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Ta-da!

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We had a deadline and it approached quickly! My little sister got married a week ago and we had to get the guest room finished for my older sister to come stay with us. It was a blessing, to be honest. This work is emotionally and physically exhausting, so having a deadline forced us to get our little bums in gear. Pat worked tirelessly to get the drywall prepped and sanded for texture and paint! I'm beginning to hate drywall and its blasted mud. Here it is, ready for texture and paint. Luckily, Pat has been working on my moms house for the past 3 years and he already has a lot of the tools needed for our own house. With an air compresser and a texture gun and paint sprayer, he took care of most of it in a day!  The day before my sister was going to arrive, it was my turn to paint. Or so I thought. As soon as I got the paint stuff ready, both boys were begging me to help. I honestly loved the idea. Joshua got to paint his own bedroom. He took so much pride and was so ca
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Baby steps!

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If you aren't in construction (like me and most people) you have no idea how immense the internals of a home are. Between wiring, vents, ducting, air flow in the attic and so much more that my husband has told me about and I cannot for the life of me remember the names of, modern homes are more complicated than a MySpace relationship. Work has been slow going because of illness and injury. Pat and I both working working opposite full time hours and just pure exhaustion. I've heard that a new home can be taxing on a relationship and for us there is just not enough time for connection with everything going on. We will pull through it like we have pulled through everything else. It's just HARD right now! I miss those relaxing quiet moments. We decided that because all of the walls have lead paint underneath approximately 500 layers of latex paint, we are going to replace most if not all of the drywall in the house. We are always adding more work for our
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Just quick update

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There hasn't been a ton of aesthetically pleasing aspects of our renovation recently, so I haven't had much to update. However! We have AC! Pat finished the ducting and got everything set to turn on the air conditioning. It has been needed greatly the past few weeks! Apparently California is getting a super early summer. Most of our days have been 90+ for the past 2 weeks. Thank goodness we are now comfortable in the house. Pat installed a nest thermostat and it is so cool! I love that we can change the temperature from our phones wherever we are! Plus it looks so pretty! 😍 Pat also installed a whole house fan and is working on getting the ceilings in so we don't have to air condition the attic anymore. 🙈 We also moved the refrigerator from the garage into the kitchen! It's been so nice to have it where it belongs.  Upcoming projects: Ceilings for the bedrooms (and maybe moving us all into our respective bedrooms! ðŸĪž) Framing in a p
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Moving Day and the heatwave.

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This post is a little late, but I think I am finally out of my panic induced days long freeze. More on that later. Last Saturday we packed up the moving truck with the help of our lovely church family. The truck was loaded in under an hour! Pat left with the moving truck and it was around this time I realized my minivan keys were gone. We must have searched high and low for an hour. I called Pat crying because I just had no idea what to do. We ended up piling all the kids into my mom's car and left the van at my moms house until the keys showed up. We thought maybe they ended up in one of the last boxes we packed of everyday use items.  This was not the case. Pat and his best friend unloaded the truck in record time! However because the bedrooms are still under construction all of the boxes had to be stored in the front two rooms and the kids also had to sleep there. The house was a hot mess! We actually joked about making forts out of the moving boxes for the kids. My mom and I un
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T minus 5!

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5 days until moving day. ðŸ˜ĻðŸ˜ĻðŸ˜ĻðŸ˜Ļ This week will be all about getting the house ready to move in. We decided a month ago that we are moving on the 17th, ready or not.  We are definitely not ready, but the moving truck will be here at 8 am on Saturday, so we are getting our little butts in gear! Last Saturday was my first weekend day off since we bought the house! We spent all day there preparing the kitchen.  Before we started we didn't have a sink or microwave or oven and I wasn't about to move into the house without a way to cook and wash my hands. I am happy to say we now have a functional kitchen!  Yay! Yay yay yay!! I am pretty pleased with how the kitchen is turning out. This was not our priority project initially, but it quickly turned into a priority once we realized how central it was to all of our other plans.  We still have some finishing touches to make the kitchen prettier, but once we move in we will have so much more time to get things don
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Viva Chavez!

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Pat woke up this morning with a surprise day off for Cesar Chavez day! We decided to spend the whole day at the house and try and get some work done.  I put a countdown to moving day widget on my phone screen and it's just stressing me out more than it is exciting me. 17 days left and there is still SO much to do. We got a ton done today though! I started in the master bedroom putting in insulation and hanging drywall. That stuff is dang heavy! But look what I did! I'm pretty proud of myself. I like learning from Pat. He's a good teacher and very patient with me; like when I sanded the drywall mud into his freshly siliconed sink. Sorry babe. 😎 Pat worked on getting some ducts put together. We are one length short though, so we have to wait to put it in the ceiling until we can get another one fabricated.  He is so awesome. He has never put in an HVAC system, but he has done so much research and figured it out! He has an incredible eye for detail and does every
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The one where I did some real work

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Pat explained to me tonight that any help I give him, whether it's cleaning, mudding, watching the kids, etc is real work that he really appreciates. I, however, have been feeling a little left out of the renovation process.  After I put yet another layer of mud on the kitchen (Hopefully the last! ðŸĪž) I asked him for a job to do.  You guys, he let me tear out a whole wall! I did that! I learned how to use an oscillating tool! I was popping nails out of the studs like a pro! I feel so strong! But also really weak. My arms are like jello right now. Hammers are heavy! Pat joked that most people renovate by putting up new blinds and maybe windows. We do everything the hard way and tear out walls and install our own HVAC system. Out with the old, in with the new! Pat worked on getting some framing and ducting installed in the master bedroom.  We have this material much left... ðŸĪŠ Claire helped by standing in the window and by being really
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