The Painting is Done!

There are not adequate words to describe how I feel about the house. Wow! comes to mind, but it just isn't good enough. 

When I returned home from work yesterday, Ken had already started putting some things back in their original location. I couldn't believe the difference in our house just by painting!! Of course, I had to admit that Ken was right and painting the interior was the best first step to make. He loves it when he's right (it happens rarely).

Because we wanted the paint to completely dry, we didn't put too much back right away on Tuesday afternoon. The girls hated being displaced for another day, and I wasn't happy about not getting my office back. Oh well, better safe than sorry.  Luckily, our temperatures have still been warm and dry, so we had the perfect weather for getting this done in Autumn - go figure! 

 Look!! No more crack in the ceiling and wall!!

 The holes from the sofa are fixed and the paint looks great!

 Oh! I can't get over how "clean" and "fresh" everything looks!

 And pretty corners again!!!

Even this alcove looks perfect!!

By last night, we started moving everything back. Justin came back over to help with the furniture and suddenly we had our house back. Yes, I could not stand myself that my office was totally back to normal - well except I still have house and work filing to get done, but I can handle two piles of papers on my craft table rather than not being able to move about at all.  

 I have to clean the crystal before putting it back on display.

Everything is really bright! 

 Just a really great paint job!

The only drawback to having the interior look so good - we can now see exactly how hideous our floors are. Well, phase two looks like it will be moving onto replacing the tile and carpet....

The Painting!

There is just no fun way of dealing with your house being in a state of disarray. However, I have seen quickly that painting the interior was the right way to go!

Check out the Before and After view. On the left is the photo of the bullnose corner that goes from the living room to the hallway leading to the guest room (the dining room is all the way to the left).  Now, look at that same spot on the right - after painting. Holy shit!! What an amazing difference!!

Unfortunately, we have one more day to endure of this mess:

When Richard comes back tomorrow, he will finish all of the walls. For now, I am enjoying the change in the look of the doors and baseboards. The girls' bedroom door now matches the rest of the house, but the magnetic paint is actually still under there - how cool is that?

The top insert section of this door was painted pink with the magnetic paint. Now, it looks the same as the rest of the house.

The paint fumes weren't as bad as I thought they would be, and as much as I would have liked to add some color to the house, it is nice just to have it all back to the "Cottage White" that we started with. 

Now, to figure out a way to keep the kids from marking up the walls too quickly.....

Prepping for Paint

Our house is 10 years old, and it has seen the likes of 3 boys, 3 girls and a dog in addition to the plethora of birthday parties, moving furniture and anything else that can take out a wall and especially paint.

While the outside of the house could use some love, we decided to focus on the interior of the house since we have to look at it all the time. Ken was content saving up the money to pay for the paint and handling it ourselves. I detest painting. There is no other way to put it. It's not even that I'm really good at it, but I just don't like it. No! I suck at painting and I really hate doing it. Therefore, I worked part-time over the summer to put some extra money in our account in order to pay someone else to paint. 

After a lot of searching, we finally stumbled on a guy that a friend referred us to. Richard Moon - God bless this man!! We only wanted to paint our kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway. The bedrooms will wait until the girls leave home, but if it wasn't going to be too expensive, then we'd add the Guest Room/Ken's office to the mix. Richard came out for an estimate and was worried that $650 would be too much for us. Oh, seriously!! Holy Hallelujah!! So, we scheduled him for as soon as possible, which was within a week, and we spent the weekend prepping the house.

I am very happy to report that we don't need to be on an episode of Hoarders, but I could not believe the amount of Whatever was found under the sofa, behind the refrigerator, and God help us with the top of the kitchen cabinets. I have never claimed to be the best housekeeper, and apparently, you can tell when you move furniture around. 

So, in an effort to keep a running diary about our lives, I am still compelled to share the horror of our prep work despite my wanting to shout that we are not truly like this. Ha!

 Ken and I were discussing the status of our walls when we pulled down all the pictures

 After 10 years of "settling" there are cracks that need to be repaired. You have to love California with our earthquakes and funky weather.

 I was amazed at how the pictures had created an outline on the walls!

 The house was definitely looking empty with nothing on the walls

We worked on cleaning the walls, and Ken's son, Justin, came over to help move the larger and heavier furniture.

