After buying our home we:
PAINTED: The original plan was to higher out the painting job. I wanted the brown molding turned white and all the walls painted. Well, upon closer inspection we needed to put in new carpet. So the money we were going to use for painting and lots of fun little updating we spent on carpet...
It took almost 2 weeks to paint the trim. De-gloss, Primer, 2 coats of white paint. We were in over our heads painting and thankfully the Damascus Missionaries came to our rescue. We are now living in a mission where the Sisters and Elders are not allowed to tract, they are to focus on serving ward members and their friends. Awesome. The Sisters and Elders came 3 nights to help us paint trim and walls, so grateful! We made the kids camp out on the floor in the basement night after night until 1 or 2 A.M. We painted all closets and rooms. It has made such a huge difference, the low ceilings don't feel so low and the house feels clean.
***Choosing paint color is hard! Especially when you're in a hurry. We did all the trim and most of the walls in Behr paint, it took several coats and more hours than we had to give. We have learned that Benjamin Moore paint is Awesome! We did our living room in Benjamin Moore paint, it cost two times the amount but is so worth it because we only had to put on one coat!!!! Wish we had bought it for all the rooms.***
I only took a before and after of the living room but the other rooms improved in the same way.
Before
During
The final roll
After
My kids loved being around the missionaires. The sisters, who painted the girls room pink, also painted hearts on their feet.
The Elders
Our "Harry Potter" room or "Time-Out" closet in the kitchen.
PACKING: I started packing as soon as the original offer on the house was accepted. At that point Clara was more mobile, pulling herself up to all the boxes and pulling out all that I was packing. Nice little helper.
MOVING DAY: As Dan and I talked about how exactly we were going to move he really didn't want to call on the ward members for help. So, the original plan was for us to move everything on our own but the heavy items and then hire a moving company to do the heavy stuff. Since painting took so long we ended up announcing our move at church. By Wednesday May 29th I had all of the house boxed up with color coded sticky notes taped to every box. I had a couple of posters ready to show those who helped where to put the color coded boxes. Because our carpet wouldn't come for up to 2 weeks everything would go in the kitchen, living room (hard wood floor), Dungeon Room, Food Storage Room, or Garage.
Wednesday we picked up the Uhaul truck at 3pm and had people started showing up by 5. Young Men and Cub Scouts made our move their activity. It was amazing to see how many showed up! We had 30 sets of hands helping us lift all the boxes and dressers. It took a total of an hour and a half to load the huge truck, drive 10 minutes to our new house and unload. We rewarded everyone with soda and ice cream sandwiches. Dan and I were so grateful for the support that night!
Moving is a huge pain. I didn't realize just how easy we had it when movers came and packed up our little family of 4 and moved us up here 5 years ago! Hopefully the next time we move it will be like that again:)
RIDING MOWER: We bought us a JOHN DEER! Dan researched riding lawn mowers and found us a great deal. When I was mowing our very long grass the first time I just about ran over a baby bunny. Yep, we have a mama and 2 baby bunnies living in our backyard. It is actually really fun to drive it especially when the weather is nice. Jake can't wait till he gets to mow the lawn.
RE-KEYed all the doors.
CARPET: Carpet wasn't in our original plan but because of all the pets that the owner had in the house (we learned her daughter was a VET and brought several home with her) it was a must. We learned that after finishing the final carpet order it would take three weeks to have it shipped to Home Depot. We were moving in at the point in a week so we tried to decide as quickly as possible what we wanted. After pricing it out we went with Home Depot. We moved everything over to the new house on Thursday, May 30th. At around 4pm that day Dan got a call from Home Depot saying our carpet was in and could be installed the very next day. Yes Please! To save money Dan had planned to rip out the carpet and matting himself. It was crunch time once again! After calling to see if anyone was available to help him he took Jake and was up until 3A.M. getting it done. I finished the cleaning and stayed on the floor at the townhouse one last night with the girls. The Damascus Elders once again came to the rescue until 930pm when they had to head home. Poor Dan lifted all the old matting and carpet into his friends pick-up on his own. It took 2 trips to the dump to get rid of it all. Dan saved us at lease $1000 by doing all the work on his own.
