Yay, Craig's list and our voluntary work force!

We totally blew it on Monday! We forgot to bring the camera with us to the house. Our friends Jen and Pat came over and helped Bill get about 1/2 of our stuff out of storage and into the big storage closet in the hall upstairs. They also brought their 6 year-old Elisa. Elisa and Abby had a blast running around the back yard (and into a couple of trees) with the Barbie Powerwheels Jeep that Bill got free off Craig's list on Sunday (I promise to get pictures of the jeep in action very soon!). After a trip to the Wilsonville Costco to straighten out the charges for the flooring (we were charged for 27 boxes, but only bought 24. They were very nice about it and gave our money back right away), Doug came back over to the house and finished laying the flooring in the dining room and started in the kitchen. What he and Bill noticed in the kitchen was that due to the age of the dishwasher, it was going to be very difficult to floor around or under. So, lucky me, I got a new dishwasher! Yay! We spent Tuesday evening appliance shopping (something I don't recommend with an almost 3 year-old). So, on to today...


Our new dishwasher! Delivered and installed today by Lowe's. They also took away the ancient one that was already there.


These are my new washer and dryer...purchased off of Craig's list. We love Craig's list.



This is Bill's metal cabinet for the garage. Also a Craig's list find. Did I mention that we love Craig's list?


The living room and dining room with the basic flooring laid. Bill is still working on exactly how to do the steps down into the living room.


The very last board laid in the kitchen floor!



The completed kitchen floor! Now, we just have to find a refrigerator that will fit in the funky space provided for it.


Sorry about that lack of Abby pictures in this post. She spent the evening hanging out with her Grammy Paula and Papa Peter.

Flooring, PowerWheels, Bath and Beyond!

Dad was the first person to spend a night in our house, and he "slept like a log." He did a lot of work yesterday, so I"m not surprised. We went out to brekkie at the Shari's down the street and started to work on the house around 10 a.m.

The first thing Doug and I did was to go pick up a Barbie Jeep PowerWheels that I found for free on craigslist. It is in the garage charging right now, so we'll see how it runs tomorrow.

Next stop was Costco to pick up our flooring. 24 cases of maple laminate floor to cover our living room, dining room, and kitchen. After Doug and I had is loaded into the Landcruiser, (PowerWheels on the roof!) we had nice drive back to Tualatin.

Wasting no time, Doug and I started laying the flooring down in the living room. I was damn glad to have Doug's help, as he had done it before (at his place, ) and was very encouraging.

This particular style of laminate floor had the underlayment foam attached to each piece, so we didn't need to mess around with another layer of stuff under the flooring.

Doug, doing the relief for the heating ducts.

Before:


After:

It's Miller time! Or, in this case, Corona and Kokanee.

Abby showing Doug a scary face.


There's a smile from my girl!


Kricket, Joy, Abby and Michael took a trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond and brought home curtain and a new shower rod and curtain. We were treated to a deli style lunch, roast beast on sourdough for me thank you!

After Kricket and Joy took their respective young'ns to their respective homes, Doug and I worked some more, laying between 1/2 to 2/3 of the dining room before I, (and my knees,) called it quits for the evening.

Next: finish the floor, paint the trim, put it back. Finally get to my garage!

A very productive day!

We had so much help today and it was great! Bill's dad, Mr. Bill, and his mom, Paula, as well as our friends Doug and Joy and there son Michael all arrived this morning with paintbrushes in hand. First thing, Bill and Doug finished removing the carpet from the living room.


Mr. Bill finishing up priming the room for Abby and Baby Beers.

Here's Bill painting the first of the walls in the living room. After several color tests, we decided to use the same color that we now have in the condo.


The finished living room.


Not quite ready to pack it in, Doug talked everyone into getting the kitchen painted as well before knocking off for the night.


Here's Joy entertaining Michael and Abby. She was great! I actually got to go shopping for curtains without Abby's "help". Heather and Emma also stopped by and the kids ran through the sprinkler. Abby is totally loving having a yard to play in.


Look! Things are getting crossed off on the HUMONGOUS to-do list!

Bringing in the first of the furniture.

Kat a Eric gave us a nice queen sized box spring and matress, complete with bed frame! I hauled it home from their house yesterday, using the trusty old camp trailer. I suppose I could have brought it home on the roof, but this seemed a better idea. One time I brought a queen sized mattress and box spring from Portland to North Bend on the roof of the Samurai. I remember not being able to go over about 50 mph!


