T Minus 20

The projects have gone from huge to small. Hanging mirrors and curtains, touching up paint, putting dining room chairs together, moving and putting away a few small things. The last and I do mean last major project is to build a watertight box for the water heater. Originally we intended to put in a tankless hot water heater but we ran out of money so now we have to move the water heater we have to where the other one was going (outside) hence the waterproof box.

For the first time we have given ourselves an actual move in date. Drum roll please.....October 31st. We are very committed to sticking to it. We have started working during the week to give ourselves the extra push we need. Derek has been reffing water polo games to pad the house fund (we have so many more projects on our list it's ridiculous) and that takes care of Tuesday, Thursday and sometimes even all day Friday and Saturday when there are tournaments. Needless to say we need to put the extra time in and it's worth it. I've been busier as well. I have been working pretty much everyday between subbing and working in the office with Daddy P. We have been very thankful that we are so busy but are anxious to get in our house. It's been over 10 months since we bought it! So here's what we've done most recently....

I put up those curtains in our bedroom! Although now that they're up I wish I had bought longer ones.

We put together two of the eight dining room chairs. We found chairs that matched our table online that were like half the price of the chairs that came with the table. There weren't any directions in the box. When we were done there were like 15 washers and not enough screws to put everything together but they seem to be ok. They didn't break when we sat in them anyway!

This picture is kind of dark but we started to put the living room together. We moved furniture in, and finally uncovered the couches. We are realizing that the room is still pretty big and we don't have much furniture.

This is our bathroom, obviously. We put up the mirrors. It took us three tries, meaning we bought two other sets of mirrors from Home Goods before we found something that was right, and these are perfect for the room. Other than a little bit of paint touch up the bathroom is done!

Another view of the bathroom. Derek put the fixture up also.

The washer and dryer were actually pretty easy to put in. We tested them and they work!

The office is finished and ready for our desk and computers!

I put in the light fixture by myself also and it worked! I was very proud of myself!

So that's it! There won't be any reason to post again until we move in! Expect our next chat to be from our living room.

Hitting Some Turbulance

My parents came up last week to work/visit. It was such a huge help. The laundry room seemed like a big project to tackle since Derek hasn't ever done tile and has heard good things and bad things about doing it. Some people say it's not that hard and others who have done it say they will never do it again. My dad was one of the ones who was confident in doing it, so the laundry room was his project for the few days he was here. Derek was able to take Friday off (while I subbed in his class) and work with my dad on the floor. It was good practice for him and he feels much more confident about having to do the guest bathroom. They both did such a good job, the floor looks great!

Meanwhile my mom spent her time painting. We still needed to pain the hall. It was difficult to pick out a color for it since the rooms off of it are such different colors, red, green, yellow, brown and blue. We picked a pretty neutral tan color but it was hard for me to imagine any color that would look good next to all those different rooms. It turned out really good. I actually love the color! And somehow it doesn't look out of place next to all the other colors of each room. That's the good news.

It's coming down to the last projects and we feel like we are really taking a beating. We're doing finish-type projects and things just aren't seeming to come together quite like we had envisioned. There are two shower heads in the shower. When I installed our main showerhead (yes I did it, although all you have to do is screw it on) water was not flowing out as strongly as it should have. When we checked the other one nothing was coming out at all. This meant a plumbing problem. We were afraid that our brand new walls would have to be opened up to fix it and we were sure it would require crawling around under the house. This caused Derek to lose some sleep for a few days until his dad had a chance to come and help us out. Of course he fixed it, he literally can fix anything! Something about valves and hot water had to be tweaked.

When our vanity was delivered it sat in our living room for a week or so. We really liked it but thought it looked kind of green. Derek and I figured it was because it was sitting in a very green room. NOPE. We moved it into our bathroom and it still looks greenish and the counter doesn't go with the vanity as well as we thought. We talked about returning it or having it painted but decided to just live with it. It's not horrible but it's a shame because having it in that room just doesn't do it justice.

