SOLD!

Yes, we sold our home.  Oh my gosh!  The emotional roller coaster has just begun though.  I have such mixed emotions about the whole thing.  We love our house.  But, we also really love the new one.  I keep thinking back to all the girls "First day of school" photos that have been taken in front of the front door.  We started this tradition in Preschool!  I love going back and looking at how they've grown and changed from year to year.  Now, intellectually, I know that I can just as easily take a picture in front of the new house.  However, it's just one of those emotional moments.  It also seems weird that we won't have another Christmas in our current house.  I will even admit that I burst into tears when we got the offer.

We've lived here since Peyton was 11 months old.  Each of their birthdays have been celebrated here.  It's the only house either of the girls have ever known.  There are so many good memories here! 
The girls are seemingly unaffected by these things so far.  I do expect Sydney to have the hardest time with the transition because she takes after her mama in a lot of aspects.  (Read is "a bit resistant to change" or a "control freak") ;-)

Having said all that, we are truly thankful that the sale has worked out the way it has.  We honestly couldn't have planned the whole thing better if we tried.  (Not that we had any control over any of it, of course!)  The couple that is buying our home is from California.  They're paying cash, who does that?!  They do want the fridge (even though we explained the ice maker doesn't work) and they asked for the porch swing.  I had to say no on the swing as my dad built it for Mark and I as a wedding gift.  I think they understand.  My dad did say to give the darn thing to them if it would be a deal breaker.  Ha!

It appears as if our closing date is August 18th.  As long as the inspection is clean.  We should be done with the new house the week before that.  So, we have a little bit of time to make the move.  The girls go back to school August 24th, and that was my "hopeful" date of us being in the new house.  I think we're sneaking in under the wire with a tiny bit of breathing room.

How many engineers does it take to pick out and purchase tile?

Well, if you were with me today, it took 4.  Plus the non-engineer (me) to remind them that the shower is 4 feet by 6 feet, NOT 4 feet by 5 feet.

Yes, I survived a couple hours with four engineers.  They were actually quite funny, and super helpful. 

You may be wondering why an engineering team was needed to pick out and purchase tile.  Well, one was my husband.  The second was the one who has graciously agreed to install the tile for our shower.  The other two just came along for the ride.  And to have lunch.  :-)  Truthfully, the tile was already picked out.  Mark hadn't seen it, not that his opinion would have changed my mind, of course.  And Curtis needed to see what he'd be working with.  Plus, he'd done all the measuring to ensure we ordered the correct amount.

It looks as if we will actually be starting painting this weekend.  We decided to wait until all the doors and most of the trim were hung.  There is still much debate on what the ideal way to go about the actual painting is.  I think we're going to do trim, doors and ceilings first.  Then walls.  But that's today's idea.  Tomorrow's could be much different.

The hardwood was delivered Monday.  It's soooo pretty!  I can't wait to see it actually installed.  Installation however, cannot start until painting is done.  Bummer.  Oh, and 1500 square feet of hardwood takes up a lot of room...



stack #1

stack #2



The actual wood

The wood is actually random length.  I had a bit of a freak out when I opened the box and saw two identical sized boards.  I think it should go really well with the dark cabinets we picked out.

I may have mentioned that we had an error with the framers.  The door of our "water closet" (I just learned this term...it's the little room where the toilet goes) was not framed in correctly for some reason.  We never really noticed until the doors were being hung.  Oops.  So, we decided to build a box above the door which will have a piece of glass.  It's essentially a really high window.  ;-)  I think it actually will be pretty cool.  We're trying to decide if we want to do some sort of cool stained glass or just a clear window type.  So many decisions!!!

The paint lady at Home Depot hates me...

But, really, it's not my fault!  I swear!

Went in today to buy paint.  Picked out what "sheen" I wanted, and took it to the lady.  (Insert Charlie Sheen joke of your choice here...)  When she went to get it off the shelf, she realized that they don't carry eggshell in 5 gallon buckets in medium base anymore. 

So, after her trying to talk me into a different sheen, I decided to stick with what I wanted.  This resulted in her having to mix 20 single gallons of paint.  See, it's not my fault.  If Home Depot would carry what most people request in paint, she wouldn't have had to do all that extra work!  I also had to pay the individual gallon price, so she got her revenge.  I picked up 15 gallons of trim paint for the doors, trim, and ceilings as well.  Have I mentioned that I spend a lot of freakin' money at Home Depot these days?

We've had a bit of a slow week as far as working on the house.  We had hoped to start painting this weekend, but have decided to wait until the doors and most of the trim are up.  I have a picture of the rough idea.

We've done a lot of cleaning up after all the dust created.  This was Peyton's take on "Please go vacuum your room"...

Yes, she used the vacuum to write her name.
Then went out to play.
Awesome.

Mark got a little more into his work.  The white you see on his pants is actually dust.  Well, mostly dust with a bit of primer.

Speaking of primer...

