Lockjaw

Thank you all for your love and support after my last post. I want you all to know how much I truly appreciate your empathy.

As I am sure you know, though, the blog must go on. The good news is that the past week or so has been tremendous in terms of house progress. After filling up all of the insulation polka dots in the rooms, we have moved on to drywall mudding, sanding, mudding, sanding, mudding, and sanding. Yes. You have to do it at least three times on each spot. This generally means we have had to go to the house and groundhog day it for the past week.

I have gotten decent at sanding, but other than vacuuming up dust for the past few weeks, my responsibilities mostly consist of being the scapegoat and dancing around, singing 80s songs.  I do what I can.

Let's talk about that vacuum for a minute... Did you know if you accidentally plug the hose into the wrong hole the shopvac actually becomes an industrial strength crap-blower? And then there you are, surrounding by a shit-blizzard of your own doing. Lesson learned.

Anyway, we have several dozen of our holes patched and are almost completely finished patching the first floor. We even painted the PVA (drywall primer) in the kitchen and it looks like an actual room! James and Herber were able to lay the same wood flooring (made by the same company which made the original wood floors - Lanham Hardwood Flooring in Louisville) in the kitchen and match it up to the rest of the house. They replaced the beer chute hole floorboards and any other that were looking a little ragged. Next up is sanding and staining! We still aren't positive which stain color we are going for...

Oh barf! Who would do this?!

I was given the go-ahead to use the primer to start painting over the green trim and mantel in the living room. Hooray! It already looks so much better. It's the little things like white trim that make me feel like we are actually getting closer to being able to move in. Also, all of the wallpaper is removed. It may have taken a sketchy scaffolding/ladder/stepstool combo to reach it, but regardless. the house already feels decades newer.

Next up is staining the floors (when we decide what color we want...), finding foyer and hallway lights (this stresses me out way more than it should), convincing James to build me a window seat ("Are you ever going to actually sit there?"), and *starting* on the bathroom(s). Yes. Although the house is looking better, we are still technically trapped in the mid 1800s, without running water or indoor plumbing.

Also, does anyone know if we can get a group discount on Tetanus shots?