Surprise!!!

On Tuesday the 29th, while I was at home sleeping between shifts at work, my mom got a phone call.  Marty (our incredible drywall guy) called to say he had an entire drywall crew that he would have to send home because he had a cancellation unless we would let him into the house to get started. So Mom went up and let him in and my dad, the hero, rushed up to get the rest of the electrical boxes in place in the walls and ceiling in the nursery and entry way so they could do not only the walls, but the ceilings.

We had no idea how much time they would get to spend there, so Mom gave them a key and told them to help themselves any time they had some time available.  Mark got up there on Tuesday evening to look around a little bit.  I went straight there at 5:30 Wednesday morning (the 30th) to have a look for myself.  The transformation was unbelievable!!! I've put up the before picture just in case you have forgotten where we started

 Our living room and dining room looked like this on May 25th before we touched anything

By the 30th, we'd made a serious amount of progress!  Don't the walls change the whole space!?

But wait, there's more...

They called again on the 30th to say the crew was still free and they would continue working on the walls and get the ceilings started.  So Mark and I went back again last night to check it out.......

 The texturing in the master has now been covered.  That officially means all of the textured walls are gone!!! We couldn't be happier.  We hated those walls.  And apparently everyone else who looked at the house did too.  They had to be what kept the place from selling before we got to it.  So, I guess, in a way I'm sort of thankful they were there.  But not nearly as thankful as I am now that they aren't there anymore!!!

 And, the nursery got a ceiling!

 So did the living room and dining room!  The entry did too, but by the time we were there, it was too dark to take any pictures and all the lights in the place have been taken down, mostly because they were ugly, but also because they are impossible to drywall around....

In case you have forgotten just how ugly the walls were, the picture on the left is a close-up of one of the walls in the nursery last Friday. The picture on the right is the exact same spot Wednesday morning.  I just thought you should get a feel for how huge the transformation has been.

For those of you interested in baby news, I also had a doctors appointment Wednesday.  She measured baby's heartbeat and said everything is going great.  Our next appointment is June 27th and Mark will go with me to find out if Baby Ham is, in fact, a boy or girl.

We will go back to the house Thursday night or Friday morning if there is a chance, just to see if they've done anymore work on the drywall.  I cannot wait to see it with the walls all sanded and the ceilings textured (instead of smooth ceilings and textured walls like we had) the way it is supposed to be!  It starts to feel more like a livable house every time I see it!  If there is anything more to show, you can be sure to find it here.  Otherwise, stay tuned for stories from Disney World and we'll be back to work soon enough!!

Monday May 28th 9AM-6PM

Monday was Memorial Day.  Mark and I went out for breakfast (Breakfast dates are our favorite) and then headed over to get to work.  I only got to stay until noon.  I had to come home and rest for a while before I started work from 5:30PM to 5:30 AM.  Mark took the pictures as I was gone for most of the day.

Monday, there were a lot of holes in the walls and ceilings from all of the electrical work that had to be done........

 In the dining room

 And the living room

And the entry

 And the nursery.

 Mom, Dad, and Vadim also got the new ceiling for the nursery all framed up!

Mark spent some of the day sanding woodwork to get it ready for painting.

Mom and Dad and Deem left Wednesday to drive the motor home to Disney World.  They will be gone for about 3 weeks.  Julie and Arnie and the girls will meet them there on Saturday and Mark and I head down Monday morning as soon as I get off work.  We're all spending a week playing at Disney World for Maggie's Fourth birthday. We are so excited for a fun vacation!

So, needless to say, when the crew left Monday evening, we figured that would be the end of the noticeable progress for a while.  We thought once everyone was home, we'd get the kitchen ready for drywall (the rest of the house was pretty much ready) and then schedule the drywall guys to come.

Little did we know, we were about to get a HUGE surprise......

Sunday May 27th 10AM-6:30PM

By the time we arrived Sunday morning after church, I was feeling much better about things.  The progress was showing and we finally had more of the destruction done than what was left to be torn out.

 Mark went straight to the kitchen and got busy tearing out the walls and insulation behind the cabinets so we could see what we were working with as far as plumbing and electrical were concerned. There is one pipe that will have to be rerouted through the soffit and some electrical boxes to move, as well as gas lines. 

 We also tore out the doorway between the kitchen and back porch.  The porch will serve us more as a mudroom/pantry.  This is where we will keep the deep freeze and cabinets for canned goods, etc. 

 As long as we had the wall out and the door off at the top of the stairs, we decided a pocket door would be the way to go in order to save space.  I am really excited about this!

 We also decided on Sunday to rip out the rest of the wall in the Master bedroom and build our new cabinets all the way across instead of ending at the door.  My mom has a library ladder we will mount above the closets in order to be able to access the cabinets up high.  I think this might be my favorite decision we made all day!

 Sunday we FINALLY got to move to the living room and dining room with our sanding as we had finished the 2 bedrooms/  In this picture you can see where the rerouted ductwork ended up. It is in the space between the red wall and the white wall.  The holes in the ceiling are where my Dad ran new wiring for lighting in the living room.  Vadim was a great assistant in that project as well.  I think he has enjoyed learning some new skills during this project.

 Our first step towards reconstruction!  Sunday afternoon, Dad and Vadim got the coat closet in the entry all framed in! This felt like a huge step

Mark started using a belt sander to finish up the edges of the walls to get rid of the texturing and prepare for skim coating. 

Sunday felt like a huge turning point.  We finished tearing things out (I think) and got started on putting the new things in.  That felt very rewarding. 

Needless to say, but Sunday night, we were all beat!  There wasn't a single part of my body that didn't hurt and I am sure everyone else was aching a whole lot more than I was.  They all certainly worked harder!

