Sunday Sand Day!!!

It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it..."Sanding Steve"!

First of all, let me apologize for not updating the blog in 2 weeks. The past 2 weeks at work have been very busy for me, plus I was working five 8 hours shifts so I did not have alot of downtime. The past 2 weeks have been pretty busy on the homestead as well!! The plumber and electrican have both practically completed their rough-in work. Lots of work is being done to the foundation as well.

Last Saturday we had family work day on the farm. Steven's parents and my Mom came out to help scrub walls, base boards and start cleaning the kitchen. We do not have water as of yet, so we have been carrying MANY 5 gallon buckets back and forth. The walls were so dirty it literally took us 2 days to clean all the walls downstairs only. That set us up to spackle the cracks in the walls yesterday and start sanding today. We made the decision when we bought

 this house to keep it as original as possible. So, we are keeping the plaster walls even though we have heard over and over to replace the damaged plaster with new sheet rock. Through researching how to repair plaster walls, I have found that plaster is resistant to mold, better acoutically than sheet rock and is more fire retardant. We have also found the house is painted with oil paint so we have to prime EVERYTHING prior to painting.

Gene spackling like a pro!

Steven's Dad Gene came out to support us again yesterday and help us spackle. Between the 3 of us, we essentially had no idea what we were doing but we figured it could not be to hard to throw some spackling over cracks. The quote of the day came from Gene: "We're worth about what we are getting paid"!! :) Today when we started sanding our work, to our surprise we really did a good job. There are places we are going to have to put a second coat of spackling on but overall I give us an A+! Steven and all sanded all rooms except 2 and we are beat. Maybe he will finish the last 2 rooms while I am at work this week (hint, hint). I asked Steven to describe how he felt right now, and I have to leave some off but see if you can fill in the blank..."I'm tired, sore, hungry and______" Oh yeah, I married a classy one.

The plan for the house this week is to continue to sand and hopefully we will be ready to start painting in 2 weeks. We went to Lowe's last night and I'm pretty sure I have my colors picked out. I'm under strict orders from Steven not to put any beige color in the house (that is what we have now), so I am going with more greens and even a jade color. I'm going to surprise you with the kitchen, but think spicy!! I am also hopeful the foundation work will finish this week as well. We had to bite the bullet and contracted someone to paint the outside of the house and he should start in 2 weeks. I know this is a long post but I had alot to catch up on!!


Layla was so dirty from playing in the rain she had to take a bath outside!!



Our handy work :)