Sorry for the lack of photos.....

We have still been working on this home, but I have no photos to share. You can thank one of my children (the one named "Not Me") for that. Said child took my awesome Canon Rebel in automatic mode and twisted the lens hard and broke my lens. I am thrilled. <sigh> Oh well, they go back to school tomorrow!

This weekend we have managed to get all the smoke detectors hung up! Don't worry, Mom, we had them out of the boxes, but just not up on the walls yet.... we were kinda protected. We also finished changing all the outlets and light switches. We still have one mystery light switch that we cannot figure out what it controls. Joe fixed the downspout above our side deck so that the water won't rot away all his handy work. We have also just been preparing for the school year, cleaning, hanging up pictures, etc. Joe is also preparing to start a new job this week, so that is very exciting!

We have been selling stuff, too. Rather than doing a garage sale, we have just been selling stuff on craigslist as we haven't needed it. This is a smaller home with very little storage space and Joe tells me that we are done making babies (BOO! HISS!), so we are just clearing out as we go. So far, I have sold off some cloth diapers and Joe sold our old electric dryer (love me some gas dryers... so much faster!). I still have a few baby toys listed that Fritz just outgrew, prefolds, a book shelf that is too tall to fit in our short house, and a futon that we have no need for. We might, eventually, get our garage back :)

Just a funny from the other night. A friend was asking our 6 year old if we have had a busy summer (she knows all about this house, work, etc) and Edie said, "Nope!" When pressed on it further she told our friend that we spent all summer just playing on our computers. That child CLEARLY doesn't remember what this house started off looking like :)

kids and pets will be the death of me

We got quite a bit done again today. Joe pulled down the carport thing-a-ma-jig and I painted some places that the lead paint was coming up. I have to say that I was not thrilled to have to repaint this stuff. Due to the kind of loan we have, we have to have an inspection at the end of the work, which also includes re-testing for lead paint. We had to pay someone about $2,000 to encapsulate this lead paint, but it hasn't been holding up, so I am having to repaint it all. Most of it is coming off in huge sheets.... bringing all the lead paint with the encapsulating paint.

Today I painted around the bathroom door. I was quite pleased and went to sit and eat some lunch while it dried. I told everyone not to touch it and not to use the door. I blocked it off with a chair. Our dog is terrified to go close to the chairs or baby gates. Well, she changed her mind on that today. She pushed the chair out of her way and got her paws and face in white paint and then proceeded to walk ALL OVER! IN CIRCLES! Amelia helped me scrub all of that up and prevented me from strangling Ramona.

I moved upstairs, where Owen's door had also been chipping. I got all of it repainted. I came down and talked to him about needing to stay out of his room. He needed to not use his door for at least 2 more hours and even then, he was not to close it. 20 minutes later I went upstairs and found that he had shut his door and locked it (I need to take that damn lock off his door) and had "forgotten" that he wasn't even supposed to go into the room yet. The door fits REALLY tight. So, all the work I had just done along the edge is completely undone and tomorrow I need to rescrape it all and repaint.

This home improvement business would be sooooooo much easier without kids! And pets! Of course, then I wouldn't have anyone to fix this home up for. Also, the push to take care of the lead paint would not be so great. Just be warned.... don't eat the paint chips when you come over.

Girls' room is done... and other weekend projects

Finally, I feel like we can do an official "before and after" shot of a room in the house :) Joe and I and the girls got their room totally finished up today. I would finish up Owen's room, but the kid won't keep legos picked up for long enough to do anything.

Anyhow, here are the befores:
(I wish the smell would come through the blog page... it was rank.... cat urine soaked carpet)

And here are the afters:

We have also been doing many little projects. Yesterday, Joe and I built a compost bin out of pallets, so our compost will be all neat and tidy:

I have been also working on touching up some paint while Joe works on putting together different shelves. I sorted cloth diapers that Fritz outgrew during this moving process and spent a good amount of time searching for the television remote that has been missing since our move..... no luck. Tomorrow will involve painting trim and, if the weather is good, we will be taking down the carport thing that is attached to the garage.

Ta-freakin-da!!

Oh, yeah! This weekend we kicked butt and took names. It helped sooooooo much that the older 3 kiddos went to my parents. They got to have summer fun (swimming, eating fudge, learning about homemade ice cream, watching movies, etc) while Joe and I busted our behinds to make the most of the free time.

We got our stairs done! We got our bathroom door done! We got the front deck done! (no stairs yet) We got the shelves in the bathroom closet done! We got the towel bar hanging done! Weeeeeeee!!!!!

Look at our pretty bathroom door!! It is a cranberry color and covered with a red sparkly paint :) It was the door that was in the house, which was a cool door so we just wanted to rehab it. I posted a "before" photo just for comparison sake.

Here are our bathroom shelves! Now we don't have 3 giant boxes in the bathroom. We were finally able to unpack. I will probably sew some sort of curtain for this closet, but that can be a winter project.

Here are our freshly painted stairs. They are colorful!

 This is what they looked like when we bought the house:

This is what they have looked like for awhile now. We had removed the carpet, the lead paint was encapsulated, and the rail had to be fixed so the spindles were closer together for safety. I am so glad they are finally done!

Joe removed the huge posts and now you can actually see our front door. The deck has been redone and we will do stairs once we get a good base built for them.... which will likely turn into us doing the entire walkway to the street.

What the house looked like before:

 This was the front deck. The wood was just rotten and weak.

We still have LOTS of work to do, but we are getting there :) It is amazing what can happen to a house with a contractor, two handy (and pretty hard working) people, and about $35,000. Yeah, we feel broke right now. Broke, but in a home that is in much better condition than it was 2 1/2 months ago!

Getting TONS done

This weekend my parents were kind enough to take our big kids so we could get some tedious work done here at the house. 4 kids + painting stairs just wasn't going to be any fun. We are now 3 coats in on the stairs and need to put down probably one more coat quickly in the morning and then they should be good. I will save the sharing of any photos until they are done. Same with our bathroom door. I want a big 'ta-da' sort of moment for those :)

Joe also got our garbage disposal hooked up. Each time our dishwasher ran, this is what happened:

Gross, right? Now, this is what happens:

Yay! Much better!

Tomorrow I expect we will be done with the stairs and bathroom door, bathroom shelves, and front door steps :) Our big kids will also come back home :)

Notice anything different???

Things are starting to look VERY different around here. Suddenly, our house looks cheerful and bright :)

We still need to do something to make the front door appear more inviting, but we will be taking down the posts and adding front stairs. I want to repaint the front door as well.

Here is the house before:

Look what my husband built for me!

Well, it may not have been for me, but it felt like it! I have a new favorite place in the house and that is our side deck :) I got home from roller derby practice last night to find a very sore, but happy husband who had finished this big project. We sat out on the rocking chairs and enjoyed some frozen yogurt and beer together (sounds like a weird combination, but it was satisfying).