Tuesday, September 23, 2008

A Homeowner For Two Weeks

It has been two weeks now since we closed on our house. We have had a busy few weeks, it is a lot of work to move into a new house and especially a house that is dirty and needs a new paint job on all of the inside. When we showed up to move in a day later then we had planned on this is what we saw. Yikes! It was an odd day trying to not be mean to the guy moving out but still letting him now that he needed to get out, Now.

He took everything out onto the driveway and garage and sorted through his belongings because he could not fit everything on his truck. The day that we moved in he was outside until 11:00 p.m finishing packing everything in his truck. I felt a little bit bad because for me when I leave a house it is always a bit strange and I like to have that last walk through to give me closure, say goodbye and move on. It must have been really weird for him to leave with a strange family now living in "his" house. But enough was enough and he had two extra days then we had planned on so we had to give him a little push to get out.

Because he could not fit everything on his truck this is the lovely garbage pile he left us with. It took a week and a few calls to our realtor until it was finally taken away. I am sure that is a good way to make a first impression with your neighbors!

The day after we moved in Ben went to work painting the house. We decided to start with the kids rooms and then work our way down. I think the rooms turned out really fun! Ben is doing a great job at painting. He is almost done with our bedroom and then we will have four bedrooms, a hallway, and two bathrooms done. Basically the whole upstairs and then it is on the the main level. Here is a picture of Madeline's room.

This is the boys room. Both of the kid rooms have the same dark brown as the background and then the colored stripes and polka dots. Jacob likes his stripes but tells us they are not quite as cool as Star Wars stuff.

Last Saturday Ben was painting the play room and I asked him to come to Madeline's room for a minute, while we were in her room she crawled out without us knowing and crawled down the hall to the play room where there just happened to be a gallon of opened paint. What a fun discovery! She put her hand in and then spilled the whole can. Ben was really mad. We took a puddy knife and scraped up as much paint as we could and then I took a wet towel and tried to soak up as much paint as I could while Ben ran to the neighbors to borrow a shop vac. We poured water on the paint and then vacuumed the area. I was really surprised how well the paint came out. Here is a picture, the spot is in the door way and is even less noticeable now that the carpet is dry.

While we were working on the carpet I stuck Madeline in our tub because she was covered in paint and she would be contained. Here is what I found when I went to take care of her after we had cleaned up the paint. I think she knows she did something bad.

We just keep working each day getting a little bit more done. Ben starts his job next Monday and our all day long work days will be over. We have met some friends and are enjoying Colorado!

9 comments:

Camille said...

What a moving mess!! But the painting looks fabulous! I love the dots :) and I couldn't even see the paint spot on the carpet.

Sara said...

Oh WOW!!! What a crazy moving in story! Hopefully you will be able to look back and laugh about it someday. Ü I LOVE the painting you have done. You are inspiring me to repaint a room for Samantha. How did you do the circles in Madeline's room?

That is awesome that you were able to clean up Madeline's paint spill. The carpet looks great!

Good luck with all the painting left and all the moving in stuff!!

Saralyn said...

Do your kids love their new house and are they excited to have their toys and stuff back?

I am jealous that you have had 2 weeks to work on the house with Ben and no job to rush off to. I have been working and Hector is busy and doesn't so much like painting so I have been trying to paint when I can. It has been a long drawn out endeavor rather than the 2 days it should have been.

The rooms look really fun! You should post some before pictures so we can see the change.

Lenice said...

What cute rooms. You guys are soooo creative and talented. Move over Martha (Stewart)!! Glad to hear you are liking Colorado.

Christy said...

holy cow michelle, i cannot believe all the CRAP that guy left. SO UNREAL. i would have been so upset. glad you finally got it figured out though. and the kids' rooms are adorable. so now i have a question--when we finally buy a house someday (like in 10+ years at the rate we're going), can i hire you to come decorate my house? i'll let you think on that for the next 10 years. let me know. :)

Erin said...

that is a great picture of madeline!

Mike and Tanya said...

I just adore that house, it's so cute and the pink polka dots are so cute! How did Ben do that? It's a good thing the paint was a similar color to the carpet and not like a bright red or something like that! I hope you are enjoying it there! Is the community nice? Do you have good neighbors?

Kent and Lynette said...

Give cute Madeline a hug. I feel so bad when kids are so sad. BUT I love the rooms. You are so talented and I'm sure your house is so fun now. What great work you guys have done.

Breanne said...

Wow! What craziness! There rooms are so adorable. How did you get the circles and strips so clean. (you know not bleeding out and perfectly round and smooth). I LOVE it. I can hardly wait to see more pix. So so so cute!!!!