Bad weather Bad timing

Why?  Why, when we finally get the plumbing up and running, we have to shut it all down?  Thanks to the lovely ice storm expected Texas had to go over today and turn off all the water and drain the pipes.  So no work happened today and there will likely be no work tomorrow.  Texas then spent the rest of the day getting us ready in case the power goes out.  I am so grateful I married an Eagle Scout, he is always prepared and thinking ahead.   He has this insane need to be prepared drilled into his brain that he hasn't stopped all day.  If I have boys, they will all be Eagle Scouts.  As for the girls, sorry but I hear all they do is make crafts. 

Day 27

We FLUSHED!  Texas took the plug out of the new pipe so we could at least flush the toilets tonight and clean them out.  He has to go over early in the morning and put it back in before the inspector comes.  I don't really understand why, but the new pipe has to be plugged up for the inspector to see that it holds water.   He tried to convince me that we should just wait and not run water again all day today.  I threw a fit and made him take the plug out.   I wanted to work and friends of ours we bringing dinner over to see the progress on the house, and really, you can't have people over and then tell them they have to drive up the street to quick trip if they need to pee or wash their hands.  That's just rude.  It was worth it.  I flushed both the toilets about 4-5 times each.  Ran the water in all the sinks and both bathtubs!  Plumbing is truly a gift. 
Mark and Maggie came over and got to see how things are looking.  It was so fun having people over and getting to sit down and eat in our new house.  Granted we were in folding chairs at a card table, but it was still nice.  Thanks again Mark and Maggie, dinner was GREAT!

Day 26

Still no flushing toilet :(

Day 24-25

Well Sunday was a lost day for me as far as the house goes.  I had another baby shower with Tex's side of the family.   It was really awesome to have two days of baby events.  It kind of made me realize I haven't been very baby focused this pregnancy.  Hence losing track of when baby is coming.  Not sure if it's just baby number 2 or if it's because there is so much going on.  Probably a mixture of both. 
Texas did manage to get a little work done, but I know he's tired.

Day 25, The PLUMBER is here!   I got so excited this morning just knowing the plumber was coming and was going to get started I forgot that I still had things to get done today.   I came back to earth when I talked to Texas.  The plumber didn't actually do anything but measure and pick up his first half of the payment.   So no, we still can't flush the toilet and Quick trip isn't getting rid of us yet.  He's supposed to show up tomorrow with everything he needs.  With any luck he'll show up and by the end of tomorrow we'll be able to flush the toilet.   We are really hoping to catch a little luck tomorrow.  Work has halted due to the fact that we can't even use the sink anymore (unless we want to flood our basement). 

Day 23

Today was a slow day.  We woke up tired and not in the mood to work.  Plus I was going to a baby shower tonight, so I had this vision in my head of spending the day relaxing and not getting dusty.   Jon just laughed when I told him I thought I'd stay home today.  There is just to much to do and so we got our butts in gear and went to the house.  Somehow we managed to not really start working until around 1:30.   We hung the drywall and removed some trim which should have taken maybe an hour or two.  It took us about four.  I think we are burnt out at this point.  So we called it quits and went home.
I got so excited on the way home.  I was going to shower and go out!  Can I just say it is an amazing feeling to be clean, and in clothes that aren't covered in drywall mud or dust.   I had been looking forward to going out for weeks now.  No scrapers, spatulas or ladders involved.  Sitting down with friends from church and to top it off I got presents for the new baby!   Thank you so much Jill, Katie and Kelly, you have no idea how wonderful tonight was for me. 

 The bad wall

And the door is now gone!

It's never to late (to carve a pumpkin)

So Annie and I did grow pumpkins last year for Halloween, the problem was they weren't ready.  About 3 weeks ago they finally turned orange.  She was so excited.  She carried the darn thing around for about a week before she decided that she wanted to carve it.  OK, I can do that.  Two weeks later the pumpkin is starting to go soft on us, and Annie is getting impatient.  I finally get my butt in gear and Annie and I carve the littlest pumpkin.

So here's Annie with our January pumpkin.

And the walls came tumbling down (day 22)

 So Texas and I learned our lesson about canvas lined walls.  That stuff is there for a reason, and really if the canvas weren't creating a ruffle along the bottom of the wall we probably would have left it.

 Texas was working on taking out the extra doorway between our future bedroom and Annie's.   Everything that going great until he went to take off the baseboards. 

 At first just a little plaster fell off. Then...

