A Super Productive Weekend!

Wow, I am quite proud of how much McGee and I were able to get done this weekend. We were busy! One big thing that we didn't actually do ourselves, but it still a huge thing off our list, is that we had our new oven/stove delivered!! The oven that was here was not working correctly at all (it would LITERALLY take over 90 minutes to preheat the oven... We tried like 4 times), so we ordered a new one and had it delivered on Saturday! We couldn't go with a gas stove (there's no gas to this house whatsoever, and it was going to be such a crazy ridiculous/expensive process to have a gas line run to the house), so we got an electric stove, and it works so great! Electric stoves have really come a long way.

Isn't it pretty?? :)  It works so great. 

We also changed out one of the thermostats (we have 3-zone heating, so we have 3 thermostats... and one of them was quite old and wasn't working properly... ), we installed a flag on the front of our house, and the biggest project of all: we made some huge progress on the hardwood floors in my soon-to-be office. On Saturday (after the stove installation) we purchased a few new cleaning products that we'd heard could work wonders on the adhesive that was stuck to our hardwoods, and we scrubbed for a long time, but it was becoming clear that we were fighting a losing battle. And we calculated that we've each probably spent about 12 hours scrubbing those dang floors. So, we decided it was time to sand the floors down, and refinish them (we'd been trying to avoid that). Saturday at 5pm we went to Home Depot and rented a sander, and this morning we got a start on sanding them. We went through SO many sandpaper inserts because they kept getting coated in the tar-like black adhesive that was stuck everywhere, But, I'm happy to say that we now have some well-sanded floors that are FINALLY not gross sticky messes. They're just waiting for some stain and few coats of polyurethane. I think this week sometime we might try the stain (we got a few samples from Home Depot, so we're going to try to find a close match to the original color so it matches the other rooms and the hallway).

Here's a picture from this morning, before the sanding... So you can see what it looked like after TWELVE hours of me and McGee scrubbing it with various cleaners and adhesive removers. There was still soooo much sticky texture everywhere.

This was a particularly bad area... We got the adhesive up (with some MAJOR scrubbing), but that's what the floor looked like underneath. It was SO stained... 

Here's McGee just starting to sand! 

Here's about halfway done... You can still see some of the sticky black areas, after many sanding trips. 

And here they are after! And I'm happy to say that they are NOT sticky anymore!! There still small bits of black staining that went deep into the wood, but most of it is awesome looking. We're excited to see what it looks like after we apply stain and polyurethane! 

And here's the flag in the front of our house! McGee is super happy that we finally got this up. 

I hope you all had a great weekend! I'm SO excited for The Walking Dead Season Finale tonight!! AHHHH!!! 

Gross Projects, and an Easy Project!

This past weekend was very project-filled! We worked for many hours on the gross floors in our 3rd bedroom (the one that will eventually be my office), and I'm sad to say that we're still far from done. I don't know what we're going to do with those floors... At one point, we started thinking that we're going to have to just admit defeat and re-carpet them. We still might end up going that way, but we're not admitting defeat quite yet... We're going to work on them again this coming weekend. The adhesive and foam on them is SO sticky. We have to wear disposable booties on our shoes, and we have to wear knee pads too, and they're both just completely coated in green adhesive nastyness. We fully hand-scrubbed the floors with hot soapy water, we attempted some hardwood floor cleaner too (no progress with that...), and we also pulled out all of the staples (which was actually the "easy" part...), and here's what the floors look like now:

Yeah... they're still terrible! Everything you see there is adhesive. It's so sticky. 

Another gross project from this weekend was a very thorough and deep cleaning of the freezer that came with this house. McGee and I have both attempted to clean that freezer a few times since we moved in, and it was GROSS... Like, there were big dead bugs in there, and there was tons of super sticky stuff everywhere that we couldn't scrub off. So, it was time for me to call my mom. And she gave me some great tips for cleaning a freezer! And I'm happy to say that the freezer is now SPOTLESS, and no longer gross at all! It's now somewhere I feel comfortable storing food.

And an EASY project was that we put together a patio table!!  Even though we have a ton of stuff we need to buy for the inside of our house, we decided we really wanted to buy a patio table so that once it warms up (soon?? please??) we can enjoy our screened-in back patio.  And we found an all-weather table that was on a super good sale, so we bought it and put it together over the weekend! It seems great quality and is super heavy, so even crazy winds won't be able to budge it! We also bought some matching chairs, but they haven't arrived yet.

It's kind of hard to see it because of the reflection in the glass top... And yes, that is like a green astro-turf-ish carpet. The previous homeowners REALLY loved green if you can't tell!

Oh and we also had our final walk-through at our rental house, so I think we're done there! Fingers crossed that we get our full deposit back!!

Spring?

