Welcome home!

So we're finally getting settled in despite our busy schedules. Work has been a little slow on the house as Kari has been working long hours getting ready for and during the holiday rush. I've been logging a lot of miles preparing for my first marathon in February which has kept me from my manly duty of fixing things.

Most of the house has been unpacked finally. The part not in the "most" is the office, which kind of looks like we're having a garage sale. We still need to do some paint touch-up and some other small projects — which I get to do next week while I'm off of work for Christmas break. We also need to get some decorations up on the walls, etc. as well.

We have two big projects that we're looking at tackling after the first of the year. The first one is to replace the broken, half-tinted back patio doors (no reason to tint patio doors) with some nice French doors. The other is a complete remodel of the master bath. It's called the master because it's attached to the master bedroom but there is nothing masterful about it! It's small, has green and gold marble slabs in the shower with gross green tile (and some of my handy patchwork white tile around the drain), a shower head pipe that points upward and a handle that looks suspiciously like a pair of rusty vice grips. Add in a few dozen inexplicable holes in the wall, vinyl flooring, a door with a hole from a dead bolt and a second door just for good measure. So yeah, we need to address that bathroom ASAP!

Anyways, I'm including before pictures, some during pictures and some pseudo-after pictures for now. We'll post more after pictures as rooms get completely finished.

UPDATE: We're having some issues getting photos off of our camera, so for now you get the before pics only that we have on the computer already.

Front of house and our awesome backyard and pool


Before and after of main living room


Office after

Guest room before and after


Guest/master closet remodel and after




Master before and after

Kitchen before and after

Family room before and after

Slow going

Sorry for the long delay between posts, things have been super busy which means work on the house as been, well, slow going.
We are making some progress though. We've been able to get just about everything put away in the kitchen (now if we only had some lights). I finished putting in the baseboards and have filled the nail holes and caulked the tops and seams in most of the rooms.
We got the fish tank up and running again, sans fish (Einstein died during the move) and I built a new IKEA cabinet for the bar area. I just have to anchor all the book shelves into the wall and then we can start filling them up again and get rid of some more boxes.
The office is still kind of a disaster, but the computer is up and running and we have internet now! The guest room still needs some TLC as Mark J. will have to come back and do some more work on the closet to accommodate the mirrored doors.
I have all the air vents painted and ready to go back in and Kari got all new switch plate and outlet covers for the whole house. We still have a good amount of touch-up work to do on the paint, but things are coming together.
We still haven't hung anything on the walls yet besides the TV and the key holder so it looks a little bare in that sense. But, I'm done with high school season now so I'm able to dedicate more time to the house and hopefully get some stuff caught up pretty soon.
Once we get some things finished up we'll start posting some pictures and hopefully we'll be able to blog more often.

Smells like carpet, looks like sugar cookies

Day 9 (Tuesday 10/13/09)
Adam, Greg and Heller all came over to help me get baseboards installed in all the rooms that will be carpeted. As it turns out, we are not finish carpenters. We mis-cut a lot of pieces, but there in and that's all that matters. I also learned how to load a nail-gun with no help, just luck.
On a less than cool note, I discovered that the new mirrored doors do not fit in the new closet. This is going to be an issue. The door hole is too short for standard doors. Oops.
Kari finished up some more painting and we're ready for carpet.

Day 10 (Wednesday 10/14/09)
I took another day off of work to be at the house when the carpet guys came. They were pretty fast and did a great job. New carpet! Yay! We now have soft "sugar cookie" color carpet under foot in the bedrooms and living room. Starting to look like a home.

Day 11 (Thursday 10/15/09)
Kari spent the night packing while I went finished the new master closet. Forgot a few pieces at Home Depot, but will stop and get them on Friday.
It took me a good little while and I'm not entirely sold on the quality of the Closet Maid products, but they're in and look pretty good.
I also put in some more baseboards too.
Jeff came over to show me some lighting and fan books (lots of books). I finally got home a little after midnight and was pretty spent. Move-in day draws near. Much work still to be done.

Time out for Pumpkin Porter(s)

Day 8 (Monday 10/12/09)
Not much got done on the house Monday. Kari and Erin painted the new closets and did some touch up work. Then we all went to Four Peaks to celebrate the Pumpkin Porters softball team pushing its record to 10-0 by enjoying the debut of the 2009 Pumpkin Porter.
Tuesday will be much busier as we have to install baseboards in all the rooms to be carpeted and the mirrored closet doors in the guest room before carpet comes Wednesday morning. I also plan on installing the new thermostat. Kari will be packing her heart out at the condo.
T-minus 5 days until move in. Yikes!

