Anthony & Erin

Laminate floors we laid ourselves, and our messy office that still needs unpacking!

Things have been crazy.

I don’t say that sarcastically. I say that in all seriousness.

I might be losing it.

We finally moved into our new house. Our landlady didn’t want us to go. She needs the income. But it’s not our fault we were kicked out so her daughter could move in, then her daughter flaked on her and moved back to Florida.

So we left, mid-January, despite our landlady’s offer of staying until our house was renovated.

I’d been slowly moving items to the house for a while, but was still surprised at just how much we had left. Even though we only moved out here a year ago, we somehow accumulated a fair amount of junk. Which was easier to throw in the car and move, than to sort through first.

On Monday we were finally “moved in” meaning we no longer had things at our apartment, and instead all of our belongings were crammed into a few rooms at the house, and still in boxes. The most necessary rooms, the kitchen and bathroom, can’t be moved into until the renovations are complete, so walking through the living room means dodging pots and pans and stumbling over cans of tomato sauce.

But we’re finally in our house.

After moving in, we had a few things scheduled to happen pretty quickly. None of which occurred.

The contractor was supposed to start work on Monday. This was after he had delayed from the previous Monday. He’s now starting on Thursday. Wait scratch that, next Monday.

Internet was supposed to be installed on Wednesday, but was delayed until the following Wednesday. After an irate phone call it was installed on Friday, but at the cost of drilling holes in our hardwood floors.

The appliances were supposed to be delivered on Friday. They were, and were promptly sent back because they were dented.

Preparations for an upcoming trip (which included such fun things as yellow fever vaccinations and malaria pills) have been thrown in whenever possible–causing added stress to an already stressful move and renovation.

Most of the renovation meetings, travel prep, and organization has fallen to me. Which makes sense as Anthony’s work doesn’t allow him much flexibility. However, I may very well stab the next contractor who delays work or damages my house. I have been cramming in client work whenever possible which means my days have been 12+ hours of working on the house, working on client projects, following up with contractors, and prepping for our trip.

Sometimes it would just be nice if people did what they said they were going to do, when they said they were going to do it.

After a few weeks, we finally have our kitchen cabinets back up! I will write a post on how we did them once I can take a proper after photo (with new counters, a floor, and appliances in place), but let me tell you, this is not something I really recommend doing. SIX hours of sanding, and SIX DAYS of painting–and all anyone comments on is how nice the handles look. Overall I wouldn’t say painting cabinets is difficult, but it’s really time consuming and tedious. My hands still haven’t quite un-cramped from holding a paintbrush nonstop for a week.

Now that the cabinets are looking pretty spiffy, we will be getting new countertops. We debated over getting quartz, which is my dream countertop, but in the end they would have been too nice to put on 60-year-old cabinets. So we’ll save a lot of money and get some nice laminate counters which will be just fine in our 1958 ranch.

For flooring…man, what a hassle. We originally had tile over three layers of linoleum which was a BEAST to get up. We ended up getting some help from a guy off Craigslist. Then, the great debate began. Tile would be a problem because the subfloor is nearly level with the hardwoods (this home was designed for linoleum floors) and would be a big transition. And as practical as linoleum is, we couldn’t find any we actually liked. We briefly thought about cork as we had heard good things about it, but soon found out that it can swell with moisture (no good for a kitchen). So a dark wood-like laminate was our final decision. And we’re gonna try to install it ourselves. We’ll see if we’re still married by the end of it.

Right now, we’re in a rush to get an electrician in, because after removing the dishwasher we found that there’s no ground wire or anything and Home Depot won’t install our new one with the electrical the way it is. So we’ll get that fixed as well as get those 2-prong outlets changed to GFCIs so we don’t electrocute ourselves when we use the kitchen.

We’re hoping to be moved in within the next two weeks–we’ll see how much of a kitchen we have at that point and just pretend we’re camping or something if it’s not done. That’ll be fun, right?