This New House

Hello faithful blog friends! I apologize for the long absence from the blog, but I just wanted to update everyone on the recent Ginn happenings.

These past two weeks have been relatively busy with much work (and dust and paint) to be done on the house. Homeownership is already crazy and we haven't even moved in yet! For the past couple weeks we haven't been able to make it to the house during the week due to my work days and Greg wrapping up school (this is his finals week) so our DIY time has been delegated to weekends which means slow progress.

Although the house is only 7 years old with only one previous owner and is good structural condition, aesthetically (and in regards to cleanliness as well) they are seven years behind! As seen in the tour, bright pink and orange are not my ideas of nice homey colors so our first order of business was to paint. I scoured the web for advice on painting and equipped myself with best practices while also looting the Home Depot paint samples for possible color choices. There are a total of 8 areas to paint which means a ton of work and planning. We have a kitchen, entryway, nook, 2.5 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms and 1 master bedroom to master which means a lot of sweat and paint. And to add to our work, a few weeks ago I went on a decorating rampage where I tried to define and write out each room's decor and create a color palette and even went as far as cutting out magazine clips that I may collage together to give me an idea of each room's decor (this project has obviously been abandoned in light of the move and our Christmas planning!).

In my head somehow I thought it would only take us two weekends or so to finish it all, but as it stands we've been there a few weeks now and we still have the kitchen, master bath, guest room and a second layer in the guest bathroom to finish! Basically we have to putty the holes, then sand any bumps/paint drips, then sand the whole wall, then wash down the wall with soapy water and tape all the trim and ceiling before we can even think of pouring paint. During the painting process we have created the system where I will cut in (do I sound like a pro?) with a paint brush while Greg rolls. Then after finishing the first layer we clean off all the supplies and start again on the second layer the next day again sanding and wiping with water before we paint again! I'm exhausted just typing it all out!

Over Thanksgiving weekend Greg generously donated two full days to working on the house (despite the fact that it was the weekend before his finals) and we spent 12 hours on Friday not hitting up the sale but painting at the house! Afterwards I was sore head to toe and and Greg thought his hand was going to fall off! Nonetheless, the time has been fun learning a new skill, talking, playing in paint, signing into our paint roller microphones, and listening to sermons or the Bruins getting beat. Anyone looking for a painter? =D

The schedule for the next few weeks include finishing up the kitchen and bathrooms, getting the carpets cleaned tomorrow (yay! I'm so excited for this...lame), hiring a contractor to update the fixtures and maybe doing a small bit of landscaping. On top of this we'll be getting our POD delivered next week which means it will be like an early Christmas as I get all my long lost stuff back!

It has been a fun and rewarding process (the paint makes it seem so much more personal and clean), but now that the weather has turned colder (it was 35 this morning when we left for school!) I'm looking forward to having my warm jacket back and getting settled again into a nice routine hopefully before we leave for the holidays!