Day 2: Learning that there is a lot to learn!

The first thing Mom taught us was to make lists!  So, Ashley started off her Sunday at 9:30am making her first official trek to Home Depot for the house.  The big orange letters looked down at her as she entered what seemed like a black hole of housing and gardening supplies!  Intimidated would be an understatement to how she felt!  The moment she walked in, a nice older gentleman asked if he could help her. HA!  He had NO idea what he was in for.  She kindly explained she had a list and his eyes opened up as big as golfballs and that "Oh sh*t" look appeared on his face.  He kindly pointed her in the right direction, with a sigh of relief.


In no time at all, another younger gentleman aided her 1,000 questions and supplied her with what she needed to fill holes in wood and to paint the kitchen cabinets.  After a quick stop at Walmart for some other small things for the house, she was ready!  While Ashley rewashed the cabinets with a cleaning solution (pre-painting), Brendan worked hard on moving all of our patio furniture to the garage.

Before

After - Cabinet doors removed for painting!

Our friend Cory stopped by to take a look at our hardwood floors. Cory has refinished several hardwood floors, including his own, and has done a beautiful job. We have hardwood floors in the living room and dining room, and upstairs (underneath carpet), but we're only interested in refinishing the downstairs. Cory took the time to explain every step of the process to us and gave us a ballpark estimate of how much it might cost to do.  After talking it over, we came to the decision that we are going to wait until summer.  It would have been nice to have the hardwood floors done before we officially moved in, but we made our choice for several reasons. First, because of the size of the floors, it's approximately a two week job from start to finish; time we just don't have. Second, the forced air vents would need to be covered to prevent dust from getting into the ducts, but with the cold winter months, the heat needs to be on and the vents need to be cleared.  Lastly, Cory has offered to help us refinish the floors, but with his schedule, he wouldn't be able to work on it this month. Soooo, we will wait until summer to do the floors, that way we can have Cory show us the way and we won't have to worry about taking time off from school to get the job done! Although our furniture will be in the house, it will be easy to move everything into the kitchen and family room to make space!

Cory also offered us advice for several questions we had, such as filling in holes, fixing different things, etc... Before he left, he offered us some great personal advice too.  He reminded us that although we're overwhelmed and we are wanting to get it all done right away, it's important to do it slowly so you can enjoy it. He, and many others, have suggested working on one room at a time so you feel like you are accomplishing something, instead of doing several projects in several rooms. We want to make this house POP, but we need to take time blowing up the balloon first...........bad analogy, but you get the point!

We ended our afternoon by washing walls and taking off every cabinet door in the kitchen in preparation for a much needed painting overhaul! The biggest challenge we faced was trying to unscrew many stripped screws.  There is a large desk attached to the wall in the family room that we want to get rid of, but too many of the screws were stripped, making it impossible to remove.  After some quick research, it looks like our best bet will be to use an electric drill to remove them.

Screw you, stripped screws!