This Busy Week

This week we've been as busy as ever getting the house ready.  So far since I've been back in town we have gotten a lot done.  We borrowed a power washer from someone at Michael's work and I power washed the outside of the house in front and back, the back patio and porch, the lawn chairs, the picnic table and benches, the swing set and slides, the columns on the front porch, the garage door, and the front walk way and porch.  It took a long time -- most of last Saturday -- and it's pretty cool how well a power washer works -- someday I think it'd be nice to have one of those, and a nail gun too -- those are both tools we've borrowed from friends that sure make some jobs easier.

Anyway, we also cleaned, sanded, and stained the deck after power washing it.  Michael has mowed the lawn and trimmed the bushes, and the boys have spent several days digging up dandelions in the yard.   I borrowed a leaf blower and used it to blow all the winter's dust out of the garage and get it all cleaned up.  And we sold the basketball hoop, and gave away the toddler bed.  I also spent quite a bit of time searching for throw pillows to match the new comforter set that we got on sale last winter for the master bedroom.  After finding those, I searched around some more and found some throw pillows and a few throws for the couches throughout the house, and I think they look really nice.  And I picked up some new towels for the bathrooms, and for some house plants.  We've since decided that we quite like having house plants, especially the large palm-ish ones that we got for the family and living rooms and the master bedroom.  (The only reason I never got plants before is that I didn't want to worry about remembering to water them, but Michael said that he likes them enough to water them, so I think we'll probably get some more when we get moved into our next house).  I picked up an area rug for the basement too (since our realtor's suggestion of getting a carpet remnant bound was too pricey, so we figured this is at least something, and it's actually and indoor-outdoor rug, so there'll be plenty of places to use it in the next house.  And we got a few more floor lamps, which have helped to brighten things up a little.

I also got a few decorative items and added them to some things that we already had around the house to spiff up the bookshelves in the study, and the shelves in the entertainment center.  I cleared all the books off the 4 bookshelves in the study, and they're now ready to remove 2 of the shelves, with lots of free space on the remaining shelves.  It's a lot of work to "de-clutter" the house, but once we box up all the items we can possibly get by without for the next few months, it really does look nice.  And they're right: the rooms, closets, shelves, and drawers do look a lot more spacious when they only have a few things in them.  :)

So far the family room, living room, downstairs bathroom, hall closet, kitchen and nook, pantry closet, and basement have all been de-cluttered.  Now I just have the bedrooms, upstairs bath, and the garage to go.  We've also been doing a lot of painting.  By the time we get done, every room in the house will have fresh paint.  So far we've touched up the paint on the whole main floor, and upstairs all except one bedrooms and the master closet, and on the doors and door frames in the garage, the columns and woodwork around the front porch, and I'm almost done painting the big garage doors inside and out.

Our realtor also said it would be good to get a little table with 4 chairs for the kitchen nook so it can be advertised as an eat in kitchen (we have always just used our dining room table for all our meals).  We searched around and found one nice round pedestal table with four chairs and a leaf that had all recently been painted black on craigslist for $120 (everything else we could find for such a low price was in pretty bad shape, or really outdated looking).  So Michael drove about an hour yesterday to go pick them up, and we were so pleased with how the nook ended up looking.  I'll have to take photos and post them later.

We also removed the old mirror in the downstairs bathroom that was just attached to the wall with plastic clips, and replaced it with a large mirror in a nice frame that we got years ago and had hanging in another room.  The mirror just happened to match the bathroom finishes perfectly.  I was pleased with how it turned out, because I always thought that the downstairs bathroom was a little lacking in comparison with the upstairs bathroom that has been completely remodeled, and I think adding the mirror really makes it feel a little more finished.

And last night we took down one of the bunks in the boys' room (the bunk beds we have can come apart into two separate twin beds, so we decided to remove one so the room would look larger).  We also added some base boards around the post for the hand rail at the top of the stairs -- to cover up the ugly nails and screws that the previous owners had left sticking out all around the base of the post.  Oh, and we wanted to fix every little thing from the home inspection when we bought the house, so we put up a hand rail on the part of the stairs where there wasn't any railing -- Michael stained it a natural color to match the railing at the bottom of the stairs, and I think it matches well.  Michael also patched a large hole in the drywall in the garage that was there before we moved here (also something from our inspection) and re-painted that wall, and it looks great.  Oh, and we have polished the wood on the cabinets, stair railings, dining room table, and some of the other furniture (Michael picked up this wood polish that I like called "Liquid Gold" which has a good smell that reminds me of almonds).  And we've washed the couch slip covers, some of the curtains, the shower curtain liner, and the bedding and comforters in the kids' rooms so we'll be all set with clean things to lay out when we show the house.  And we got some white moulding and Michael cut it, then I attached it to the top of the kitchen counter backsplash (to replace the old ugly moulding that we removed years ago when we were removing wallpaper in the kitchen).  I caulked that, and also added caulk around the little gaps along the side of the steps on the stairway, so those look more finished now.

Another big thing that we did this week (that didn't have anything to do with the house) was swim lessons.  I happened to find out that the local YMCAs offer free swim lessons for a week (usually during spring break) for kids who don't have much swimming experience.  So I signed them up, and I'm glad I did because they really enjoyed it, and it was nice to have something really fun for them to do over spring break, especially with me spending so much of the rest of the days working on the house.  They got to take lessons from Monday through Thursday, and by the end of the time Lijah was swimming on his own too (along with Kolby), and the three younger boys were having a ball in the water (while wearing their life jackets).  On Friday night we took a break from working on the house and went for the free family swim night for the families of kids who participated in the splash week lessons.  We had a lot of fun.  I was telling Michael that maybe we should find a house with a pool, the boys are having so much fun in the water lately (as long as Michael isn't disappointed by the fact that I would spend a lot more time in the jacuzzi than in the pool, since I'm such a wimp around cold water).  We'll see, but I'm thinking that might be fun, and it won't be very many years before the boys will all be old enough that a pool wouldn't be too scary with little kids around, plus it's always nice to have something fun like a pool to draw the kids and their friends to your house once they're teenagers, so we'll see about that).

All we have left now is to have the driveway sealed, to finish de-cluttering and packing up the last few rooms, plant a few flowers in the yard (we're waiting on that one until the last minute while the weather's still cool at night), touch up the paint on the main stairs and the basement stairs and finish painting the garage doors, hang up a few pictures, sell the china cabinet and a small bookshelf on craigslist, clean out the fridge and microwave, touch up the paint in the basement and one more bedroom, clean a few more windows, and do a few other little things.  It really doesn't sound like a ton of work, although it will be hard to get it all done in one more week (the deadline I've set for myself in my head, then Michael can get back to studying hard for his upcoming board exam, and I can sit down and have a chance to breath again).

After that all we'll have to do it get the floors and counters nice and clean and keep them that way until we sell the house -- my big strategy for that will be to keep the kids out of the house as much as possible, so we'll hope for good weather so we can spend lots of time on walks and at the playgrounds.  We're doing everything we possibly can to get this house in perfect shape so it will sell quickly and for as much as we need it to.  We would really appreciate our family's and friends' prayers for us about this over the next few months.