So... I'm pretty sure that today was the first day of Spring, but Winter is definitely not done with us here in PA! We got about 5 inches of snow today, and our high was about 30 degrees. So... I'm not feeling very Spring-y. BUT, the snow did actually look really pretty in our neighborhood with all of the trees, and when McGee got home we decided to attempt to have Guinness off-leash in our yard since there wasn't anybody out-and-about, and there were no cars anywhere either. So, I was incredibly nervous, because we've never had him off-leash in an unfenced area (because he's nutso... ). But, great news: It went SO well!!  Guinness was so well-behaved, and we had an awesome time playing fetch with him in the yard. Here's some pictures of our first day of Spring!

Here's Guinness waiting patiently for McGee to throw a ball!

Guinness looking so cute and tiny with all of the HUGE trees! 

Here's McGee looking super happy!!  Yay Friday!!

Guinness is standing on our elevated area where we'll have our BBQ and a few chairs

Here's the front of our house! And you can see the snow accumulation on my car. 

And here you can see our awesome new porch light! I heard from a few of you that my last post was a little confusing, and you'd thought that the gold/brass porch light was the new one! But nope!!  That was the old one. Sorry about the confusion there. 

This is Guinness and McGee hanging out in our screened back porch area! It's like a sunroom kinda. 

Here's some more of the huge trees in our backyard! It's very forest-y. I'm excited to see what it all looks like once there are leaves! 

I hope you're all way warmer than we are on this first day of Spring! We're having fun though - Just definitely enjoying our heater while watching some movies. 

Projects Galore!

Well, we officially moved in! We moved in less than week ago, and we're SO exhausted! There are lots of projects (big and small) to do in the new house, and we also still have to fully clean the rental house so that we can try to get our deposit back. Fingers crossed on that! We spent a lot of time there yesterday and this morning, so I think we're almost done. I think we're hoping to do our walk-through with him next weekend so we can officially be done with that place.

Our first BIG project at the new house was the the two days before we moved in: We had to pull up the carpets and get the original hardwoods underneath in good shape to put our furniture, etc. on them. Well, the carpet in the first room (my office) was a disaster, because all of the carpet padding was stuck to the hardwoods!! It was a sticky foamy mess. We then went to the Master Bedroom, and that carpet and padding came up MUCH easier, so all we had left in that room was to pull up all of the staples in the floor, and polish them up a bit. So the next day we came armed with cleaning products to work on my office floor, but first we decided to work on the Master... and it's a good thing! Pulling up those staples took FOR-EV-ER. We spent hours on our knees and sitting on the filthy hardwoods just trying to pry up staples and then rip them out without damaging the hardwoods. We now feel very emotionally attached to those hardwoods!!  It was so many hours of work. And the Master Bedroom took so long, that we didn't get the chance to work on my office, so now that's still a project we have to do... For now, all of my office furniture is in the guest room... and we decided to keep that crazy green carpet in the guest room for now, because we're too afraid to see the carpet padding situation in that room... Plus, that carpet is in good shape (it's just ugly), so it'll be ok for a few months until we have time to work on it.

Here's the gross mess in my office!!  It turns out this WILL come up though with a lot of scrubbing with hot soapy water... followed by some hardwood cleaner. It's just going to take a long time.

Here's a broader picture of the room, so you can just see how much sticky stuff we'll have to work on... And this stuff is GROSS - It gets stuck to your pants and shoes like crazy. 

As a contrast, here's a picture of what the Master Bedroom looked like right after ripping up the carpet and padding!!  Those spots down the middle are just where some staples are. We did have to pry up about 250 staples though... 

 And I wanted to show you this picture of the Master Bedroom too, because you get a little glimpse of the amazing (sarcasm) wallpaper in the Master Bathroom!!  That'll be a project for another time...

Another small project we just did today was replace the porch light! Neither one of us liked the one that was there, and it was in very rough shape... And then during one of our MANY trips to Home Depot we decided to stroll by the lighting area and we both fell in love with the same porch light!!  There was a HUGE wall of porch lights, and I saw the one I liked right away but I didn't want to sway McGee's choice so I just said, "Do you see any you like?" and he liked the one that I liked! It was meant to be. So McGee installed that today, and it's looking beautiful!!  OH and speaking of Home Depot, we've been there a million times!!  And we've discovered that Lowe's seems to be a bit more pricey than Home Depot.. We've found much better deals at the Home Depot. Has anyone else thought that? 

Here's the original! And the gold paint was chipping off too. 

Here's McGee in action! 

Here's the front view! 

Here's the side view! 

Here it is with the light off... I like it so much better than the old one! 

And we also set up our gnomes :-)  It's officially home! You notice that my Chargers one is the best one? Yeah... That's right ;-) 

Home Sweet Home

Well, it's official: We closed on the house!!  We just aren't living there quite yet... That'll happen next week. And I'll take pictures when we do move in, because the pictures I've posted so far were just from the house listing, so they don't show what it looks like right now (no leaves on the trees, and lots of snow everywhere).

We are so beyond excited, and can't wait to start living there!!  We love it already :)