It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Upstairs hall primed

As the holidays approach, (and I must say, they're coming faster than I'm ready for) we're trying to increase speed in our productivity in hopes of completing the house by Christmas. Fred thinks we can finish and be moved in by Christmas... I'm more realistic and think it'll be at least mid-January. I hope he proves me wrong.

Small guest room primed

Fireplace scraped. How may colors do you see?

We're almost done with the upstairs. The smaller guest room (the "nursery" for those who know the references. And no that is not a declaration of pregnancy, but what the room WILL be when we are blessed.) and the upstairs hall have been primed. The windows work and they have been primed as well. So, now we've moved on to the guest room. It's quite a large room and it has been our makeshift command center, so cleaning it out took some effort. But we got it cleared and I cleaned and papered it. We scraped and sanded and realized that some of the plaster is cracked and is coming off. So Fred started peeling it off and half the plaster on the wall came down :-(. So now we need to replaster that section to be able to prime. Other than that, the guest room is ready to go! We also papered all downstairs and started on the living room. I scraped and scraped and scraped the paint off the bookshelves and baseboards. There's still a little bit left to scrape and then I can go crazy with the electric sander! We're getting closer. Three more rooms to go (the foyer, office and dining room).

Guest room before

Guestroom after cleaned

Hopefully, there won't be anymore hiccups and we'll be able to get things finished quickly. One of the issue we're contending with right now is the water heater. At first, we thought it wasn't working due to a very old timer hooked to the water heater line that turns it off for certain hours of the day.  It's a great product for those who don't want the water heater running all day using energy and from what I've seen they're fairly inexpensive. However, this one is old and needs to go.Turns out after bypassing it, that the timer is not the issue. So now we're trying to figure out if it's a bad breaker. Fred and his dad finally got the stove installed and now my kitchen is basically finished! (Some trim still needs to be installed).

Fred and his dad working on windows

Stove is in!

Fred counted the windows that still need to be opened and he has 1 left. He's proud of the fact that he's gotten the windows functioning after years of them being painted shut. There were layers and layers of paint. Not that we'll open them when we move in because we need screens (and screens don't look right on those kinds of windows) and Fred's allergies keep us from opening the windows as pollen circulates the whole house, which makes him miserable.... but I love the fresh air!

Medallion

"New" Chandelier

We were also given a gorgeous chandelier and plaster medallion that we'll be putting up in the dining room. Fred's brother and his wife gave it to us... it's from Smithfield Inn. They rescued it when the Inn renovated a couple of years ago. We're so excited because they are just so beautiful and will make the dining room look fantastic! the medallion needs a bit of repair work, but other than a few places, it is in unbelievable shape. We're so blessed to have received such wonderful pieces.
 
So the holidays are around the corner and we're busting butt to finish. I'm hoping everything is primed before Christmas. I keep hoping that Santa's elves will pop up and finish the house for us.... until then we'll keep the Christmas music blaring and the scrapers and sanders going.
 

Hurray for small victories!

Working on getting the Master sanded

We've gotten a few issues resolved... the refrigerator seems to be working now that Fred and his dad leveled it. Who knew!?! The gutters are also up, which has helped a lot with the water issue in the basement and the short when it rains. When it rained last Friday, the gutters kept water out, so when we got to the house Saturday the basement light worked! Hurray for small victories!

Door/trim in Master down to bare wood

Last weekend, we had the help of Fred's brother and his wife. Fred's brother was a huge help in that he finished priming the back stairwell that we had been neglecting mostly because it would be a huge pain in the rear to do. But he got it primed with no issues! He also went through the house and fixed the numerous cracks in the walls from settling. His wife and I worked hard on scraping doors and trim in the Master. We managed to get the trim scraped and sanded to start priming. And, we finally got the Master bedroom primed this weekend! One bedroom down, three to go!

We're now starting to work on the smaller bedroom and hallway. We worked this weekend on scraping the trim, door frames, and windows in hopes of getting both rooms primed this coming weekend. I also started working with the belt sander on some of the flat trim and once I got the feel of it, it was awesome!

The Master primed

Starting to use the belt sander

Fred's dad spent most of the day fighting with the new light fixture for the back stairwell. It's a pain when dealing with an older home that it is not to today's "standard size." So, after several trips to the hardware store to get the screws he needed (yes, the fixture came with screws but they weren't long enough to get it to stay in place on the ceiling, so we had to get longer ones) he finally got it in place. And it looks great! It's as close to something that would look original to the house as we could find. It's similar to the fixtures that are original and still in the house.

We stopped by the house last week to check on things and found that the electrician had been back to work on some of the issues. He was also wonderful and installed the microwave (it's an over the range microwave). It looks great! The only thing left to install is the stove. Fred is antsy to get it in and thinks he can install it. I told him to let the contractor do it, since I'm sure he's done it before and I know Fred hasn't. But the kitchen is getting closer and closer. I know I say that every time, but now there's only a couple of things left to do. We finally got the kitchen cleaned up today of boxes and other random items and it looks so much bigger!

So it's been a productive couple of weekends but we still have a lot to do. I'm hoping we can get the upstairs knocked-out soon. It's looking like we won't be in the house until closer to Christmas or maybe even after. I'm not happy about that, but I want the house ready before we move everything in because it would be a bigger pain to move furniture around to work in the rooms. Besides the floors need to be cleaned really well and a good waxing before any furniture goes on them. We may have to resort to begging for help, but so far we're moving right on a long. I just can't wait till we're done.