Day Twenty

The living room/dining room are officially done! Yay!






And in case you forgot what it looked like before...

Day Nineteen

I really had intended to update this every day until the project was completely done, but if I had been updating it every day this week, my posts would be like, "I unpacked a box today. That is all." Hahaha.

Moving in pretty much killed the whole project. Before, we were working so hard to make the place livable, and now that we live here, the motivation to finish the painting and cleaning is gone. The only painting we have left to do is some of the trim and some of the doors. And the only major cleaning we have to do is the master bathroom. But I've been perfectly content using the other bathroom. Even after I scrub the entire master bath with bleach, I'm still not going to feel good about going in there barefoot. And speaking of bathrooms, I don't know if something is wrong with our water heater or what, but we get a whopping five minutes of hot water for our showers. I did get a new showerhead that should almost double that time, but we haven't installed it yet.

Aside from killing our motivation to do actual work on the house, the house has been a disaster, organization-wise. Our boxes weren't exactly organized since the packing was all very last minute. So you get one room unpacked and straightened up. You move on to another box. You find a shoe that belongs in the bedroom you just finished straightening. So you throw the shoe in the bedroom (yes, I know I should put it away, rather than throwing it, but I don't) and go back to the box you were unpacking. Oh look, a shirt that belongs in that other bedroom too. Toss it in there. And before you know it, the bedroom needs to be straightened up again. It's an endless cycle, which kills my motivation for unpacking. The only room that is completely unpacked (I think) and straightened up is our bedroom. Hopefully I'll get everything else finished this afternoon/evening before church.

Day Sixteen

Tonight, I decided I was going to cook something in the oven. I turned it on to preheat, and within about ten seconds, I turned it off and fled the kitchen. Burnt cat pee. There was cat pee in the oven, and I had just cooked it. Needless to say, I opted for a different menu that didn't require the oven. But it was awhile before the odor left and I could go back into the kitchen. I googled "How to clean cat pee out of an oven," and the only answer I got was, "Get a new oven." Grrreeeeaatt. I have a little more confidence in my cleaning skills than that, thank you.

Day Thirteen

We got a new (to us) refrigerator!! Thank you, Craigslist! It wasn't too far away, and the people were really nice, so that was good. It's a nice fridge, and it will be great to not have to keep our drinks outside and to be able to keep foods that need to be refrigerated! hah!

Day Twelve

We got new carpet!!!! The house doesn't stink anymore!!! Hallelujah! Hahaha. It is truly amazing. The carpet is so nice and soft and new-smelling. I just want to roll around on the floor. If you could see the difference between the old carpet and the new, oh man. We didn't get it in the bedrooms because the bedrooms weren't that bad, but getting it in the living/dining room and hallway made all the difference in the world.

We brought some of our kitchen stuff over and started to get that unpacked. We still have a lot of stuff to move - a lot more than I thought, which is frustrating. But it's whatever. We'll get it done. We probably need to get it done this weekend, but I don't know if that will happen or not since I have to work for my mom tomorrow, and it's also Josh's birthday.

Day Eleven

I've been slack on updating this. I had a lot more motivation to do so when we were making major visible progress every day. We're still making progress, but it's nothing that pictures can really show.

I spent a good portion of the day cleaning the kitchen. San had already cleaned it pretty well before we got there, but she didn't do the cabinets or the floors. Not to mention, the kitchen sort of turned into our dumping zone for all the crap that had no home since we couldn't use the kitchen anyway. Well, now that we're staying here, we need the kitchen to be accessable. So I scrubbed the floor with bleach. It doesn't look a whole lot better. It's some nasty linoleum that just has a dirty look to the design, which really annoys me. I did about half the cabinets. They were full of cobwebs and spiders and mouse poop and...ugh. It's gonna be awhile before I convince myself that I cleaned them thoroughly enough to put food and dishes in them. But after thoroughly disinfecting them, I put in new shelf paper as well, so I think they should be fine. It just creeps me out.

I still haven't built up the courage to work on the refrigerator. The smell is so bad. So so bad. You can't even imagine. I don't even know where to begin, especially when I'm fairly certain that it's hopeless, even though Tucker assures us it's not.

Day Ten

We got our tv and bed moved over, and we're starting to get unpacked. Other than that, not much progress to report.

Day Nine

We officially have all of our furniture moved in except for our bed and our tv/tv stand. We don't have the keys yet and have been having to leave the door unlocked, and there's no way I'm leaving my brand new tv in an unlocked house. We still have a ton of crap to move, but it's all just little stuff...mostly kitchen stuff.

We tore out the carpet in that one really nasty corner, and it made all the difference in the world, seriously. When we went back a few hours after doing it, the house hardly smelled at all. Maybe I've just finally gotten used to it, but I really think getting rid of that one little square of carpet helped. The guy from Lowe's is coming tomorrow to measure the room/hallway, and then I think we're supposed to get the carpet on Saturday. I'm pretty excited about that.

Hopefully we'll finish getting moved tomorrow and be able to stay there tomorrow night. Unfortunately, we don't have a refrigerator, so that should make things...interesting. Yay for coolers? The kitchen also needs a serious cleaning before I even think about putting food in it. I don't know if that will get done tomorrow or not.

Day Eight

We had a work Christmas party to go to in the afternoon and a going away party to go to in the evening, so it was pretty much a day off from house stuff.

We did get most of our clothes moved and some other things that I can't remember, but overall, it was an unproductive day.

Day Seven

We planned on getting most of our stuff moved today, but it was so cold. Not only was it cold, but it was windy. Moving furniture was three times as unpleasant as it is in nice weather. We moved our guest room and the dresser from our room, and that was about all we could take.

