Temari Stash

I've had a few people ask me if I've found room for my craft supplies, yet. I did make sure that the things I use pretty regularly (temari and knitting supplies) are stashed in the top of the closet in our bedroom. Everything else will be stored in the utility room, once we get the boxes currently in there unpacked. I may not have all the toilet paper unpacked, but by golly I can stitch away the stress!

Just Stop!

We have been busy little beavers since my last post, and things have certainly gotten better :o)

Last Thursday Nicholas went to school without protest, we got some shopping done for odds and ends, and we started moving the kitchen and bathrooms in.

The afternoon was spent scraping more wallpaper with the Depies and some of Katie's biology study group. We discussed genetics and probability, made some contractor-ish jokes, and worked our fannies off. With much steam, Diff, elbow grease and teamwork, Katie's room was finally freed from it's wallpaper cocoon.

Also, somewhere during all this Paula pointed out that we had set our goals way too high and it was adding unnecessary stress to the move. Thank goodness for wise friends! After realizing that she was the most brilliant woman in the world, we reassessed our time and budget Thursday evening. Instead of trying to strip, wash, sand and paint pretty much the entire house, clean all the carpets, scrub the house from top to bottom and have it all done by Friday so Nicholas could have a sleepover for his birthday, we scaled back to getting the messy work done by Friday and moved the party back a week. (Actually, I'd already moved the party because Nicholas didn't go to school Wednesday.) What were we thinking?!?

"Homey the Mover" showed up Thursday night and helped move in lots more boxes, and then David stayed up till the wee hours of the morning running a steam cleaner over the Den and Living Room carpets while I took the kids home to bed.

Friday morning, David went to run errands while I did my volunteer time up at Michael's school. We met back at the house and about that time David's brother, Jim, pulled up in our driveway, ready to get to work. We were so happy to see him and decided that the first order of business was to go out to Casa Fiesta for lunch so we could catch up and build up our stores of energy.

After lunch it was time to start running the carpool, so we picked up the high school crowd and I called Paula to tell her I needed to borrow Kelsey for about 30 minutes. (She actually ended up going home the next morning....)

The rest of Friday night was spent just doing it. David, Jim, Jeff and the kids made several loads back and forth filling up our truck, Jim's truck, and Jeff's car. We decided to go ahead and get the beds moved, so of course we had to bring the cat, too.
I managed to stick a roast in the oven, and we had gotten some kitchen things unpacked so we had dinner on china plates and drinks out of coffee mugs and mason jars. Redneck moving day.

Jim stayed until Saturday afternoon and helped up get the last of the big stuff, and Jeff came over Saturday to help finish up the job. Sunday we celebrated Nicholas's 8th birthday and went over and swept out the old place. We hired someone to do the cleaning, but wanted to at least get the floor swept and garage blown out.

Nicholas had a good birthday, with presents from the grandparents in the morning. The rest of us hadn't had time to shop, so I took Katie and Michael to Target while David and Nicholas started on the house. When we met up with them we asked Nicholas if he wanted his presents "wrapped" or "now". He chose "now" and just dug through the trunk and took what he wanted.

So now we are here, pinching ourselves to make sure it is all real. We are working on a realistic list of things to do around the house, as time and finances permit. We will continue to post updates about that and whatever else is going on with us. We hope to get things put away enough soon to have a housewarming party and let everyone see God's blessing to us in person. In the meantime, you can come and sit among the boxes with us Sunday to watch the Superbowl.

Busy Day

Today didn't get off to such a great start. Nicholas had a hard time adjusting the last time we moved, but has seemed fine with it this time around. Well, today, not so much. He ended up spending the day with us at the new house.

We had lots of workers buzzing around. The carpet people came and stretched the carpet and pulled it up in the hallway and by the front door. It looks pretty good underneath except for a couple of places by the back bedrooms. We'll clean it and stain the bare spots something close until we can get it refinished. It really opened up the hallway and created a nice entry way.

We had a guy in to clean our duct work and such. Got off to a shaky start when he blew a couple of 20 amp fuses (we have the old screw in kind). He went to the hardware store and got replacements and fortunately things were fine after that. Apparently old fuses blow easier. He cleaned and vacuumed and scrubbed our HVAC system most of the afternoon. Ahhhh.... Fresh air!

David got the new stove in today, too. I am looking forward to cooking on it soon. We're hoping to get the kitchen and bathrooms moved in tomorrow so I'll have some pans and food to work with.

I got the kitchen cabinets cleaned and lined, with some help from Paula D. She and Doug stopped by to help and they went to town on all that wallpaper. All of it in our bedroom and bathroom is down, and Katie's is almost half way. It's got several layers on the walls and is much harder to get off.

