New House Updates

Well, Shane and Dad Hotalen have been working their little hearts out on our new home! They have been here since Monday night and as of last night, they had spackled and painted the entire kitchen, hooked up the new fridge (all the appliances were delivered Tuesday except the washer/dryer which we'll get on Saturday), spackled and painted two of the living room walls, removed the bars from the windows (yayy!!), took out some bad outside wiring, got us into the bonus room (it had been locked from the inside by someone since we first looked at the house. They had to take it off the hinges to get in), got the water going, and I'm sure other things that are currently escaping me. It's AMAZING how much a little paint will do! I think once the cabinets get a good scrubbing and the new appliances are in, our kitchen will look great! I was nervous about the green color, but now that it's done I really like it and so does Jamie. The rest of the main living area will be tan and brown, so the green really adds a bit of sunny color to the room. The bars being removed makes a HUGE difference in the living room. The windows aren't in terrific shape, but they look so much better now that they're not framed by prison bars.

Last night Jamie and I finally got some time to go over and help (I am so grateful for Shane and Jamie's dad! All that they have done would have taken us weeks just working in the evenings). I caulked holes left in the siding by the window bars and Jamie and Shane removed nails and such from the master bedroom/nursery walls, spackled the holes and started priming so we can get those rooms painted.

Jamie set up an appointment to get the carpets deep-cleaned on Friday afternoon. I'm very happy about that for two reasons: first, they could really use it and second, I will be much more comfortable living there after the previous owners' cooties have been cleaned out of our carpet! We were considering getting all new flooring, but we all the expenses of buying and fixing up the house, we've decided that can wait. It will most likely get done next spring/summer when we get our tax refund (welcome to adult life - where you have your tax refund spent 9 months before you even file).

Last night we bought new locks for all the doors. Jamie took off work today to help his dad and brother so the three of them should be getting the new locks in and finishing the paint in the master bedroom/nursery today. We had hoped to move on Saturday, but that doesn't look like it will be possible. We could probably have enough done to the new house to live there, but we definitely won't have any of the apartment packed up yet! And we'll need to get the bathrooms painted soon in order to give them a lot of time to dry before we start taking hot showers in there.

Well, there's our latest updates! I'm sure I'm missing something but the guys have done so much it's hard to keep up!

Here's a picture I created to be included in the slideshow but had a hard time getting to work. It's a VERY rough, not at all to scale outline of the house. I just wanted to give everyone and idea of how the house is laid out.
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I'll post pictures of some of the rooms once they are finished! There has been a lot of progress, but there is still a lot to do. And though I definitely could take pictures of everything that's getting done, that would be a lot of pictures. So I thought I'd wait until there was a lot done and post new pictures all at once. Sorry, Mom!