Here is the bed, in place in the smaller of the downstairs bedrooms. That radio is one like my Uncle Don gave me when I was a kid. I don't know what happened to that old one, but I tracked this one down on eBay last summer while having a fit of nostalgia.

Kricket brought 4 paint samples that up put up on the wall before we went home. We'll see what they look like (dry,) today.

Removing carpet, testing paint.

Today I stopped by Metro Paint at lunch and picked up 4 gallons of their recycled latex. They are only a few blocks away from me on Swan Island, so it was a quick trip. I picked up light blue, light green, light gray, and "sweet corn." The others have catchy names too, but I can't remember them now. But at $8/gal, I'm hoping at least some of it works.

Kricket thinks the green looks like slime and doesn't want to use it.


She said the "sweet corn" would be OK for one of the bathrooms, but not for the living room.

"Daddy, you put a smiley face on the wall!"


Doug, Joy and Michael came over to see the new house, and to bring us dinner! Abby had a great time playing with Michael.

Kricket liked the light blue. I'm not sure where we'll use it. Maybe the "sky" parts of Abby's room.


Doug was upset that the area in which the deck will be rebuilt was level and free of debris. He thought that it should be more of a challenge.

Doug offered to help pull up the dining and living room carpets, so I took him up on the offer. The carpet itself came up pretty easy, and we were able to roll it up and stuff it in the garage. The pad came up, sans staples, that I went after with needle-nose pliers while Doug worked on pulling the tack strips.

Here I am, making it look easy.

Doug was game to stay longer, but I've got to be up early to pick up the trailer, and head up to Woodland to pick up a bed from Kat and Eric after work tomorrow. I was also tired!

One carpet down, one(?) to go. While we were pulling this carpet and pad, we were greeted by 20 some years of accumulated odor, stains and what not. Kricket is currently debating changing out more floors than just the living room, kitchen, dining rooms.

Up next: more paint, finally remove the rest of the shelving in the garage, rent a dumpster?, more paint.

Kricket and I picked up Abby from her daycare, and after a quick stop home for work clothes, we headed over to the new house. Our plan was to remove the wallpaper borders from the two upstairs bedrooms.

Kricket, claiming that she was pregnant, took the room that didn't require a ladder.


I drew the short straw, and was on the ladder for the duration. In this flattering picture, Kricket has captured my thinning top!



Abby tasked herself with dragging Baby Olivia and her blanket back and forth between the two rooms asking us questions.


After getting all the wall paper off, I started sketching the castle wall that we're going to put on one wall of Abby's room.


Abby was pleased!

After that we headed home for bath/showers and sleep. Thank god for a desk job: it lets me relax during the day!

One more picture of my darling girl!

Removing wallpaper, replacing drawer/door pulls.

We slept in today, and didn't get back to the house until after lunch. We stopped by Uncle Mike's and picked up a rolling base for one of the big Rubbermaid trashcans. Someone stole his trashcan, but left the base, so now we're using it! It was a pleasant 72 degrees in the house when we got there at 2 this afternoon, which was a little surprising, given the 80+ temps outside and no curtains on any of the windows.

Here are some outside pictures of the house:




A trip to Costco provided us with lunch and a dry erase board onto which Krickey wrote our "to-do" list.

Our backyard: Abby ran around it yesterday, exclaiming, "My own backyard! This is unbelievable!" Her parents, however, realize that it's going to take some work. Luckily for us, this task has been taken over for the last couple of days by Abby's Grammy, Paula. How appreciative we are! We learned from some neighbors today that a pit bull used to live there. That explains a lot!


Kricket changed out all the drawer pulls in the kitchen. Before:

After:


Closeup:

Abby in timeout:

Kricket was not impressed with the wallpaper choice in the kitchen and tasked me with removing it. I used a little spikey tool to perforate the wallpaper, then sprayed on this stuff that would allow the wallpaper to let go of the wall.

In the middle of it. (Thanks for that trashcan base Mike!)


No more wallpaper.

Grammy and Dolly.

Peter cooking us dinner on the barbecue.

Next on my list of things to do is remove the existing shelves in the back of the garage. I plan on epoxying the floor, so I need it free of stuff. I'll be putting a workbench back in, along with some shelving.