Then Derek and my dad tried to install the toilet in our bathroom but it was really wobbly and they couldn't figure out why. The floor is level so they though it must be the toilet (great something else we have to buy). Turns out that the drain is too high. Fixing that really will require going under the house and cutting pipes to lower the drain so the toilet will sit flat. The good news is we can still use the old toilet.

The list of things we have to do doesn't seem to be getting any shorter even though we're marking things off. Derek is in the middle of putting up the shelves for our closet, the vanity and sink faucets need to be hooked up, the toilet needs to be set, washer and dryer need to be installed, and everything has to be deloused! At this point our budget is pretty much tapped. Luckily I have started to sub and I'm making money for the first time this year but because of the payroll system it takes an extra month to get paid. So it will still be extremely tight for the next couple months and then it will just be plain ol' tight. Hopefully my next post will be pictures of moving day. I don't think it will be that soon though unfortunately.

The green vanity

The shower is pretty sweet though :)

It took 3 hours to put that fan in

Yay for helpers!

Working hard!

Approaching Our Final Decent

Here's the latest....

Bedroom is painted. I had no idea how many details go into finishing a room...touch up, spackeling holes in baseboards and trim, caulking all trim pieces. Next time you walk through a door way look at all the different layers of wood. Each seam has to be caulked. We spent about 3 hours at the house today and that's all I did, and I'm not even finished! The carpet in the bedroom is in. It's finally a real live room!

This is the vanity for our bathroom. We ordered it online and it shipped from Dallas with the marble top and two sinks. I prayed that it would arrive undamaged and miraculously it did! Derek got his buddies to help him move it back into that bathroom today.


The tile is completely done in the bathroom (not evidenced by this picture). The shower door is also installed. Today Derek worked on some electrical stuff. Nothing seems to go like it is supposed to and things end up taking so much longer. Today he put up the light in the bathroom, just a simple ceiling light. The box was made with hardware for a fan in case we ever wanted to put one in. This meant that the screws for the light didn't screw in all the way. After trying and failing to install it we finally figured out why. That had to be fixed by screwing new holes through the fan box. Derek also hooked up the wired for the bathroom into the breaker box. For some reason the fuse keeps tripping and we can't turn it on at all. No idea why. All things that are supposed to go smoothly but don't.

We may have another work weekend. Rumor has it that my parents may be coming up to help/visit. There is still plenty to do so that will be very helpful! We've started working on Sundays too (after church of course). It's something that Derek and I decided not to do from the very beginning but it has come to a point of being pretty close to ready and now back to working just on Saturdays. Hopefully it will give us an extra boost.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I'm glad I somehow managed to capture each of the latest stages on video, that's the good news. Bad news is that most of them are sideways. I didn't know that I couldn't rotate a video like a picture. So this post is best viewed on a laptop so you can turn it sideways :) Hope you like the soundtrack!













And there's more...the tile in the shower and on the floor was finished today and it looks great!. The bathroom vanity is being delivered tomorrow. The bathroom, closet, and bedroom are painted minus a few touch ups. The carpet in the bedroom and closet is being installed on Friday. The glass shower door should be installed tomorrow or Thursday. Many minor things are getting done too...hanging doors, baseboards, trim, more paint prepping, etc. At this point we are a couple weeks away from moving in!

We are focusing on the things that have to be done before we can live there. The rest can be done when we are moved in which will be easier anyway. We are slowly starting to tidy up. There is a lot of cleaning that has to be done. The entire floor of the whole house is covered in dust. Anyone have any tips for cleaning hardwood floor? We saw part of our floor today that we haven't seen since February because it's been under painting tarps. Each day is encouraging, but our days are long lately. Derek goes back to work tomorrow so we didn't make our goal of moving in before that, but we aren't that far off. Even at this point it's hard to imagine living anywhere but our little guest house. So much for updating each week. But I'm sure the next update will come sooner than this one.