After the carpet was installed Dan realized the doors would not fit back on because of the thicker carpet. Luckily our friends the Eastley's had a carpenter plainer and loaned it to us. Dan spent a week sanding down the doors and getting them to fit back on.
HOWEVER---Just our luck, we noticed within a couple days that the carpet had lots of hard spots all throughout the floor. We called and immediately the installers had a worker come out to inspect. Turns out the matting we used was made with recycled material that happened to have hard rocks all throughout...just a bad batch I guess. So, we had to move all the furniture again, (Amidst having friends from SC stay with us!) and the installers ripped up the carpet, put down new thicker matting and rolled our carpet back over the top. Poor Dan had to take down all the doors, and once again use the plainer to adjust them to the new thicker matting. We've been here for almost a month and doors are finally back on, for good. The carpet feels great and really helps lighten up our ranch-style home.
New Carpet
SEPTIC:
The Paperwork---It took three tries to get all the paper work in. (Paper work that needed Dan and I to be present for signing so Dan had to take more time off of work.) First time we tried to go up with the paperwork Jake threw up right as we were headed out the door. Second time we went all the way up there only to find that they were closed that FRIDAY because it was Memorial Day weekend. We did try to call but the secretary just had an away from her desk auto response and we didn't think about the holiday weekend. Third time was the charm. We drove up to Frederick and had the project manageer sign the papers, had a notary present, then went to the court house to get a signature from the Clerk of Circuit Court, and then headed back to the main office to drop it off. It was a big hassle amidst all the painting a moving craziness but totally worth the free septic tank! $14000!
Installation---After moving in we had a couple of weeks to get the septic tank put in before unused grant money would be returned. Trying to get a hold of our septic guy was next to impossibe. We had a lot of rainy days which pushed the installation back day after day after day. Finally, right after our second installation of carpet and 5 days before I headed to Utah we had it installed.
The kids loved being here to watch all the heavy machinery and trucks in the back yard. We had a neighbor boy, Dalton who is Jake's age, over the entire time. I over heard Dalton tell Jake, "you're so lucky!" Kids are so easily pleased, I need to be more like that!
I have leaned that a new septic system is a long process from start to finish. We had a huge Backo tractor in our backyard right up to the night before I left town. I was incredibly frustrated with the poor communication skills of the man in charge of this project. I had to threaten him that his Backo would be locked in our backyard for 2 weeks before he finally came to get it. Our backyard is a mess now. Over the next couple of months they will grade the back and reseed the area around the septic tank. The drain field will be tested in a couple week and hopefully the new oxygenated system will "heal" our field so that we don't have fork out another 5K to have that replaced.
Luckily we have a ginormous yard so it really leaves plenty of good space to play.
POOL: We have an above ground pool with a nice big deck attatched. Since Dan and and I were so busy with all our moving projects the tarp on top of the pool filled with gallons of rain water. We quickly heard loud frogs at night enjoying the pond/pool top, they are kinda annoying. Before leaving for his cross country road trip, Dan pumped out the water from the top of the pool. It had thousands of tadpoles and took 2 full days to pump out.
We are not sure if we are keeping the pool. We thought we'd clean it and give it a try but the septic guys accidentally cut a wire so we can't clean it yet. A project yet to be finished.
The Little Things: I spent three days on my hands and knees stripping and waxing our linoleum floor amidst shoo-ing the kids to play in the backyard, love our yard. The netting on the trampoline, which is the kids favorite toy, came off so Dan had to fix that within about a week of using the tramp. I thought I had all my responsibilities as Cub Scout Day Camp Coordinator done before we closed on our house but little things kept coming up that added to all the craziness.
Throughout this move I have wished more than any other time that we lived closed to my family. I am so grateful for a supportive family and parents who taught us to be that way.
Dan took 7 days off of work for this move! I was really concerned about this with a 2 week vacation and huge road trip ahead for him. At the end of June Dan was given a special award at work for his hard work on a case he ended up testifying in court over. Guess what his award was, 2 days vacation time! Thank You Heavenly Father!
Dan and I feel like the Lord has guided us to make this move and has helped us to get through all this hard work!
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