Floors

With Chuck and Kent's help, real progress has been made on the house.  Last night I stained the floor in the pantry and great room.  It turned out beautifully.  It's like a watercolor... exactly what I wanted.

Living room

And the electrician has been busy at work.  We finally have lights, power plugs that actually work, and ceiling fans.  Tomorrow morning, I will go to seal the floor in the kitchen/great room.  Friday I will be going up to Colorado Springs to pick Les up at the airport, (Yay!) then we'll put another coat of sealer on Friday evening.  

Bedroom

Saturday, the cabinets come!  Sometime next week, the plumber will come to give us a real, working bathroom.  Now don't get me wrong, the outhouse has been a delight.  It's probably got the best view of any outhouse this side of the Mississippi.  But it's still an outhouse.  Actual running water will be such a blessing.

Office

After that, we still need to finish 2 window sills.  Put the interior doors in, and we WILL be moving in by the end of February.  Just in time, too.  I don't think my aching back can take much more.  Wah!

Acid stain floor in the master bath

Master Bath

Looks like watercolor

Living room

January 15

Our shower before tile.

Les has gone to California for a few weeks to work.  We ran out of money.  NOTHING IS HAPPENING ON THE HOUSE.  It's making me crazy.

January is my busiest month.  So I can't be up there working on the house.  I have to earn money when I can - doing what I do.  Chuck has been in Las Vegas partying his big heart out this week.  So it's me and the girls.  I take them up in the morning.  And I walk around our soon-to-be home just thinking of how darn close we are.

This is what still needs to be done: Painting (about 60% of the house has been primed); the floors need to be cleaned, then stained and sealed; once that's done the cabinets need to be installed; the template for the counter top needs to be done; counter top cut and installed; showers tiled; plumbing fixtures installed; lighting fixtures installed; interior doors installed; baseboard and trim installed; move-in.

Our bedroom.

I have the cash put aside for the plumber, electrician, counter and the cabinets.  I already have all of our lighting fixtures, plumbing fixtures, doors, appliances, tile, etc.  I still have a little cash left for some of the other work, but Chase Freedom, here I come!  Thank God for good credit.  See, at this point, we can probably finish ourselves.  But with Les out of town, and me working and not in the best of shape since I tweaked my back, it will take months to finish.  In the meantime, we're paying 2 mortgages, 2 electric bills, 2 Internet bills, 2 tax bills, etc.  And once we move out of our duplex, that's rental income coming our way.

Long story short, it's making me crazy (and poor) to be waiting so long to move in.

The niche in our bedroom. (Not painted yet.)

Les starting a fire in the wood stove.

A New Year

Time just scurries on past you, doesn't it?  You're left standing there wondering what happened.

Les and I are taking the day off of work today.  Well... at least I am.  I watched 2 episodes of "Supernatural" this afternoon while Les played on his computer.  Now I'm blogging away while he sweeps the floor.  I feel guilty not helping him... that's just how I'm wired.  But not guilty enough to stop typing and go clean something.  I need a day off, damn it!  So does he, but he sees something that needs to be done, he needs to go do it.  He's a better person than I.

Maybe when he's done sweeping I will start a new book my good friend Ann gave me for Christmas.

In the meantime, the house is coming along.  We are pretty much out of money.  Chuck has made himself scarce this week as there's really not a lot for him to do right now.  The stucco guy and I have a love/hate relationship going on.  Sometimes he seems so insightful, but more often than not he's just a pain in our butts and we wish he'd hurry up and finish.

We decided to go with only 2 coats of stucco on the inside, that will save us a few thousand dollars.  Right now, our construction loan is drained, and Chase Freedom credit card will help us out with the rest of our home.  The last thing I wanted to do was to owe yet more money, but at this point we're exhausted and we need help.  I feel literally exhausted.  And we haven't even started painting yet.



"Hauling" Water.

Once the stucco crew is out of there, I will place my granite on the window ledges.  There is a lot of space to cover, but I've been spending time planning my attack on the mosaic.  When the walls dry to the point of a lower humidity, then we can start priming and painting.  We need to stain and seal the floors.  The Chuck needs to hang all of the rest of the doors.  All of the interior doors need to be hung, and the storm doors on the outside.  We need to install the plumbing fixtures and the lighting fixtures.

Filling the cisterns
 

Ab needs to install the cabinets, our granite needs to be installed.  We're going with a cheap laminate in the laundry room.  We have some marble that we brought with us from California -- I'm thinking that will look good as our master bath counter top.  Trying to do this as cheaply as possible, but the money and the energy has now dried up.  Not sure what we're going to do but keep on keeping on.

Les is leaving for California in a couple of weeks.  And January is my busiest month.  I don't see much happening with the house until he gets home.  Maybe I can throw some primer on the walls while he's gone.