 OK, this was not as bad as we expected, but it's still gross. Note to self - Spring Cleaning needs to include the places where a ladder is required to get to it.

 All the dusting every week didn't help this poor alcove in the hallway.

 These were housed on top of the kitchen cabinets. Oh my!!

 Mandy and Taylor help scrub the walls

Oh, and then we saw what 6 kids can drop under the couch - the girls were apparently the worst:

Words cannot express my embarrassment and disgust at seeing what was underneath. Another note to self - move the furniture more and clean under it! 

Here is an example of one of the walls - I don't think anyone ever missed hitting these - there's nothing but chunks of wall and paint missing!

The garage held most of the items that we displaced:

However, anything that I was worried about being broken was placed in my office - I detest clutter and hate feeling crowded, so this is really bothering me:

We plan on eating out for the days the painter is here and we will barely be living in the house for the next couple of days. I'm really hoping that there is a vast improvement in the look of our poor house at the end of this.  Ken managed to get patches done on the walls from the kids missing going out the back patio and from jumping onto the sofa so we can have some uniform appearance again.  

Recipes & Holders

One of my pet peeves is when I use recipe cards. I thoroughly enjoy them, and I have my recipe box organized. What always angered me was having the recipe on the counter while cooking. Either the card would get ruined because food would splatter or drip onto it, or it would find some other magical way of being destroyed.

Welcome to my love of 3M products. I adore post-it notes and their hooks. I have one of their decorative hooks on the front door, and we use their hooks at Christmas-time as well. The adhesive holds like super glue, but it isn't permanent and releases completely when pulled off without damaging the walls. So, I figured there had to be something for my recipe cards....and there was.

Now, I can put the recipe on either side of my stove depending on what I'm making, AND I have stuck one over the main counter for when I prep there such as for pastries or the Crock-Pot.


Whoo-hoo!! Total success!!

The Shed is Finished!

OK, so we waited until the weather cooled down before we painted, but it was sooooo nice not to be completely miserable while painting.  It's not my favorite job in the world.


If you remember, here is where Ken and Sean got the shed to earlier this summer:

After the painting:

Garage Success!

Ken continued to work his tail off, and I helped out where I could in order to get the garage cleaned out.  We got a dumpster in order to help with all of the trash that we needed to throw out.  

Here's the last of the boxes that I had to go through:

Here's the last of this round of boxes that Ken needed me to go through

Can you believe the difference???

No way!  We got the car in there!!!

Filling the shed

Now that Ken and the boys did so much work to put the shed up, it was time to start going through the garage and organizing things to get things moved into the shed to where we can find things quickly.  


Ken was up yesterday at 7 am and went straight to work.  Other than taking short breaks here and there, he worked until almost 9 pm to get things done.  Towards evening, Sean returned from his weekend and helped Ken out, but the majority of the work was done by Ken without a problem.  

Shelves were put in, and then the "stuff" started making its way over

Sean rode on the tailgate from the front yard to the back yard

Still a long ways to go, but it's looking so much better already!

The Shed!

Ken, Sean and our friend Ted worked their butts off in the heat to get the shed up and finished before we left for our trip to the beach.  They spent three straight days getting this thing done.  They made sure to add paper to keep it waterproof and then put siding up so it would be weather-proof. Ken and Sean did the roofing while Ted did the framing.  It looks soooooo very awesome!!  


(My job was to keep the girls out of the way, document the venture, and get things ready for packing.  I did well at staying inside the house!)

The shed is up and secured!

 Starting to paper the shed (Note how dilapidated this shed is)

Ken holding the paper while Ted shows Sean how to staple it

Yes, we have to put up with Sean's inability to belt his pants where they belong!

Learning to roof through practice!

Jordan enjoying a strawberry while the guys work

Ted is putting up the siding while Ken and Sean are roofing

The girls are inside watching a movie while the boys toil away in the heat!

Jordan is worried about the movie! 

Veggie Tales!

Still working Day 1

Notice the sun is almost gone

Ted and Ken discussing quitting for the night

And cue the killer moon!

 Early on the morning of Day 2

We got a new door for the shed, so Ken has to get it framed

OK, can you see why we need the shed?!

What a difference!!