Renovations

The renovation process continues! We have completed tile on the back wall of the shower, and are just a few tiles away from finishing out the floor! I have been wrestling with a new paint sprayer this morning, and have successfully primed and painted 6 pieces of beadboard! They are now outside drying. Pictures will have to come later. Up next is all of the trim...then we can just do touchup work inside!

While this process has been incredibly stressfull, and I think I might not ever want to do a home renovation project again... (don't quote me on that)...I am truly excited to see the finished product. It is going to be wonderful! AND, I'm going to have a linen closet...yay!!! Amazing what gets people excited, isn't it? Well, back to painting...

Job Hunt

So, I've completed Graduate School, and I'm on to my next adventure: finding a job in which to use my newly found skill and licensure. This task, I have found, is easier said than done. You know the drill: countless hours of searching, resume scrutiny, cover letter writing followed by delivering these documents, shaking hands, interviewing and thank-you noting...only to end up (thus far) with a, "Sorry, the position has already been filled." Thus has been the relentless pattern has consumed my life since May.

It is easy to get discouraged by this, and so you think to yourself, "It's the economy - the jobs just aren't there right now, and the market is flooded with heavily qualified applicants," or, "I just don't have the right kind of experience, or I'm not conveying my experience well in an interview." It's enough to make you say, "I quit...I'll just stay unemployed and get some things done around the house or volunteer somewhere rather than waste my time working toward an impossible goal."

But then, an amazing thing happens: God puts these wonderful people in your path who put things into perspective for you. "Maybe those jobs weren't the right ones for you. Maybe God has a different plan. I know you're frustrated, but, in the end, you'll look back and say, 'Oh! So that's what all of that was for!'"

And so, with renewed vigor, I begin the cycle again: resumes, cover letters, shaking hands, interviews......

Bathroom Renovations

Well, it's been almost 2 weeks since the fun began in our bathroom. Thus far, we have ripped out the floors all the way through to the basement, removed all of the drywall and the ceiling. We're still trying to decide what to do about the window. We need new windows in the entire house, so it may be more economical to wait and replace it with the others.

We have re-plumbed the entire house (fresh water and sewer), and, thanks to a little detective work, we have also replaced the water line into the house from the street due to a gushing leak...which wasn't gushing until we wiped the rust off of the pipe...then it was gushing. Bryan has discovered a piping called PEX which has made it so much easier to accomplish - very little joint work, and relatively inexpensive (compared to copper...).

We have been living in John and Karen's camper while the water was not working and while we have no toilet or shower. It has been so nice to be able to escape the disaster area that our entire house has become and sleep in a cool place with no nails or dust. I've been able to wash dishes in there too. Now, however, we do have water back in the rest of the house - just not in the bathroom, obviously, so I can cook again, and do laundry (not that I was really missing the later, but our clothes were emitting an odor that was not exactly pleasant).

The last couple of days have involved an interesting process of jacking up the existing floor joists and screwing new joists into them. The floor had sagged at some point in the past, and the previous owners had added an extra support under the house. Now, the floor has sagged more between the wall and that support (about 8 feet apart). Soooo we are now attempting to get the floor more level so that our tile won't crack when we put it in soon. It's exciting to see progress being made now - up to this point we have torn out a lot but not really begun to put the room back together.

Yard Sale

The dining room table is covered in boxes full of treasures to put outside tomorrow morning. The newspaper ad has been placed, the change for the cash box is in hand, and the signs have been strategically placed around the neighborhood. Now...all that is left is for the masses to come in droves and pay me to cart off my stuff :). I do hope that is the case...the droves and masses and all.

I have lined up a local charity to cart away anything that doesn't sell. NOTHING is coming back in the house! No, No, No!! The clutter WILL be banished!

There is a 60% chance of thunder showers tomorrow. I hope the weather man is wrong. We have tents just in case, but it will be a miserable day if it rains the whole time, not to mention...the masses and droves may be more like one or two people an hour instead.

I ordered the cutest yard sale signs from vistaprint.com. I hope they will bring those thousands and thousands of customers our way. I couldn't decide if they were too girly, but in the end I decided that if I saw that sign, I would go to that yard sale in a heartbeat...and i might even spend more money just because I got so excited about it...so maybe it will work on other people the same way. Or at least that is what I'm telling myself.

I've been blaring crazy loud music all over the house this week while I've been fevorishly sticking price tags on everything I can get my hands on. I've been quite ruthless, and I think tomorrow may prove to be very difficult in some ways letting go of some of the things I have wrenched from the corners of my home. Hopefully, when the cash is counted - and the house is less cluttered, it will all be worth it in the end!

Homeowners...

Well, we've taken the plunge. Bryan and I are now officially homeowners. The process in its entirety has been an absolute nightmare; however, now that it is over, we are so excited!

Bryan - on the same day we closed - came home and pulled out the holly bushes in the back that he has been longing to pull out for the past four years. The look of glee on his face when it was done was really amazing. There are now three gaping holes in the back yard where they were. No more pricked fingers or toes. Hooray!

We've been dreaming for months of what we could do to the house, but now it's a matter of what we will be doing. Sketches of moved walls are littered around the house, and we've even taped out lines on the carpet of where things will be when we are done renovating. I'm positively drooling over the possibility of increased storage in the house. Every chance I get, I'm asking Bryan for a closet or shelves or something (2 small closets in the ENTIRE house somehow just aren't cutting it).

As we are emptying out all of the furniture, which will go back to Bristol, I've been pricing everything for our giant yard sale. I'm being quite ruthless if I do say so myself. I've already decided that if it goes outside, it isn't coming back in...this house is going to be clutter free!! Four boxes are priced and packed already, and I've not really gone through a lot. Oh excitement!