Tired...so very tired

So I had a plan today.  Last night was a very late night, what with Alex graduating and then dinner with the family.  When I woke up this morning, I figured that I would start my laundry, vacuum, run out to the new house and grab the lawn mower, get gas and mow the lawn at the old house.  Then I would go back out to the new house, spend 2 hours painting – 3 hours max – take a shower out there and come home to finish laundry.  I thought that maybe I could relax and enjoy a little bit of my Sunday, since I was sore and tired…only it didn’t go exactly like that.

I did everything that I planned – I finished painting the bedroom, the sewing room and the living room, save for peeling off the painters tape.  At about 2:30, I decided to call it quits and headed to the bathroom to shower when my parents showed up.  They wanted to mow the rest of the lawn (there is a LOT to mow), Dad needed my help building shelves in my shed, fixing the basement stairs and then he changed out my door handles (so I have new locks, which makes me feel better  – I didn’t like not knowing who might have had extra keys to my house!). 

By the time we finished and left my house, it was 6:30.  I ended up showering at the old house while Mum & Dad went to pick up dinner.  They left at 8:00 and only now have I gotten the chance to sit down, relax and enjoy my Sunday.  Too bad I’m exhausted and can only think about crawling into bed!

I’m thankful that I’m closer to being finished and that I only have to finish the stairs and upper hall.  There are a few touch ups, but I’m so tired of painting that I don’t care anymore!  I’ll hang pictures and put furniture in front of those spots!  I just want to move, but it’s looking more and more like July 3^rd. 20 more days…I just can’t wait!

Nice Try

So taking the night off didn't actually happen.  I got an email from Mel saying that she and the girls were going to come visit at the new house last night.  And when they left at 7:30, I figured, "Well, I'm already here.  I might as well finish the second coat of guacamole on the last bedroom wall and give the other a 3 coat...and fix the corners."


Tonight I'm definitely taking the night off!

View From My Deck

It was so nice when I left the house last night after continuing to paint. Sunset and the sky in general is just beautiful out there!  I took a wander around my yard and found pretty little spots here and there.

I'm growing more comfortable with every day that I go out to paint at the new house.  I'm getting used to the sounds, though whenever my tenants move, it sounds like they're in my part of the house and I think someone is there.  Thankfully Sadie is my personal alarm and if she doesn't bark like a maniac, I don't really have to worry.

I'm taking tonight off.  7 full days of painting and 3 days of painting after working 8 to 5 has caught up with me.  I shut my alarm off this morning while still asleep and woke up after 6:00, only because one of the cats knocked something over.

I'll be happy when the painting is done and I can move in.  No more of this back and forth stuff!

And the Painting Continues...

After 7 days of (almost) nonstop painting, I'm still not finished...but I am nearing the end.  The kitchen is done, as you can see below.  It went from cream to cinnamon stick and apricot. I know they don't sound like they go, but they do!

Kitchen

Hallway (cinnamon on one side and apricot on the other)

The bathroom is also complete, with the exception of a few touch ups on the ceiling and around the window. Those are minor and can be done at any time.  If you click on the picture, you can expand the view to really get a good look at it.

Bathroom - window and sink view

The rest of the house is in process.  The bedroom has one coat of each of the green (when this photo was taken), but last night I was able to add a second coat of the light green and then ran out midway through the second wall.  So it's back to Home Depot I go today.

Bedroom (before was taken when the previous owners still lived there and we were doing the home inspection - my mother is in the corner and the guy is our real estate agent)

The sewing room now has two coats of light and dark purple, but I haven't taken a picture of it yet and the living room just looks like crap right now, despite 3 coats of yellow paint. It's streaky and there are shadows.  It looks like I've only just base coated it; I should have used primer.  I'm going to tint the primer yellow for the hallway and see if that works (it's the same color as the living room was).  I'm thinking that I'll have to prime over the 3 coats in the living room (which makes those previous 3 coats a waste of time, energy and neck & shoulder pain) and then add another 2 of the yellow to get the living room to stop looking like crap.  I will be so sick of painting by the time this is done!  And I still have shelving units to paint, as well as a headboard, a corner hutch and bench seat.  Ugh, it seems never ending! And I'm back at work during the day, with only 2 hours to paint each night.  When you're doing it by yourself, two hours just doesn't end up being a lot of time. Oh well, it'll get done.

painting and running, running and painting

I’m exhausted!

I’m going to need a vacation from this vacation!  My feet hurt from standing all day, my back hurts from contorting into those hard to paint places and I’m fuzzy from not sleeping well.  I keep waking up in the middle of the night, thinking of everything that I need to get done before Sunday, not to mention cleaning my other house (where I’m currently living paint-free) and doing laundry before I go back to work on Monday.