Saturday May 26th 8AM-7:30PM

When Mark and I arrived the morning of Saturday the 26th, the wall between the living room and dining room was almost totally gone.  Somehow I failed to get a picture, but there will be some in following days.

 Vadim got to work immediately ripping out the built-ins in the master bedroom.  He worked in there a huge portion of the day with no compaints and required little assistance.  He really enjoyed tearing things down.

 Mark went to work on the kitchen.  He tore out those cabinets with a vengeance (he was excited to see the kitchen go)!  That man can work a sledge hammer and pry bar!

 Goodbye ugly yellow sink!!

 By the end of Saturday, Mark had all of the cabinets completely gone.  In the process of working on the kitchen, Mark and my dad discovered a mouse nest behind the dishwasher.  Luckily, it's occupant was dead.  The little rodent had stolen 2 pacifiers, a small bowl, and various other household items and created quite the home for himself.  On Sunday, I was sanding in the master bedroom, right next to where Vadim is standing in the picture below.  The wall he is working on is the shared wall between the bathroom and master bedroom.  I looked down behind the bathtub and saw 2 little eyes looking back at me.  Apparently there is still 1 rodent in there, but the D-Con we put down should take care of him!

This is the wall behing those built-in cabinets in the master.  Vadim had to pull down the front of the cabinets, then rip out all of the shelving and structural pieces.  Then he tore out the wooden backing of the cabinets.  Next he ripped out all of the plaster (no drywall in this old place, folks). And finally he pulled off all of the lath under the plaster. Most of this he did on his own and all in 1 day!  He is a demolition machine!!

On Saturday, Dad spent most of the day re-routing the duct work we had discovered Friday night.  By Saturday evening he had figured out how to tuck it completely into the adjacent wall and was patching in the drywall.....If you looked at it now, you'd never know it had even been done!

Mom and I spent the day taking turns with the power sander and the ugly walls. 

Saturday was an overwhelming day for me.  I felt like maybe we were in over our heads.  It seemed like everywhere we turned there was more destruction to be done.  It didn't take long for things to turn around though!

Lets get to work!

Friday May, 25th 4PM-7PM

 When we got to the house, Mom was already busy sanding the Nursery walls.  We borrowed this power sander from our drywall guy.  It was a God-Send!! It hooked right up to the shop-vac and literally made ZERO dust!  I can't imagine the mess we would have had on our hands if we had tried to do all of the walls with a belt sander!!

 We got right to work pulling the drawers and doors out of the kitchen

 This is the first hole we put into our new house.  We had owned it approximately an hour and a half. What we failed to get a picture of was the bright silver ductwork we discovered as we tore down this wall.  It was the main duct taking the air conditioning and heat to the upper floor of the house.  So, surprise number 1, we had some duct work to be done.  The good news is that my dad is a genius and figured it out in about 5 minutes and spent Saturday working on moving our vents and duct work (pictures to come).

 Vadim really hasn't had the chance to do much of this destruction since he came to be a part of our family and he took to it like a fish to water.  He was a HUGE help all weekend!

When Mark and I left to go to a graduation party, this much of the wall between the living room and dining room was gone. 

Not a bad start for 3 hours work!

"Before"

Closing Day was Friday May 25th.  We finished at the closing and went straight to the house to get to work.  Mom was already sanding walls when we got there.  Before we made any changes, we took pictures and discussed the original plans for each of the rooms:

Welcome to our New Home.  The entry way had some wasted space.  This view will soon contain a pretty white coat closet and cabinets.

 In the living room and dining room, we will:

sand down the textured walls and have them skim coated,
remove the dividing wall between the two,
run electricity for lighting in the living room,
replace the ceiling.
move duct work in the dividing wall to somewhere new,
rip out carpet,
Refinish wood floors,
Sand and repaint wood work,
And anything else that comes up along the way

The Kitchen will be totally redone.  Other than appliances, NOTHING in this room will look the same.

 The Master Bedroom is big enough, but it also has textured walls to be sanded and skimmed.  We will also tear out these old built-in cabinets and put in a new closet with cabinets (and a really fantastic library ladder!!)

 The Nursery walls are the worst of all, you can see it in the pictures!  Whoever decided to texture the walls had zero sense of style and should be reported to the remodeling police immediately! 

A close-up of the texturing on the walls in the nursery.  Remember this, with a lot of work and some time, it will be gone!!!

Throughout the house, we will pull up all of the carpet and redo all the wood floors that can be saved. We will get rid of all of the texturing, cover over old ceilings everywhere but in the Master Bedroom and paint, paint, paint!

There are another 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms that are not pictured because for now we aren't doing anything to them.  The main floor bath is livable for now, though it will need a floor in the near future.  The bedrooms and bath upstairs are out of the way enough for now that we will not focus on them in the first phase.  Maybe next year....

The basement is unfinished, but contains a relatively new washer and dryer and a TON of great storage space.

We will also do a lot of landscaping and take down the UGLY bushes/trees next to the porch and hang a cute porch swing.

Someday there will probably be a new fence and deck (and hopefully a puppy), but for now we'll focus on the inside and getting it livable for Baby.

Home Sweet Ham......

Last Friday, May 25th 2012, Mark and I closed on our first house.  I've been posting all of the pictures to Facebook, but decided we should be really documenting the story somewhere.  So, here I am!

Baby Ham will be here in November and I'll do my best to continue to document as he/she (I think "he") creates his/her own place in our new little family and home.

So....Stay tuned for updates, pictures, and stories from our adventures as we create our home and family together!