Post-Parent-Post

I can not believe it has been 12 days since I updated everyone!  As you know from my previous blog, my parents came to town and got to work.  They were a ton of help tearing out lath and plaster (which we will call L&P from now on) while we were at work.  I think the best part was we got to visit with them in the evenings without feeling like we were falling behind on house stuff.  It was nasty, dirty work they were doing and we appreciated it so much, thank you mom and dad! I also had my ten year reunion last weekend, which ended up being a lot of fun!  Thank you Barkley for all the help with that.    

Barkley and I at our 10 year reunion

So now house progress: Sean is still working on engineering how to remove this framing while making sure the house doesn't fall down.  Apparently, it is load bearing so we need the structural support. I have no doubt in my mind that he will come up with something that looks amazing though.

Looking through the living room at the
pre-existing wall

The same view with the wall removed, opening the kitchen
up to the living room.  

We also took out the two windows and the door that make up the wall that separates the kitchen from the back porch/ laundry room.  We know we want to put our refrigerator on one side and figured it wouldn't look proportionate if we left one window with the door.  We can always close it up later or leave it open to a breakfast nook?

We also tore up the kitchen floor linoleum, which was pretty backbreaking work.  It also left a nasty black adhesive on the hardwood floor, which will probably be a mess when we go to sand and refinish the floors.  However, we figured it would be best to leave it then risk gouging our soft fir floors trying to remove it.  Sean also got up in the attic and pushed all the L&P ceiling down.  We have toyed around with the idea of doing a drop ceiling in the kitchen.  We want to keep the cove ceiling in the living room and we think a drop ceiling would be a great transition into the kitchen (thanks for the idea, mom).

This is the best picture I have of the floors, unfortunately.  But you can also
see how open this area is with those two "walls" removed.  Hi dad!

The "Jack and Jill" bathroom L&P was removed completely and the door to one side (we'll call it the Jill side) was taken off because we will be closing it off.  That bathroom just is not big enough for all those doors.  Plus the other bathroom is right off that bedroom so it doesn't need access.  We are considering pushing out the other wall in this bathroom, that backs up against the closet, to open up the bathroom more, but that will more than likely happen down the road. Sean also pushed the L&P ceiling down from the attic in here.  There was a funky head space closed off above the shower, so now its open for design.

Wall on right may still be going, not quite sure yet... 

The small bathroom off the porch will be staying put for now as we will be using it when we move in, but is getting somewhat of a face lift.  We got a new toilet, obviously needed.  Sean will be installing that this week.  We also put a used, but cleaner and newer than the existing, sink in.  I really need to clean that bathroom this week... Not looking forward to it.

Dad installing "newer" bathroom sink.  We still don't want to put anything
 nice into this area we going to be remodeling. 

We made a decision to move into the front room when we move in, so we wanted to get a jump on making that room "live-able."  Orange and yellow walls are not live-able to me, therefore we need to paint.  Before we paint, we want to texture as there have been many patches to cover cracks in the plaster.  Before we texture, we have to fill cracks. So this is where we have started. Sean and I have dubbed this the snowball effect.  We have see it many times thus far with things we think are quick fixes...

The plaster was coming away from the wall under the window so we opted to
 pull it out and replace it with drywall.  The cracks you see look huge because
 in order to properly repair them, you must first gouge the area around
 them to give the plaster an area to hold on to.  

We received some great news from our friend who is taking over our current apartment!  He spoke with his current landlord and he is giving us two more weeks before we move in.  Now, our move in date is Sept 15th instead of the 1st.  This is much needed.  We don't want to keep pushing this date back, but I am really hoping we could get the floors down before we move in.

While I, nor any of our visitors, have seen fleas lately we want to make sure they are gone for good!  Thus far, we have bombed our house three times.  In the backyard we put down a layer of diatamaceous earth and I recently discovered Beneficial Nematodes (via Pinterest, of course).  Nematodes are microscopic worms that feast on the larvae of flies, termites, gnats and over 200 other soil dwelling pests.  I am usually not a huge organic person but with our pups roaming the backyard, I really don't want a bunch of chemicals being sprayed around the house.  Anyways, I ordered a pack of Nematodes from Amazon.  They say 10 million will be enough to cover our 1,000 sq ft backyard.  Good God, I would hope so!  They arrive soaked in a sponge packed in a Styrofoam box filled with ice.  The directions say to squeeze the nematodes out into a bucket then distribute through a sprayer within an hour at dusk or sunrise.  These little guys are picky.  My mom seemed to think it was a scam but I'm convinced.  I even snuck this awesome picture of my parents helping to distribute the Nematodes in the backyard.  They sure are awesome.

This is a picture Sean snapped standing in the back of his dump truck.  He was pretty sure it was the fullest it had even been.