 Catastrophe struck! and there went our bedroom wall. 

The good news is, the rest just sort of fell off and Texas found a way to wire outlets into
the bedrooms. 

A few hours of Texas the electrician later, and our room has two new outlets and Annie's has three outlets and a light fixture all running off new wires instead of knob and tube!  So thank you, crumbling plaster walls.  I was nervous about having no outlets in Annie's room and only the one in our room.

Gross miscalculations (day 21)

Today was not a fun day for me.  It seems I've been so obsessed with the new house that I lost track of how much longer till the baby is due.  I went to the doctor and made an utter fool of myself today.  When he tells me I'm due in three weeks I immediately corrected him and said, "you mean five weeks."  "No three weeks," and he shows me the chart in his folder.  I just sit there and start crying.  I can't imagine what he's thinking.   I'm to busy thinking, I only have three weeks and our new house is no where near ready, and I have a million things to do.  I'm NOT READY! 
So after the doctor, I go back to the new house with a renewed sense of urgency and a new plan of attack.  I'm going to get this house ready.  My plan immediately crumbled to pieces when we realized what I thought was the wall was actually canvas?  Yes, the walls are lined in canvas.  I have no idea why and what the purpose of the canvas is, but it has thrown my whole plan down the tubes.  We pull it off and there they are, rotten plaster walls (insert more tears hear).  Texas tries to make me feel better, but the reality is we have to drywall mud the bedrooms as well.  Nothing is easy when it comes to old plaster walls.  They are crumbly, cracked, and miserable.

 Pulling canvas off the walls

 At least it comes off easier than wall paper.

 Annie and Texas have fun playing on the new floors, while mommy has a melt down

Annie got to go downstairs and try her hand at digging before we left for home.  Texas stayed behind to finish up digging the sewer lateral.

Day 20

We had the roofers out today repairing all the flashing on the roof.   Texas went over this morning to meet with them and remove a vent on the roof so the roofers could patch where it was.  They got everything done!  We now have a leak free roof, and just in time for the snow.
Texas put his truck back together after he got back from the house and it WORKS!  I've never seen him so happy.   His truck has been out for almost three weeks, mostly because we've been too busy working on the house.  He was determined to get it put back together before the snow hit.  I'm not sure how anyone can spend 8+ hours outside in the freezing cold, but he managed to get it fixed.  He just left to take it on a test run to the new house.  He promised he would not work on the house tonight, we'll see if he keeps word.  I'm glad for the break, but I kinda wanna get back in there and finish things up a little before we move in.  It would be nice to have the bedrooms painted at the least.  We'll see.

Day 17, 18 and 19

Not much Happened on the house for day 17.  Texas worked on taking out the clutch and bell housing on his truck.  I have no idea what those things are, but they sound expensive and I'm forever grateful he can do that stuff on his own.

Day 18 was another lost day, sort of.  The plumber showed up and told Texas where to dig in the basement and then left.  That was it, Texas had to get back to work and the floors are still drying.

Day 19 was jam packed with fun at the new house for Texas.  He not only got to haul trash to the dump in his dad's truck, but he then got to start digging up the concrete floor in the basement!  What could be more exciting?  He came home at almost 11 o'clock last night covered in concrete dust and dirt.

 Picture quality is pretty bad, but here's the basement floor half dug up.

Day 16

 

Still exiled from the house, but I did manage to get a picture of the floors.

Texas has the roofer there Monday and the plumber is scheduled for Tuesday.  He managed to schedule the two things that don't involve walking on the floors for the next two days.  I'm glad he's thinking ahead, but it might not hurt for him to take a day off and relax.  Perhaps some day in the future I'll get my husband back.

Day 15

  Another day without working on the house.  It feels so strange.  After Texas got off work we were lost for what to do.  We ended up driving into the city to look at a few antique shops and salvage stores.  Texas was on a mission for what?  He wouldn't tell me.  After dragging us through about 6 different stores he finally tells me what he's looking for.  I immediately understood why he didn't tell me, and I immediately said, "NO WAY."   Texas was looking for a new lamp for the staircase.  What he thinks would have been closer to the original lamp fixture.   The picture below pretty much sums it up.

 

No Way! I am not having a naked lady lamp in my house.  Texas thinks it's still up for negotiation, but I'm not changing my mind.  Thank goodness he didn't find one while we were out.

Day 14

Nothing to post!  We are locked out while the floors are getting done.  It was so weird to not be there that we did stop by and peek in the windows.  The stain looks great.  I forgot my camera so you'll just have to trust me. 

