Paint, Paint and more Paint

So the last 2 weekends have been spent doing nothing but painting the awfully white walls of our house into much more colorful choices, as you will see below in our before and after photos.

I have to say a very big THANK YOU to my mom and dad for coming to help us both weekends.  Without them we would still be painting today.

The first day was spent taping, puttying the numerous holes in the walls, and waiting for that to dry.  Lets just say the previous owners loved nails, screws and anything else they could pound into the wall, and it left quite a mess.  We also discovered that I am not the best at taping, but could maneuver into the small nooks and crannies no one else could. we did however get some painting done in the living room and the whole kitchen was finished.  Sunday was spent in the den/guestroom and our bedroom.  We were not able to get back up to the house until Friday afternoon with my schedule but I put the final coats on in our room and the "brown" wall in the den.  I had so much paint leftover from our bedroom (I had miscalculated the first time, and bought too much the second time) that I decided to also paint my closet.  I spent a good bit of time in there wiping down the walls as they had these weird yellow spots all over, and as with the rest of the house, there were several holes to be patched and left to dry.  Once it was ready to paint I got about halfway finished before Hunter said we had to go, but as we were coming right back on Saturday I figured it was ok.  Saturday, Mom and Dad came back up, and they were bearing gifts...

Mom had graciously agreed to buy and then line all the kitchen cabinet shelves with contact paper.  She also told me that if I brought up all the kitchen "stuff" she had also graciously came and packed the previous Wednesday that she and Daddy would help wash it and put it away so long as I told her where I wanted things to go.  However I don't believe she realized at the time, how many shelves there would be.  Thanks a bunch Mom they look great!!

Daddy and Hunter finished up the living room, hallway and painted Hunter's office, while I finished up painting my closet.  And after another weekend full of work the house is finally ready to move into.  YAY!!!  but then we also have 18 dogs, 8 puppies, 4 cats, and 2 huge fishtanks to move...so we will see how long lived my "YAY!!!" is tomorrow...

Before Painting:

And After:

Closing and the Fridge

Well though the day has come and gone, I am going to write this post as if it were today.

Today at 1pm we close on our new home.  Everything is in order and all we have left is to go to the bank and then drive to our lawyers office in Charlotte. After of course I evaluate my stores, that are 1.5 hours away from Lincolnton, where Hunter and our bank is. So basically I spent from 4 am Thursday morning til 11:30am driving to stores, evaluating them, and driving home, to the bank, then off to Charlotte.  Hunter drove to closing and the GPS kept telling him to go a different way, even tho his route was faster.  It was very amusing to listen to them argue back and forth about where to go, and it took us to the wrong group of buildings.  Luckily for the first time in our entire relationship, we had left the house on time and had a few minutes to spare to get to the right building.  Frazier (our lawyer) and Geoff Brown (New American Mortgage) were there to meet us, and over all the closing only took about 30 minutes.  Wow almost 2 months of work, to be finished in 30 minutes.  I wasn't sure if I was relieved or overwhelmed.  Either way I knew that we had made the right decision and I couldn't wait for us to get there.

But first we had to stop by and pick up our brand new refrigerator I found on Craigslist, for $400 less than what it would have cost at Lowes.  The only reason the guy was selling it, was it didn't fit in his kitchen (too big) and he bought it from a friend at Lowes for a huge discount so he knew he wouldn't be getting his money back that way.  We got to his house and it took Hunter and Ray (the guy) almost an hour to load this in the back of my truck, so we knew we would need re-enforcements once we got to our new house.

We had a few errands to run first and all with this huge fridge in the back of my truck, so I got the job of being the "watcher" to make sure the doors were closed, and that the straps were tight enough.  This was much easier said than done, seeing as how I hadn't slept the night before and it was now encroaching on 3pm.  But we made it none the less.

On the way I called Andy and Milan (one of my franchisee's and his District Manager) who live in the area near the house, to ask if they would mind helping us unload and get into the house.  They had previously offered to help in any way, and so graciously accepted the task.  We got to the house a little while before the guys did and discovered that the door was much smaller than the fridge, at least by 2 inches.

Luckily for us 2 things happened:
    1. Andy carries tools in his car.
    2. The doors on the fridge come off.

We also discovered that once the doors were off and all the interior shelves have been removed the fridge is much easier to move.  Because of this experience we have decided that any more appliances going in the house are going to be delivered and brought into the house by Lowes, and moved in by the really big guys with the back supports.

Please stay tuned for the next few days of painting, packing and moving....