I ended up going back later to unpack and organize everything. We don't have a lot of boxes, so I needed to empty the boxes I had taken over so that I could bring them back to refill. I got the guest room all set up, and I got the living room moved around so that we'll be able to bring our furniture in. Hopefully tomorrow we'll be able to get the rest of our furniture moved, and then the rest of the stuff will be easy and somewhat quick.

I got an email from AT&T last night saying that they couldn't move my DSL because it's not available in that area. Um. Yeah. My grandma had DSL through AT&T. It's definitely available in that area. So I called them today, and the guy offered me their current promotional rate. I ended up getting the highest speed for $24.99/month for a year. I'm currently paying $37.95/month for less than half the speed that I'll be getting. So I guess the fact that the order didn't go through online was just a sign that I needed to call them. Pretty excited about the super fast internet.

Day Six

I finished cleaning the rugs this morning while Josh painted. You could see the difference in color between where I cleaned the rug last night and where I needed to clean it this morning. It was incredible. I wish I had taken a picture, but I didn't even think of it.

Once we took the Rug Doctor back (it was due back at 1:30), Josh continued to paint, while I worked on cleaning the kitchen. I just cleaned out the "pantry" (which is really a washer/dryer closet) and it was freaking nasty. I picked something up, and it had a huge black widow on it, which promptly disappeared. So I was freaking out that I was going to get bitten for the rest of the day. Once I was finished with that, I helped with the paint. We have a wall and a half to go, and then we're done painting!! Well, we still have to do the bathrooms and the kitchen, but those will be super quick, and we're not doing the kitchen right now, I don't think.

We went and checked carpet prices at Lowes, and to get just the living room/dining room and hallway done would be pretty reasonable. So after all that work, we're going to rip out the carpet and get new ones anyway. But at least we got the stink mostly out for the time being, and new carpets should get rid of any that may be remaining.

I just went to get our DSL service moved, and they say the earliest they can do it is December 20th. This is unfortunate because we'll be moved in by Monday or Tuesday, so we'll be without it for a whole week. =/

Day Five

Today we rented a Rug Doctor. It helped at lot...at least with the dirt. It's hard to tell if it helped with the smell because the wet carpet smells like wet dog. We went over each area of the house four times, and the water is still coming up pretty dirty. But we only have the Rug Doctor for 24 hours, so we didn't really have time to do more than that.



While Josh was cleaning the carpets in the bedrooms, I was working on the living room.



Once I got all the crap out and got it vacuumed, I cleaned it with the Rug Doctor. I was amazed at how well most of the stains came out. I did have to go over some of them 10+ times, but the carpet actually looks decent now, and there will be a couch over the one major stain that was left.



Then I moved on to the dining room and moved the table into the living room so I could clean the carpet.





That one corner of the dining room is really bad. I went over it nine times, and you can hardly tell I did anything at all. That carpet is going to have to be replaced for sure.

Day Four

Josh had an exam this morning, and we didn't head to the house right away when he got home, so we weren't as productive as we would have liked. Still, we were probably there for five-ish hours. Josh painted the master bedroom while I worked on cleaning up the living room. I got most of the crap out, and I took the couches outside. They don't smell too bad to me, but I'm sure it's just because I'm used to the smell of the house. So we were hoping getting them out would help get some of the stink out. I don't know if it helped or not. Here's the progress I made on the living room:

Day Three

Before we went to the house today, we went to Petsmart to get some Nature's Miracle. I should have gotten a gallon, but I didn't really want to spend $32 on it, so I just got the spray bottle. We headed over to the house and got to work on bedroom 2. After about two hours, we had it completely empty.




I vacuumed and sprayed the Nature's Miracle in the spots that I thought could really use it. Then we decided since the room was empty, it might be a good idea to put a coat of paint on it. We hoped that painting would help get rid of the smell a little bit too.



While Josh was painting, I went to work on the master bedroom. I got it emptied out except for the mattress and whatever crap is behind it. I vacuumed and sprayed Nature's Miracle in there as well. Tomorrow we'll probably paint.







So we were there for about six hours, and I think we hauled out seven or eight trash bags.

Day Two

I had a paper to write during today, and I had to work 5:45-10:30, so I didn't get too much accomplished today. I think we were there for two or three hours. We realized about halfway through that the carpet in bedroom 2 is in much better condition than the carpet in bedroom 1, so we decided to start working on that room instead. So much freaking yarn. Why does she buy so much yarn?! Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I don't have much progress to show. I have one crappy cell phone picture of bedroom 1, which isn't much different than yesterday.



Sweets seems to have completely forgotten who I am. So much for that progress.

Day One

Josh had to go to work tonight, so he dropped me off at the house on his way there. I decided to tackle bedroom 1 first. Since it's the bigger of the two regular bedrooms, I wanted to get it empty so that we'd have it to put our stuff in.

Four hours and five trash bags later, this is what I had accomplished:




While I was there, I ordered a hoagie. When it got delivered, one of the cats (who have previously been terrified of me) immediately became my best friend. I knew she was trying to steal it, but she never really got close enough to steal it. But she was loving all over me for the rest of the night. I have no clue if she has a name, but I named her Sweets because I've been watching too much Bones, and she was being sweet.

The Beginning

My mom and San had already spent several hours at the house before I even got to see it. So this doesn't show exactly what it looked like when grandma moved out, but it's still plenty bad enough to be able to see the improvement.

Standing at the front door.



The living room.


The dining room.



Hall closet.


Bedroom 1.




Linen closet.


Master bedroom.



Master bathroom.


Bedroom 2.