Week ???

It's been about a month since I last posted, but I'm not sure what week that makes it. We were gone for a week, Derek took a road trip to Minnesota to be in a wedding and I visited my family and Michael and Amber and Audrey with my mom. Then we were home for a week and then gone for another week for another wedding in San Diego. Since our anniversary was a couple days before the wedding we decided to go down early and celebrate. Tomorrow will be the second week we have been back, so I guess this makes it week 4?

Anyway all of Derek's time has been spent getting ready for drywall. There are A LOT of little things that have to be done regarding both plumbing and electrical before the walls can go up. Some of it has been frustrating work. John has helped out quite a bit with the electrical. They have re-wired most of the house which meant chasing down circuits and running a ton of wire both in the attic and under the house. Derek has been doing an amazing job and has been putting in long days to get everything done.

We picked out and ordered the vanity for the master bath (not that it's terribly interesting but here's a link if you just can't stand the suspense https://www.maxfurniture.com/Double+Vanities+Click+Here+/7362/147-114-5741.asp, cream top). We decided to go with a totally different style than we were originally planning on but we're both excited about it. It's actually been hard designing the bathroom because we really don't want it to look or feel like we have remodeled at all. We also picked out tile for the floor. There is a flooring liquidator in Merced and we were surprised to find that they were actually very cheap. The tile for the floor was .79 a square foot. We're deciding between two tiles for the guest bath, both of those are very inexpensive also. This is a very good thing since the quote for having the tile done was $1800 just for the shower and another $279 for the floor. We have been completely relying on God to allow us to make our budget, and we have been very blessed throughout this entire process and even more so this past week as we are getting ready to spend larger sums on things like tile and drywall.

The rest of the good news we got this week was 1) the drywall quote was about half of what we had expected it to be. The guy is also treating the walls so they will look like the rest of the walls in the house. We couldn't put any type of texture on the walls because the rest are plaster, it would have looked very out of place and very obvious that the room was redone. And 2) he is starting the drywall this Wednesday! It's such a huge step in the process. So tomorrow and Tuesday will be spent cleaning up wood shavings, cleaning out equipment from the room, and insulating the walls. Derek asked one of his former students to help on both days. The drywall guy also gave Derek the name of the tile guy he uses and he is supposed to be pretty cheap. He should be coming this week to give us a quote. I'm looking forward to posting those before and after pictures! Speaking of which here is the latest....

This is how electrical makes Derek feel :)

Funny story, this is the office, the book shelf is gray. We decided to repaint it the white that is on the trim. We can't get everything right the first time I guess.

There are at least a hundred of these running through the rafters and framing. Each one had to be pushed through several holes by hand. It was a horrible job.

He's learning so much. Keep in mind that it's the height of summer. It's been over a hundred everyday and we aren't running the air because the ceiling is too exposed and it wouldn't do much good. He and his dad have been crawling around in the attic! Our thermostat usually says it's anywhere from 86-93 everyday in the house.


This is from my trip to Dallas. Audrey was getting her first taste of ice cream, yum!

This is on our anniversary. We spent the night in San Diego and ate at a swanky steakhouse.

And this is from the wedding we went to. It was a lot of fun and it reminded us of where were married.

I think if you "subscribe" to the blog it will tell you when it has been updated automatically. So stay tuned for more exciting pictures this week (hopefully).

Week 1

Here is the progress we've made after one week...


Andrew and Derek glued the sub-floor down in the bathroom. Those glue guns are dangerous :)


This view is from the doorway of the bathroom. The closet is on the very left behind the framed wall, the toilet room is in the middle and the shower is on the right. That door will get framed in of course. The vanity will go along the right wall.


Molly was tired from painting. She even got some on her nose and paws.