I ran around so much yesterday that I’m surprised I’m not dizzy.  Mum & I set up the account at the bank for the tenants’ rent to go in and the mortgage to come out of, we returned my set of pans to Kohl’s, returned the eterge to Target (storage unit that goes above the toilet), bought new Calphalon at Bed, Bath & Beyond, went to another bank for Mum to fix a check that they issued her, then off to Family Dollar for curtain rods (as there are none in my house) and finally to the post office to officially change the address and the lock on the mail box at the end of the road. 

We didn’t start painting at the house yesterday until about 1:00, but the kitchen is nearly finished.  I just need to tape off the ceiling and do the upper part of the walls.  The bathroom has a first coat of both colors and Nicky stopped up to chat while I painted.  She’s coming up today to help.  I’m hoping to finish the kitchen, second coat the bathroom, and wash the walls and ceiling in the living room before she gets there so we can start on the

AND the well is fixed!  My brother had to replace all of the wire because there were breaks in the old one that had corroded.  So we have water once again!  Also, he got a job…actually, he got his old job back.  Just before the recession hit 2 years ago, he was laid off from his job as a commercial plumber and had been unemployed ever since.  As of yesterday, his old boss said he had his job back with the same pay and benefits!  Everything is coming up Millhouse for him!

And now I’m off to take a shower and bring Jess to school, as she missed the bus and my sister has already left for work.

"Water Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Spare" or "There's a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza Dear Liza"

Oh the joys of home ownership!  As I was painting the ceiling in the kitchen, my tenant came over to ask if I had water.  I checked the kitchen sink and sure enough, no water.  I tried calling my folks (cell phones not turned on); I tried my brother, the plumber (went to voicemail), so I run in town and thankfully, my parents are there, my brother calls to say that he’s on his way out and in the mean time, I am scrambling my butt down to the store for the biggest jugs of water I can buy while praying that it’s something simple that doesn’t require a ton of money to fix. 

 My brother announces, after he’s looked at the breaker box, the water filter and everything else inside the house, that it might be the pump IN the well.  So he, his friend Ricky, my dad and our tenant pull out the pump from the well (by the way, my well is about 200 feet deep and that pump sits down at the bottom…good to know).  Its pump – after 24 years, it just decided to die 4 days after we buy the place. Ugh!

Thankfully my brother can fix it for under $400 and by this afternoon, my tenants will have running water again!  And I am thankful that the pump decided to go now, in June, rather than in freezing cold February…in a snow storm…with 40 mph winds!  I’d rather it had not gone at all, but at least now I can rest assured that my well has a brand spanky new pump!

On the paint front, the basement is done and the kitchen is taped off.  I did do stain block paint on the ceiling, but I have a feeling that when I go out there this morning that it will be streaky and will need a real ceiling paint.

Sadie did get to go out for the first time.  She wandered all over, checked out upstairs and the basement, wandered around the yard and we went for a walk on the snowmobile trail (which is really nice!).  She was a little antsy, but I got her a marrow bone and she eventually settled down and gnawed on that for a while. 

Mum and I will be back at the painting today, hopefully getting some color on the walls!

Painting Painting Painting

I feel better.  I went to the house yesterday and the trash was gone, the keys were there and I met the tenants.  They are very nice people.  He’s in the Reserves and will be shipping out in a year for a year stint in Afghanistan; she’s a stay at home mom to 2 adorable little boys. I feel better about the neighbors now.

Mum & I wire brushed the basement walls and will start painting today.  Dad secured my water pipe (as it was loose and wobbling all over the place).  I washed down the walls in the kitchen and cleaned out the fridge.   I picked up all the little things that you need right away that you don’t realize you need until you’re out there, like the cordless drill, paper towels and toilet paper, hand soap, a radio, a trash can and trash bags, ceiling paint and KILZ, the paint stirrer that attaches to the drill.  I made about 3 trips back in town for forgotten items.

There are a million things I’d like to do right away, like wash the windows, but those can be done some weekend AFTER the place is painted; that needs to get done first!  I had to clean out the fridge because it disgusted me.  And knowing that my fridge is clean makes me feel better about putting my food in there.  I cleaned the bathroom first thing…before anything else, because that grossed me out too.

My deck gets the best direct sunlight from about 11:00 am till the sun sets – it’s wonderful!  It’ll be nice to have the patio table with the umbrella set up out there…granted it’s supposed to rain all day today, so it won’t be so nice today out on the deck.  Oh well, good day to paint the basement…and maybe the bathroom. 

Since I slept so terrible the night before last, I didn’t get half of what I had hoped to finished last night.  By 6:30, I was toast and stumbling tired.  I came home, walked the dog, ate dinner and crashed out at 8:00.  But I woke up at 5:45 this morning, feeling good!  Today, I will get a lot more done and stay later.  If I can get a good 12 hours out there, I’m sure I can put a good dent in my to-do list!