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.