Progress, and a few setbacks

I really, really thought this was the week I would get to show you our gorgeous new floors. Unfortunately, that is not the case and we are further away than I had hoped... by about 6 weeks. Long story short, remember how we filled our sunken living room in?

Well, while it was being filled in Scott said "how long til we can lay LVP?" and the concrete guy said "tile? A month" and Scott said "no, LVP" and he said "oh, you can lay vinyl or carpet tomorrow". I told my dad this and he seemed skeptical, saying "ummm, I don't think so, it has to cure" but I was adamant. Scott downloaded the instructions for our floor this week and it explicitly says "you must wait 60 days before laying LVP on new concrete" . Some googling led us to more of the same and an "I tried to tell you that" (a gentler version of "I told you so"), ugh, I should've listened. So, that news really took the wind out of my sails.

Have to keep going though.

Last week we came to the realization that our dishwasher didn't work, and decided we weren't going to fix/replace it because we would be getting new appliances in the near future anyway. Well, that plan went out the window when I realized hand washing dishes meant either also hand-drying right away or setting them out to dry, which I couldn't do because of the immense amount of dust from our projects. I narrowed down what was wrong to the water inlet valve and bought one on Amazon.

The next morning I decided to do the first load of laundry... you can probably guess how that went. The load stopped before the spin cycle, the clothes were sopping wet. I had to wait for Scott to get home and he had to take the washer apart. He couldn't find anything broken (thinking it was a stabilizer rod, but that doesn't appear to be it). We took 2/3 of the clothes out and it ran fine.

The dishwasher part arrived that evening and we moved it out and flipped it on its side to switch it out, discovering the water shut off valve for the dishwasher didn't work, and flooding our floor in the process (I'm being dramatic, it wasn't THAT much water, but still). We quickly realized I had ordered THE WRONG part. Ughhhh. I think I was just in a hurry, put the cheapest one in my Amazon cart and didn't realize the part number wasn't the same.

Needless to say, I was frazzled (I'm being the opposite of dramatic when I am describing my state of being. I was down-right frustrated and overwhelmed).

The next morning (our 3 year anniversary!) I moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer only to find that the dryer wouldn't start. I can't make this stuff up, it was like a bad movie. Scott unplugged it and found the plug and outlet looked corroded, so he said we'd fix it after work. I bought what we needed at Lowe's (except we ended up needing an inset receptacle, not the external one I bought).

During his lunch hour Scott purchased a dishwasher from someone on Facebook who had just bought new appliances. He brought it home and we spent our anniversary making two trips to Lowe's, fixing the dryer, and installing the dishwasher. We also got BDubs, so it wasn't all bad!

I am beyond happy to report that all of our appliances are now currently working! Today Scott had to remove the back panel of the freezer, it's making a crazy noise, but we think the fan is just off-kilter. Whew, when it rains, it pours!

I want to take a second to back up. I've been sitting on some weird info and now that our anniversary has passed, this is a good time to share it. When we moved into this house the previous owner had left some random odds and ends, including two can coozies from a wedding. Right before I threw them out I read them. One on side they have an "A" and "M", on the other, the names Alexandra & Michael and their wedding date... November 4th, 2017. Yep, that's our wedding date. Not just the day, same day, same year. Weird, right?

I just thought it was cool, so I hung onto them and have been waiting to share that fun tidbit with you.

My parents have been doing a lot of work for one of their clients that just sold a home, and part of that meant removing some shelving from the garage. They brought the shelving to me and I cut the boards to fit in our linen closet, replacing the worn particleboard that was there before.

Before & After

Now that I'm able to do laundry I realized how dark our laundry room is, so I ordered a new light hoping that would help. The laundry room is technically in the garage, but at some point walls were built around it, creating a room that's not quite "inside" (there's no air conditioning, and there was a lone lightbulb for this long space).

The new light came from Amazon. It does look nicer, but we will definitely need to add another light on the other side of the room to really solve the lighting problem.

My parents, neice, and nephew came over Saturday to help out around the house. Scott cut down a ton of overgrown bushes (basically trees) and Zane dragged them to the curb. During the process of trimming I found a wee snake skin hiding in the bushes. Luckily, no snake in sight, but from the size of this skin, he likely wouldn't have harmed me anyway.

While the guys worked outside my mom and I replaced the oulets/light switches in the living room with new white ones. I feel like a pro at this part now, I just dive right in.

Sunday we finished painting the walls and ceiling in the living room and uncovered the couch. Poor Toby did not approve of the plastic and dust covered mess it's been all week.

Painting in an old house is a lot more work than painting in a newer home. The removal of the popcorn ceiling means the corners between the walls and ceiling don't all look great (crown moulding will eventually cover this), and there are nail holes, nail pops, and cracks that all need filled in addition to the scrapes we made in the ceiling. We sanded and filled, and sanded some more.

I also ordered a ceiling fan for the living room. The three I ordered for our bedroom and the two guest rooms were all from Amazon, this one was from Home Depot. They are all comparable in price, but the quality in the Home Depot fan vs what I received from Amazon is completely different. The fan from Home Depot is HEAVY. The blades are composite and have some heft to them, the ones from Amazon are plastic and rather flimsy. They all have LED lights, but the one from Home Depot is dimmable (even though the ones from Amazon say they are dimmable, I haven't been able to get them to dim). I thought I was saving us money by going the Amazon route, but it turns out I should've been looking locally all along.

I LOVE this fan in the living room, I think it's unique and fun. I'm catagorizing my decorating style (or lack-there-of) as boho, mid-century, beach house and I think this fan is perfect and so cool, just look at those tiny blades!

It was also a really great feeling to end Sunday with the fan up, couch clean and back in place, and floors vacuumed. The living room is the largest space in the house (a big "L" shaped room), so checking this off the list for painting was huge. Now we just have the dining room and one guest room left. The kitchen and baths will come much later.

We still don't really have anything unpacked; the lack of floors makes it difficult to put things where they belong and the constant dust means wiping everything down 100 times a week. Regardless, I've had my eye on Facebook marketplace place since we moved in to look for a dining table and chairs for inside and outside. No luck on a table for outside, but I found the perfect table and chairs for inside. Despite having no where to store yet another project piece (we also have two dressers awaiting a complete re-do in the garage), I convinced Scott to take me to go get it.

It's a solid wood table, with leaf, and eight cane-back chairs (all for $50!!!). They all need restained and I'll reupholster them to match, but they will be amazing in our dining room!

One final project I completed this week is my chandelier (or dust mop) for the entry. I won't be putting this up until after we are done with the majorly dusty stuff, but this fun little light will be such a unique addition to the entryway. I made it out of two embroidery hoops, a little over one skein of yarn, some chain, and a pendant light. Don't mind the weird angle, I was holding it and taking a picture (photography is not my strong suit).

All in all, for a week that felt like nothing went our way, we came out of it with our living room painting and ceiling fan hung, a new (to us) table and chairs, a new chandelier, and all working appliances. Whew!