Master Bedroom – Before

Since closing on our new home just shy of three weeks ago, we’ve been incredibly busy tackling our seemingly endless list of things to do. We put the master bedroom at the top of our priority list knowing that we’ll feel more comfortable living in a construction zone over the next several months if we have a safe haven to retreat to at the end of the day. In the last couple of weeks we’ve ripped out the existing carpet, vertical blinds, closet doors, closet shelving and hanging bars. We painted the walls Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray, had new flooring installed, painted the doors and trim bright white, patched the closet walls and painted, and rehung the doors after installing new door hardware. We have a number of small things to do to finish it up so while waiting on the official after photos, here are the official before photos…

While we waited on flooring to be installed we slept on our mattress downstairs in the family room amidst huge piles of our belongings for more than a week. It was entertaining for about a night and then it just got to be annoying. I’m a light sleeper so camping out within hearing range of the sump pump in the basement (which seemed to run nonstop as the timing coincided with the snow melting) and the other household appliances that go bump in the night left me exhausted almost immediately.

And a good look of our little camp site in the context of most all of our earthly possessions stacked all around us…

Here’s a little sneak peek of the renovation so far – a glimpse of our new paint color, newly painted doors and trim and my first ever solo installation of a door knob. (Yes, it’s true. I hung a door and installed new hardware all by my lonesome today.)

Anyone else finding their weekends consumed by home improvement projects? I can’t remember the last time we just sat around and did something normal like veg out all weekend. I have a feeling that won’t be happening for a long time to come!

Home Ownership – The First Week

So it’s official! As of last Monday we are finally homeowners. The last week has been a whirlwind of painting, scraping, packing and moving so I thought I’d get you up to speed. If I’m honest, we’re both completely exhausted, but we’re starting to see signs of improvement around here already so we know the effort will pay off.

Day 1 – Monday

Our appointment for our closing was at 4:00. By 5:30 we were leaving the lawyer’s office. We stopped off to grab takeout for dinner and then headed over to the house. By 7:30 we had all of the flooring in the three bedrooms, the hallway and the stairs ripped up and piled up in a heap in the garage. I’m here to tell you, this was the nastiest carpet you’ve ever seen. (Don’t worry. I have plenty of photos I’ll share later.)

Day 2 – Tuesday

I took the next day off from work so I could get a jump start on getting the house cleaned up. Only, when I got to the house in the morning I realized that the keys I had gotten at closing were the wrong keys. So much for that idea. Instead I spent the morning researching flooring with my buddy Carolynn. (We also stopped for coffee. This was crucial.) At lunchtime I drove up, met Mike at school to grab keys from him, and then headed back to the house to clean. We then spent the entire night pulling staples and tack strips up from the old carpet. I pulled a muscle in my neck and discovered muscles in my forearms I never even knew existed.

Day 3 – Wednesday

Painting commenced. The master bedroom got the first coat of paint, the dramatic results of which were not lost on me. I took about 87,592 photos. (Again, I promise more photos than you can handle in the very near future.) We then decided all of the existing closet doors needed to be ripped out immediately and decided to demo six bifold mirrored closet doors. They met their end in the ever-growing pile of debris in the garage.

Day 4 – Thursday

Thursday brought a lot more painting. The master bedroom got a second coat of Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray and the living room got the first coat of Edgecomb Gray. It then dawned on us that the living room shares a wall with the entry hall and the stairway/upstairs hall so we realized those would need to be Edgecomb Gray, too. So then the entry hall got painted.

Day 5 – Friday

After work I picked up pizza, declared myself completely sick of takeout dinner and met Mike at the new house where he was already slaving away putting the second coat of paint on the living room. We finished that up and then ripped out the old carpet in the dining room, which will soon become our office. We pulled out all the tack strips and staples, spackled a bunch of crazy dents and dings on the wall and then sanded down the spackle until our shoulders burned. Then we ran out of steam and dragged ourselves back to our rental to pass out.

Day 6 – Saturday

Saturday was moving day. I woke up early, made another run to the paint store to grab more paint and by 11:00 we were loading up trucks and cars. It took six people roughly 6 hours to get us from House A into House B, where all of our stuff is now piled into the family room (literally stacked almost to the ceiling) while we wait for new flooring upstairs. We then went back to our rental to crash on the pull out sofa and to continue packing some of our smaller items to move the next day.

Day 7 – Sunday

More packing. More moving. More cleaning. More painting. Lather, rinse and repeat. I finished moving out the last of our personal belongings from our rental while Mike continued painting at the new house. We spent our first night in our new house, camped out on the floor of our family room.

Day 8 – Monday

Yesterday was all about cable/internet installation, scoring more super affordable Craigslist furniture (this time a new bureau that will hold our flat screen television in the living room) and painting the ceiling in the living room. We painted until about 9:30 and crawled completely exhausted into bed about an hour later. Turns out, ceiling paint that goes on pale pink and dries bright white completely amuses me. And it made a huge difference on our previously smoke-stained living room ceiling. Score!

Day 9 – Tuesday

After work today I headed over to our old house for a final walk-through and to clean up after us a bit more. Mike met me there with takeout for dinner (yet again) and we cleaned until about 8:30. By the time we handed off our keys to a neighborhood friend for our landlords and got home it was nearly 9:00. Tomorrow we’ll wake up (from our current “bedroom” on the floor of the family room) and start all over again.

Did I mention that we’re tired? Completely and utterly exhausted.