Tomorrow we are planning to get all the bedroom walls stripped (a border in Michael's room and the rest of Katie's), patched, sanded, cleaned and taped for painting, and clean the carpet in the den, living room and dining room, along with moving the kitchen and bathrooms. Then on Friday we hope to see how far we can get with painting the bedrooms and move in the Living room, Dining room and office. Saturday will hopefully be our first night there with our beds. Whew!

I think we've learned two big lessons today. First of all, we don't have the time or money to do everything we thought we could this week :o)
The second is that we could do even less without our friends. We had Joe and Rhonda, Doug and Paula, Vicki, Kelsey, Barrett, and Jeff all show up to help out today. That must be why Katie's fortune cookie offered this comment, "You will have many friends when you need them."

Wallpaper Scraping

The first thing we started doing Monday night was pulling down wallpaper. We pulled, we sprayed, we scraped and we steamed. Here's how it looks now.

Big Thanks to Sandy and Fiona for loaning us their scorer and steamer. It made it so much easier! We are hoping to finish stripping paper and washing walls tomorrow, as well as getting the kitchen and bathrooms cleaned and all the drawers and shelves lined.

Since we didn't get much sleep last night and the boys have been struggling to get their homework done, we decided to head home at supper time today. While we were there, the kids tried out the trees to see how good they were for climbing. They seemed to work out just fine.

A fish hit me in the head!

I was cleaning those red cabinets in the utility room this morning and reached way up high to take out the top shelf. I tilted toward me to wedge it out and WHAM! I got hit in the head with a fish. Thankfully, neither my head or the fish was busted, but it almost made me cry. I'll take a picture of the fish tomorrow. At least he didn't get away!

The quest for a stove

When we first looked at this house they had a huge stove that David commented was just like one his mom (or maybe grandmother) had used. He thought it looked pretty cool (and I agreed) and so we asked for it as part of the contract on the house. They told us they were giving it to a cousin, so I picked a new one out at Lowe's.

David went to get the new stove last night along with some other "new house" items right about Lowe's closing time. He got everything we needed, got the stove loaded on the truck and stopped by the old house to get the appliance dolly. He was on the phone with me and suddenly said something like, "So, if I bought a Fridgedare and the box in the truck says Tappan, should I open it and make sure it's the right stove?" And it was the wrong stove. And Lowe's was closed. And he had to work today. Yuck! I called Lowe's and used all my charm (stop laughing) but still couldn't convince them that they should deliver the new one and haul the wrong one away without any charge.

Moral of the story? The greater the inconvenience, the more likely you will get the wrong box.

The stove switch happens first thing tomorrow and then we are that much closer to fresh cookies at the new location of the Buchanan Bistro.

Finished!

Hurray! We are officially the owners (along with the mortgage company) of our new home. Everything thing went smoothly and we didn't even get hand cramps from all that signing.

We didn't know the final amount to bring to closing until about 45 minutes before we were scheduled to be there, and we spent most of that time in line at the bank getting a cashier's check. Other than that, it was pretty painless.

We ran by the house for a few minutes after picking the children up from school, and we are now at the "other" house getting ready to take enough supplies over to have a camp out tonight. We will spend the rest of this week scrapping wallpaper, painting, cleaning the bathrooms and the kitchen, putting in shelf liner, cleaning the carpet and moving boxes, furniture, cats and everything else. Should be pretty exhausting, but fun.

David is off most of this week so we hope to get a lot done, and we will try to post pictures of our progress.

Can't wait for you to stop by!

Walk Through

We had our final walk through this afternoon. It was fun to be able to visit the house again. It is starting to feel more like home.

Roy was there to let us in and Jeff came along to get a sneak preview. The owners had gotten most of the house cleaned out, although they left some items behind. We will have plenty of cleaning up and out to do this week!

Here are some "before" pictures.

We have a Closing Date...

We just got a call from our wonderful Realtor (who has patiently worked with us for over a year) and closing is set for 1:30 Monday afternoon. We've got our walk-through Saturday morning, and then only two days before we have a home to call our own. Lots of work ahead, but lots of fun, too.

Welcome!

The Buchanans have entered the Blog world! My intention is for this blog to chronicle our move into our new home and the changes we make as start this new season. Chances are with my propensity to scatter words about, that there will be plenty of other things to share, as well. My guess is Katie will be a regular contributor, as she is our family webster. You may also hear from the Buchanan men from time to time, but they tend to be a bit quieter than the females in the family. :o)

Now, let's see how this all works out...