Sick Dude!

The moral of the story - don't smoke!

We spent Saturday cleaning walls. Take a look at what we had to overcome...

The gold star of the day went to Bonnie (Terry's mom) for finding out that a good coating of 409 plus HOT water along with the orange cleaning solution works wonders. Go Mom!

We were very encouraged at the end of the day. We are very close to being ready to start priming, and after priming comes painting! We'll be around for two weekends in September, so we anticipate having something if not a lot of things primed by the end of that trip.

Based on this picture of the kitchen, would you believe the rest of the house looks like the pictures above?

Major kudos to Steve (Mary's dad) for his energy to take the knobs and hinges from a dingy dirty bronze looking color to a shiny brass. Go Dad!

However, don't be fooled by the appearance that this room is done and ready. The counter tops are coming out, so its going to get worse before its done. But let's take moment and enjoy where it is today.

Without Further Ado... Pictures!

Here are some pics from inside the house.
Think possibilities....



Here is the living room taken from the entry, and the dining room taken from the living room. (the library is off to the right). Isn't the table in pic 1 awesome? It has a real slate top and it came with the house - what a perk! (it may have something to do with it being way to heavy to move long distances - or short distances for that matter)

Here is the kitchen. To the left is a breakfast nook, and through the door on the right is the dinning room.


This is the master from its entrance. Pic 2 is the master from the top. The walk-in closet is on the left and the master bath is in the middle.

This is the front bathroom. (aren't the pink tiles with green paint groovey?)

This is the front bedroom (currently being used for storage of drawers)





The stairs going down... The great pine room (aka "the man cave" or "the humador")


This sun room was an add on to the house. The fireplace was once outside. Now it is lovingly called the monstrousity, and it will be leaving us in the future.

Note: pictures taken after the first work day. Not any HUGE improvements happened that day aside from us making our own messes.

Pictures to come of the laundry room, down stairs kitchenette, downstairs bathroom, downstairs bedroom, and back yard.

So how is this remodel going to work? Good question. We are still going to be living in Boise through the end of the year (possibly a bit less). We'll be fixing this baby up while we are in town a couple of weekends a month, and we'll be getting some help from professionals on some things as well. Then it will be all ready for us when Terry's work gives us the green light for the big move.

Satuday we let Gary come check out his home-to-be. His little tail was wagging as he ran room to room. He gave the place a through screening, and aside from some dust, he found it to his liking.

The Work Commences

What a weekend!

Friday afternoon we FINALLY got the keys, and we spent some quality time at the house. Initial emotion was pure thrill and excitement - this was our house. Visions of many happy years to come flashed through our minds. Second emotion came after realistically looking around - boy this is gonna take some work! Just as we started to wonder what we'd gotten ourselves into, we got a call from our neighbor Bob. (We're sure he will come up periodically in this blog. He lives around the corner, and is the neighborhood go-to guy. He was the one who had the keys to the house and first showed it to us). He wanted to bring our first house warming gift. Inspired by the movie Its a Wonderful Life he brought us some salt, a loaf of bread, and a bottle of sparkling cider. He also gave us a BEAUTIFUL glass chandelier for our dining room. It is going to look great.

That set our weekend off on the right foot. We are so blessed to have fantastic friends and family who heard and heeded the call for help. Whether you can from a different state, a different county, a different city, or a different block, we can't express enough how we value the help. We got paint scraped, walls puttied, faucet leaks fixed, a new toilet seat on, banisters cleaned, drawers and doors removed for cleaning, and kitchen cupboards scrubbed. To the naked eye it may not have looked much different at the end of the day, but when we stepped back we saw it.

This week could be a challenge. We are excited that we are probably another good work day or so away from being able to get to the stuff that will make a noticeable difference quickly. The problem is - that work day won't come until Saturday. We're quickly learning that patience is going to be a virtue we're going to learn through this process.