These pictures were taken right after the delivery of the refrigerator - before we moved in.

We found the perfect porch light and Dan was able to get it installed.

It may not look like much to you, but to us it's a huge improvement over what was there. Plus, it works!!!

 Some of the first items to be moved were Dan's books. They filled up the library shelves nicely.

 Once they were in place the house began to feel more like home.

I need to take more pictures of the house (with our stuff moved into it) but until then, here are some pictures of the view from our deck.

Ownership: Day 28

Work Progresses Slowly.

After closing on the house last Friday evening, we began the purchasing and continued the planning. On Saturday we had the help of 5 family members and 2 friends, but even though everyone worked hard all day (and some of us were back on Sunday) the work ahead is still great. The Dan, Bob & Cesar went up on the roof and removed both swamp coolers and patched the holes (just in time for rain this week!), they removed the heavy sliding doors for Jen's closet (this took 3 men 90 minutes to accomplish - they don't build 'em like this anymore!), they removed the old wall heaters from both of the girls' rooms and patched the holes those left, they worked on wiring and plumbing - and only they know what else. Several of the unseen workings of the house were repaired. While they were busy with all of that, we were upstairs cleaning and getting ready to paint. The bookshelves and some of the other wood in the library was cleaned by Ellen with Liquid Gold (wonderful stuff, by the way - pictures this weekend), Kathy spent most of the day making the master bath shine - truly an accomplishment! Beth was an encouragement all around. Julie, Jen, Sammie and Jocelyn spent the bulk of their time in the girls' bedrooms. They got them cleaned (including washing everything with TSP in prep for painting) and began the process of getting the closets painted with Kilz. Julie spent several hours on Sunday cleaning their bathroom. It's almost ready for paint! I was busy everywhere and (it felt like) nowhere. I was directing and assigning, in between my work. I finished cleaning all of the windows in the library - inside and out, started cleaning the kitchen cupboards, began the process of washing all of the 'dry clean only' drapes for the library (they came out great!) and getting those re-hung to dry. I'll be finishing that process today and tomorrow since Dan and I are spending the weekend at the house.

We purchased 2 new toilets, but they got put aside since there were more immediate needs. They will most likely be installed this weekend. Also this weekend will be the painting of the girls' rooms and their bathroom. I will finish in the kitchen - paint will have to wait in there. It'd be nice if we can get the library and diningroom cleaned and painted, but work always takes so much longer than we think it's going to! We haven't even begun to think about work in the 'extra wing' or downstairs, yet. That will wait until after we are in the house, I'm sure. Thankfully, we don't plan on moving into those spaces, really. Just garage stuff into the unfinished basement and maybe a little storage into the extra wing.

I know many of you want to see pictures. I'll do my best to take time and get some pictures of the cleaned/repaired things so you can see what's happening. The house really is beautiful! We're beginning to see the sparkle of the diamond underneath everything. It's so exciting!

Day 68