First home Fixer Upper

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! 🤞) Framing in a p...

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...

5 days until moving day. 😨😨😨😨 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...

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 ...

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! 🤞) 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... 🤪 Claire helped by standing in the window and by bei...

The past few weeks have been starting new little projects here and there. I've been trying not to post anything unless we have something finished because watching drywall mud dry is super boring.  But I have fun things to show now so here goes! Pat has been working on the kitchen a lot. We are semi updating a few things. We hadn't planned on new counter tops for a few years, but the joints in the old counters were so warped that we decided on just putting new laminate in. If you give a mouse a cookie he will want to put a new sink in.   Honestly, it looks so much better in the kitchen now, so I can't complain. The new sink is much deeper and nicer than the previous one. Pat has been working hard to demo the bedrooms and hallway to make room for the HVAC ducting and lowered ceilings. He has a buddy at work that has been helping him with sizing and tips on how to make it as efficient as possible. We are putting ceiling fans in, a whole house fan and a vent in th...

The electrical situation in the kitchen has put a big damper on our timeline. Every time Pat finishes something there is another problem that needs to be addressed before moving on.  However! He finished the lights and switches last night!  There are six lights and fortunately they are bright enough in the vaulted ceiling to need something different.  I've been working on getting the righthand wall straight. It bows in something fierce and the counters don't even touch the wall. 🤦‍♀️ Pat says I'm getting better at mudding. Yay! It's definitely messy and really drying out my hands though  🤣 I believe installing the microwave is the next step in here. Pat spent the better part of a day getting a new vent in. It was a ridiculous process because whoever worked on this house previously didn't do anything right, just good enough for a rental property. We met one of the neighbors yesterday. He's a landscaper and was giving Pat tips...