House Update

My computer is down so I don't have pics for this post, but I can update you on everything we've been doing since we closed on our house on Feb 4. We have not moved in and once you realize all our undertakings you will realize why. It isn't a large house by any means, it is 1400 sq ft, but for California (San Diego in particular) that is a good size starter home, especially with what our budget was. The house was in decent shape, the inspection came back good but it was really outdated. The entire house had those oh so stylish popcorn ceiling, mustard yellow paint in the bedrooms, old toilets and vanities in the bathrooms, hideous brass ceiling fans in the kitchen and master, wood paneling in the kitchen, upper and lower kitchen cabinets that are different colors, and a jungle in both the front and back yard. Jeff and I decided the first order of business would be to scrape the popcorn ceilings. Well, easier said than done. It took us two weeks to get it all off and it was not easy work, especially since our living room has 16 ft high vaulted ceilings. Once we got the popcorn off we were kind of like 'now what?' It was then decided that we needed to hire someone to come in and re-texture everything. So, we had a guy come in and do that but now the ceilings had to be painted. So for every room we had to primer and paint the ceilings. The new texture is called skip-trowel and looks really classy, but painting it is a bitch. You have to use a thick nap roller and really make sure to get in everynook and cranny. After ceilings were painted we then had to primer and paint the walls (2 coats), paint the closets and repaint the base boards and trim. Painting sounds so easy, but in reality it is very time consuming! Our smallest room took 3 days because we had to wait for coats to dry and tape and untape, etc....So a large chunk of the last 5 weeks has been dedicated to painting! Jeff's dad and step-mom have been driving from L.A. every weekend to help us out and while I knew the bathrooms were pretty ugly I figured it to be a project to be done at a future date. The in-laws wouldn't hear it and helped us gut the bathrooms and get all new toilets, pedestal sinks, faucets, medicine cabinets etc. We are in the process of having the walls re-textured so we can paint them, but our bathrooms are going to be so kick @$$ when everything is done! It's been so much fun having them help us every weekend and we are so appreciative of all the new bathroom stuff. I can't wait to post pics! My Uncle lives in San Diego during the week so after work he's been coming by to help out. This week he's been working on re-texturing the bathrooms (I don't think there is a name for the texture they used to be, but just imaging gobs of splatter paint type junk on the wall) and Jeff and I continue to press on with the painting. Jeff's mom helped us in getting this house, so as you can see there has been a lot of family involvement. I love that I can look at the house and think of all the wonderful family that helped to make this happen. Our goal is to move in Easter weekend. So far we've painted the master bedroom, the office, the guest room, the hall and half the living room. We'll be finishing up the living room paint this week, priming and painting the bathrooms over the weekend and getting all the bathroom fixtures installed next Thursday. The kitchen is pretty ugly, but that will be a work in progress once we move in. We'll be painting all the cabinets white, getting black granite counter tops and painting the room either light yellow or green (right now we're leaning towards green). I'm crossing my fingers that we'll have access to a lawnmower this weekend so that we can knock down some of the jungle. The outside will be another major project, but not one that I plan to tackle until the inside of the house is complete. Jeff and I have been going to the house every night after work for 4 or 5 hours and spend our entire weekends there. We have had plenty to keep us busy and even after we move I imaging we'll still have plenty of projects to undertake. I hope to have the house in good enough shape to have a birthday BBQ at the end of April, we shall see!