Day 13

 Big changes for the new house.  They sanded down the floors and it looks amazing.  What we thought was going to be a short day (because of the flooring) ended up being a work all night party.  They decided to stain in the morning, so we had one more night to knock out some work before we can't walk on our floors. 

 The sanded floors

 The damaged floors look better, but not as good as we hoped.  This is why cats are hazardous to houses.

 Yes, the pink bled through 4 layers of oil based primer

 The patch job Jon did turned out looking great

 Little Maddie slaved away on one of the bedrooms, with Jon's aunt Debbie and his Mom.  It was really fun having everyone there.  Work is way less boring when you have the hysterical antics of little Maddie to entertain you.

  Jon and Annie walked around being "inspectors"

 And then Jon decided to tear out a wall

We finished stripping the walls in Annie's room, they are pretty damaged, but thankfully it's a small room.

All in all day 13 was pretty good.  Two of the three bedrooms are stripped of wallpaper, Jon tore out the wall that is now an entry way into our bedroom, and the bathroom is partially stripped.  Thank goodness for the forced break coming up.  I think taking a few days off while the floors are being done is going to be a huge blessing.   We are all tired.

Day 12

Annie and I were snowed in today and Jon headed to the house.  He left around 8:30 in the morning and yes he's still there at 11pm.  Today's to do list?  Paint ceilings, prime walls, put in dead bolts on the front and back doors.  I've been calling him throughout the day (which I know drives him nuts) just to make sure he hasn't passed out from the paint fumes.  We were told the only paint that will cover the strange red on the walls from bleeding through is to use oil based primer.  Guess what?  it didn't work.   The red is bleeding through and turning our primer pink.  If anyone knows what this mysterious 100 year old red color is from please enlighten me.  One coat of drywall mud and two coats of oil based primer has not stopped it.

Day 11

 The floor patching begins!   We pushed off the Floor people another day so Jon and I would have more time to get the house ready. Mostly so Jon wouldn't end up passed out on the floor from complete exhaustion.  We definitely tried to do to much in to little a time frame.  But no worries now.  The floors are patched and all Jon has to do now is prime the walls and paint the ceilings.

 Jon's floor patching:

I'm excited to see what it will look like after the floor guys sand and stain it all to match.   Will anyone ever know we had a piece of shuffle board table in our floor? 
And while Jon did all this?  I was sanding down the drywall mudd!  

 After the dust storm was cleaned up I went and got Annie from my moms.  Here she is doing a little measuring on the walls.

 Being a "Real Spy"

And helping out with a little creative mopping

Day 10

 Annie walked into the house this morning and yelled, "It's snowing inside mama!"  She wasn't kidding.  While Annie and I were at church Jon had been sanding down the walls.  We walk into the floors covered in dust and Jon on the ladder sanding the last corner.  

 I really didn't expect the dust to be this bad.  Annie and I had stopped by for lunch with Jon before she went to Gigi's for the rest of the day.  This is obviously no place for kids.  But Annie really loved getting to see the work on her new house. 

 Annie wanted to help so bad we modified a dust mask and let her vacuum for a few minutes before she had to go off to a less hazardous environment.

 Then Jon put me to work.  I got to finish off the drywall mudding in the entry while Jon pulled up flooring in the hall to patch up the shuffle board table and a few air registers that are over sized.

 Underneath the depression era flooring we found the original hardwood floors. They are beautiful but there is no way we are going to dig those up.

 SO the end of day 10.  

Jon worked from 9am to 10pm.

I had it easy.

All the walls are mudded.

To do list for tomorrow:

Sand entry way walls                

scrape up mudd from the floors 

patch floors                                

paint ceilings                              

prime the walls                           

And this is mostly stuff only Jon can do.  Poor Jon.

           

Day 9

The night before last Jon and I laid out a plan for house.  This was a bad idea.  In order for our plan to work we would have to get tremendous amounts of work done in these next three days.  If we pull it off, we could still meet our deadline of being moved in before the baby is born and before we will owe rent plus a mortgage payment in the same month.  Too good to be true, we should have known.

 So we spend all of day 9 mudding the walls

And after 15 hours of nonstop work, we were still mudding the walls.

Banjo wasn't much help.

Day 8

 After lots of trying to reason his way out, Texas starts floating the walls.  They were just to damaged to leave as is.

 I got to strip more wallpaper!