A 1/4 inch at a time

Kari and I had intended on documenting the process of getting our new house ready to move in to, but it turns out that the process hasn't left us much time for anything else. I'll try to update more and include more fun details as I remember them, if I do, but for now, here is a recap of what's happened so far (we'll post "before" pictures soon):

Day 1 (Monday 10/5/09)
We finally got the keys after closing late and the purchase not getting recorded until after the weekend. We moved cleaning supplies, paint, tools, etc. over that night. This would be the easiest night by far.

Day 2 (Tuesday 10/6/09)
We went over after work and began demo on the three closets that would soon become one new master closet. Steve and Erin assisted with Erin hammering away on drywall and Steve using his FPPP slow-pitch softball bat. That drywall would've cleared the fence I think.
We also started ripping out some carpet and, of course, drinking some* beer. Mark Jensen (later to become known as the Godfather of home repair) laid out the plan for the closet.
* A lot!

Day 3 (Wednesday 10/7/09)
Kari and I both took the day off of work and went to town on the place. I finished demo-ing the closet while Kari worked on getting the walls ready for paint, removing baseboard and carpet tack (which we later found out we didn't need to do). More carpet removal and misc. cleaning.
We went and bought the rest of the appliances for the kitchen. Yay new appliances, boo lighter check book.
Jesse from work came over to fill me in on our landscaping and what we need to do to make things survive, etc.

Day 4 (Thursday 10/8/09)
I took another day off and laid some vinyl sticky tiles down in laundry room/tool shed, ripped up more carpet and tack. I also get a new control box for the drip system so that we can stop turning the water to house on and off to use the bathroom without flooding the yard. Water conservation FTW!
Mark "the Godfather" Jensen started working on the new closet while I was at practice and by the time I got home had it almost entirely framed out. We finished up framing then went to get the drywall. Mark told Kari and I about the time he nailed three fingers together, ripped the nail out with his teeth and kept working. ... I coach diving. :-(
We hung the drywall and Mark made fun of my girly-hammer swinging. He should us awesome drywall cutting techniques that I still can't do. Fail.

Day 5 (Friday 10/9/09)
More work on the closet. This project is way bigger than it was in my head. ... I coach diving.
The house looks like way more of a disaster area than I could've imagined.
Kari took the day off to prime and get more things ready for the weekend. She also got the cubby for the refrigerator painted so that could slide in when delivered Saturday.

Day 6 (Saturday 10/10/09)
Kari rounds up the troops for a day of painting and home repair while I was off coaching a diving meet in Scottsdale. I return to new paint and new appliances, only one of which was in its place.
The Carnival of Follies begins with the Frig not fitting in the cubby by an 1/4 inch (or less) as we discover the wall is not plum. We have to rip out the drywall on each side and replace with new 1/4 inch drywall to make room. When we go to get new drywall I walk face-first into a 2x4 hanging out of the truck and nearly take my eye out. Oh the fun.
We stock up on baseboard too while we have the truck.
Mark texturizes the closet to match the rest of the walls, helps fix the cubby, finishes cutting the counter so the range will fit and generally makes his case for the home improvement Hall of Fame. This how he earns the nickname "the Godfather".
We also learn that the range still doesn't fit because among the not-quite-level installations done on the house was an uneven floor cabinet. Also, the distance between the two cabinets is, you guessed it, a 1/4 inch too small. Now we must use a hand plane to make it fit.

Day 7 (10/11/09)
On the 7th day God rested. We did not.
I was off to Day 2 of my meet while Kari and crew continued to make our house livable.
Matt grouted the guest bath, rewired the range (after nearly blowing himself up the day before) and pretty much kicked butt. Kelley continued her roll as painter extraordinaire and other helped as well, though I don't know who did what because I was gone.
Heller and I finished getting the range ready to move into place including a lengthy leveling process.
Kari and Erin take to painting the kitchen while Heller and I move on to removing the nasty doors from the master shower and fixing the broken tiles and bad caulk job.
Steve joins us later to help finish cleaning and dump more trash.