We had much needed and appreciated help on Friday. Our friends Caleb and Lori came over. Caleb, Dad P., and Derek's brother Byron helped Derek frame the walls for the closet and toilet room. Lori helped me prime the office. Andrew came and helped too. Things go so much faster when we have help. We are so greatful that we were able to get so much done that day.


This is the office pre-primer.


This is the office post-primer and half painted. We are going to pull up the carpet. The original hardwood floors under it are in good condition.


This has nothing to do with the house, we just thought it was funny. I've mentioned that she sleeps in weird positions. She fell asleep with her bone in her mouth!

Derek has started the process of installing the electrical switches, plugs, and places for lighting. We've experienced minor setbacks this week. Derek and to move the door opening to the bathroom over because we didn't leave room for a light switch right inside the door. He also got sick yesterday with some sort of flu. So we didn't work at the house today. Also next week Derek is taking a road trip with two of his best friends to Minnesota. They are all in their other best friend's wedding on the 28th. While he's gone I will go home to stay with my parents for a the week and my Mom and I are going to visit Michael, Amber, and Audrey for a few days. After we get back Derek will finish the electrical wiring and put in the insulation and we will be ready for drywall! That's a huge step. I'll keep working on the office. The built in book shelf is taking a lot of extra time to paint.

There are a lot of things that we need to start doing like picking out tile, lights, paint, hardware, etc. that we haven't given a whole lot of thought to because it's seemed so far off for so long. Our goal is still to move in by August before school starts again (on the 15th). At this point that is looking like it will be very doable. So we're very excited! Derek has been working very hard each day and is learning so many things. I'm very proud of what he's done and what a great attitude he's had in the face of something that's so overwhelming. We are loving spending time together working on the house even though we're in different rooms all day :) It's fun to break fo lunch each day and talk about all the plans and dreams we have for the house. We have a lot! I'm going to try to post pictures each week, but we'll see how that goes. At any rate I'll update when I can!

Beginning of the End

This is it, the time we've been waiting for and taking about and looking forward to since we bought the house...no, no we aren't moving in, we're on summer vacation! Derek and I have been looking forward to it because we can work on the house everyday now as opposed to only once a week. Our progress will be off the charts! We hope. Our goal is to move in by August. The latest is we decided to pay a guy that works for Derek's dad to finish the plumbing in the bathroom for us. It was taking a long time and holding everything else up, plus this guy knows a lot about plumbing and could finish it easily. So we did that and it is all ready. The next step is framing the wall for the closet and the toilet room. Then we have to do the electrical which will be a big job. In the mean time I will be working on getting the office ready (repairing cracks, painting, etc.). There's a guy that Derek plays racquetball with at the gym who offered to help us out with the drywall. Derek's dad has contracted work out to him so we know his work is quality. So we may be able to save a little money there. There is also another guy at the gym who does tile. He told Derek he would do our bathroom.

So I finished student teaching last week. I had a really good experience and feel like God blessed me through that situation. My master teacher was a great teacher and she gave me a lot of freedom and support at the same time. I am not technically done with my credential yet though. I still have to complete a couple of lengthy assignments that are new requirements for the program this year. When I have passed those I will officially be done. I'm not concerned with rushing to get them done because I don't have a job for the fall. The district is in such bad shape that they probably won't be hiring any new teachers. There were two positions in districts that were close by and I did apply for those but 100 people applied for one and over 200 applied for the other. It's a unique time in education. So I will sub next year which is a disappointment but it's steady and offers me a lot of flexibility. We are thankful that I have that option.

In other news, last friday we got a puppy. She's a boxer and we named her Molly. I love dogs and we always said we would get one someday and knew the summer would be the best time so that we would be home to train it and not have to leave it alone all day. I've always wanted a boxer and I happened to see an add in the paper for boxer puppies. Anyway, Derek actually said yes! He knows how much I love dogs and just wanted me to be happy :) She's been really good. She doesn't cry at all at night but does wake up about three times to go to the bathroom. My sleep has definitely suffered this past week, but she's worth it! Anyway it was a big decision for Derek and I. This is something that we will have for another 10 years and limits the freedom we have now. We are excited though and wanted to share her with you :)

The first night we got her she fell asleep with her whole face in my gym shoe.