That was super fun to try to get off.  Oil based primer is definitely NOT like latex paint in the ease of removal.

But, speaking of super fun,  Nathan and Danette came over for dinner on Sunday.  Actually, they brought us dinner at the new house.  They assured us that the lack of table, chairs, and restroom were not a problem.  Dinner was great, and we so appreciated getting to take a break from working to hang out with them and eat their yummy food.

You may be able to guess that Makenna, Peyton and Sydney appreciated the vast amount of dirt they could use to make a mess. 

Thankfully, Nathan and Danette also assured us they wouldn't hold it against us.  However, their upholstery may never be the same.

Under budget? Yeah, baby...

We've had a tense couple of days communicating with our banker.  Somehow, the way the draws were set up, it looked like we were going to be about $21,000 OVER budget.  Mark and I have been very diligent in calculating our costs and estimates.  We knew something had to be screwy.  So, we sat down with our builder and realized that many things that were listed as line items on our side were being duplicated on his side.  We haven't turned any billings in that over-lapped that way, it's just mainly the amount we need for completion.

So, after all our craziness, it looks as if we may actually be $5000 under budget or more.  That is with the additions of the roof and HVAC.  How you ask?  Sweat equity.  And a lot of it!

Paying a sub-contractor to paint the interior of our house was going to run about $5,000.  We are doing this ourselves.  I think with paint, primer and supplies purchased, we're saving a little more than $3500.  We also decided to forgo a few of the additions we had planned.  Our siding on the existing house will wait a year or so before it's replaced.  (This will drive my control freak self nuts of course)  We had intentionally over-estimated some of our unknown costs as well.  Our flooring will be considerably less expensive than we budgeted for.  As was lighting, and some of our bathrooms items.  We opted to not re-tile Peyton's shower...she can live with beige forever, as far as I'm concerned.  The tile is in excellent shape, it just may not be the prettiest.  :-)  And, she's 12.  And will have her own bathroom.  It's ridiculous, really.

As for progression of work, we finished our priming on Saturday.  They came today to texture.  It needs to dry for 24 hours or so, but I think we will wait until Thursday night to spray the ceiling.  After ceilings, we spray walls.  Many of the interior doors are being installed.  Although, any that will be over hardwood will have to wait...until we actually have hardwood.  After paint, we will install flooring.  We are actually installing the wood floor ourselves.  Mark works with a couple guys who used to do it for a living.  I'm not worried.  Much.

After flooring, we do cabinets, the remaining doors, toilets, light fixtures, tile for the shower, etc.  Not necessarily in that order, of course.  I got a call today that my custom-made back door is ready.  Yay!  I can't wait to see how it came out.

No pictures to share today.  Well, maybe one of me cruisin' on my new ride.
You know, since I have so much free time and all...

Home Sweet Home...almost.

We are currently in the midst of primering. (Or perhaps priming?)  Unfortunately, this results in a huge mess.  Below, you'll see exhibit A...

My hand after day 1.

And, exhibit B...

Child Labor Laws obviously don't apply at the Tverdy house...

I've been able to cover most of the walls in two days.  Mark went over tonight after work and worked on covering the ceilings.  Most definitely a "boy job".  I still have to go around the edges, but hopefully, we can finish up by tomorrow. 

We decided that since we had to primer the new drywall, we should primer the existing house as well.  Our reason?  Well, let's just say when we bought the house it had a bit of a "funk".  We are covering walls, ceilings and any sub-floor we didn't pull up with Kilz.  Now, if you have never used Kilz, let me warn you.  When they say you should use a ventilator mask, they aren't kidding.  However, we did not opt for the ventilator route.  Since it is an oil based primer, it also does not clean up as easily as latex paint.  I've taken 3 showers, and still can't get most of it off.  My skin is not very happy with the scrubbing for sure.

On the new addition, we didn't have to use Kilz, so the photos of the girls helping is the okay to breathe stuff.  I actually didn't even let them come over while I was using Kilz.  They did an okay job for their first time painting.  They may have a way to go before I can hire them out though...

Another exciting thing happened today.  They created space for our new door to the patio and poured our step.  I decided to drive our contractor crazy and write in his pristine concrete.  I warned him ahead of time, and so they were nice enough to leave a little space for me.

This is the before picture of where the door is going:

And here is the "almost" after...

You may notice that the wall to the right is gone. 
That's one of my favorite changes.
It makes the whole space seem so much bigger!

We really are getting closer.  I don't know that either of us can see the finish line, but we are moving at a pretty rapid pace.  After we prime, we move on to door installation, painting, flooring, trim, cabinets, light fixtures, tile and I think the last piece of the puzzle is the granite counter-tops.  I'm really hoping we can move in around the first or second week of August.  I'd like to be mostly settled before the girls go back to school August 23rd.

This obviously isn't my wittiest, or most exciting blog post, but I'm just plain exhausted.  So, look at the pretty pictures, and pretend you've been entertained.  :-)