slowly but surely

We've been working on the house steadily since our last post, but are too tired at night to update the blog :)

The guys showed up on Friday afternoon around 4pm or so, exhausted from fighting their way through Atlanta rush hour traffic. They braved traffic again to find a Home Depot where they could rent a floor sander and get supplies.

Kathy and I got the hallway painted and that was about it before the guys arrived. We did attempt to do something with the fireplace, but I'm not sure it's really what we were going for. It's now sort of faux-finished (did I mention that B hates faux-finishes? hmm...) in a taupe color to match the walls, but it's a little too toned down and kind of just blends in now. We tried to dry brush red paint over it (the same red it was originally painted with) but it mixed in a weird way and turned it pinky-orange. Not good. B and I may try to strip it later, but it'll do for now.

We picked out a terra cotta color for the dining room (oops paint at Home Depot), but a couple of days ago I realized that the next door neighbor has the same color on his dining room! How'd that happen?!

The floors were more of a challenge than the guys expected, and they had to head back home to north GA before they got finished. The back bedroom is sanded, and the other two bedrooms are partially sanded, but the living room and dining room are still as is. The hallway...wow, what a mess. The plywood was glued to the hardwood and nailed down. They got the nails out but Tim and Ashley worked for HOURS prying the plywood off with a hammer and crowbar. When they left, the hallway was about 2/3 of the way done with removing the plywood and patching. All the other vent holes in the existing floor have been repaired and patched as well. Tim and Donald are going to try to come back tonight and start working again...

We had a yard sale in Forest Park with B's mom this weekend. Deidra and Elisha came up to help out. D translated for the Spanish-speaking shoppers and Elisha handled the cash box. And to be only seven, he did a great job! Afterwards we all went over to see the new house, and had dinner at the East Point Corner Tavern. Not sure if we were just that tired and hungry, or the food was that good, but the meal was fantastic. Turns out that Tim, Donald, and Ashley checked out the yard sales in our new neighborhood, and made some new friends. They were raving about how great the neighborhood is and how friendly everyone is. We have met so many of our neighbors in just two weeks--most of them just came up and introduced themselves and said hi. Everyone is SO friendly, we can't believe it. Definitely feels like a small town but right next to the city.

On Sunday, Brandon, me, Patrice, and Billy all went over to tackle the basement. It was awful! We pulled garbage bag after bag of trash out of there, mostly wood scraps, old cardboard, old yucky carpet (who does wall-to-wall in a crawl space?!), bits of wire, broken dishes, etc. Nothing worth keeping, really, mostly just ordinary old garbage. Then we vacuumed...and vacuumed...and vacuumed. We pretty much filled up a shop vac with dirt and debris. The basement is half crawl space and half walkable space with a cement floor. We hope to use part of it for storage and part for B's eBay shipping supplies and maybe some craft stuff of mine. It's got lots of shelving (and I mean, LOTS, they must have done their own canning or something...) and workshop counters built in. It still needs a good dusting, vacuuming, and mopping, and then we can actually use it. We also pulled out the old washer and dryer and Patrice cleaned them up. We got the dryer into the house, but the washer is a little rusty and needs more cleaning first. We hope to buy new ones eventually, but if these work they will just have to do for now. We also have to figure out what to do about getting a refrigerator!

Night before last we went to the house but were too tired to work. We cleaned up the flooring trash off the front porch and then headed over to explore Camp Creek Parkway, a huge shopping area near the airport. Wow--suburbia! Lowe's (where we swapped out our living room ceiling fan), PetSmart, Longhorn, etc. Good to know it's nearby, and good, too, that it's not right in our backyard. We also drove through College Park and were excited to see some promising looking local restaurants, including Noodle, which is also in Decatur. Patrice stopped by with our new lawnmower, which she picked up for us on the way home from the mountains. We found it on Craigslist for $80--a brand new electric Black & Decker mower! The guy used it just a few times, then decided his yard was too large for it (it is corded, and the cord shouldn't exceed 100'). It retails for $199 at Home Depot, and we were just about ready to buy one new when I found his ad.

Last night we met at the house after work. B finished up filling the nail holes in the floor with wood putty, while I painted the kitchen.

More photos coming soon...