When she's not sleeping in her crate she sleeps in really funny positions. So much for her bed :)

Plumbing, etc.

We've been working on plumbing and painting all of the finishing touches (trim, baseboards, doors) in the dining and living rooms. Plumbing is something Derek doesn't know anything about so he is having to rely on his dad and one of the guys that works for his dad to walk him through everything. Luckily the plumbing isn't moving a whole lot in the bathroom but they are replacing the old pipes with new copper pipes.

Replacing the pipes

New copper pipes!

Sealing the joints of the pipes. After they were finished and they turned the water back on to check to see if any of the joints leaked, they found out that a few of them did. Those will have to be done over :( But they got a lot done this day!! Keep in mind John has a cast on.

This is right across from our house. You can see this out our front window, out the dining room window and from our porch. The fountain is pretty big and there is a big rose garden surrounding it. It's really pretty now because all of the flowers are in bloom.

We had a hard time thinking of what color to paint this built in book shelf in our living room. We wanted it to stand out. We finally decided to paint it a wood color. We picked something that matched other wood in the room (I think I mentioned this in my last post). It has a faux wood effect. We got the idea from watching HGTV. Anyway this is how it turned out.

Our living room is pretty bright!

From the Groud Up

Here are some updated photos from our long long long project....

This is where our closet will be...




This is looking into the room from what will be the bathroom. When you walk through the framed doorway the entrance to the closet will be on the left.


Looking from the other side of the bedroom into what will be the bathroom (on right) and closet (on left)


Derek and Seth building the wall that will separates the bedroom from the bathroom/closet.



Did I mention that John tore his achilles a few weeks ago? It's a six month recovery! In spite of being on crutches/in a wheelchair (our house is NOT wheelchair friendly) he has been at the house helping however he can which usually means talking Derek through the things he needs to do. We've been so thankful he is willing to do this. Without him our project would be significantly slowed down!


Our dining room. I love the color.



The living room is painted. We had a hard time picking the color for this brick wall. We wanted it to be an accent wall and ended up choosing this golden yellow color. It's pretty bold which is not normally my style but we both love it. Since we have painted that book shelf a brown color that matches our mantle and the wood accent on our couches. It looks really good!


Again looking from the bedroom to the closet. On the other side of the wall is the end of the hall. The red is the color of the walls after we peeled the wall paper off. That door leads to the stairs and the kitchen.


Another picture of the living room. Our couches are under that plastic. They're pretty swanky, we really like them!


Living room again


Derek and Adam knocking out a wall.


This was a little visitor that some lady abandoned at the park across from our house. She was running around the street with two other dogs. We almost kept her but she ended up getting out of our yard which it probably better. We aren't totally ready for a dog yet. Animal control came and picked up the other two.



This is a 360 view of our bedroom/bathroom/closet


That's all for now. Next step is plumbing for the bathroom. We will have a really good size shower with dual shower heads, a separate toilet room and a double vanity. The closet will be sort of a long hall way. It will technically be a walk in but not much room to really walk or get dressed but still will have plenty of hanging space. We opted for a bigger bathroom and a smaller closet. After the plumbing more framing will happen, then on to electrical which will take a significant amount of time. Derek and John started to do some rewiring right before John got hurt and that will need to be finished also. Then drywall will go up and things will start to move quicker after we get all the tiling done in the bathroom, and there will be a lot; the whole shower and floor. At this point we are hoping to be in the house be the end of the summer, maybe August-ish. We start working again at the beginning of August so we will make the most of our summer days. Things will start to get done so much quicker when we are able to work every day instead of just on Saturday.