Labor (literally, LABOR) Day Weekened

So much happened this weekend that I'm not sure I can even re-hash it all but I'll do my best.We started the weekend off by heading over for a few hours on Friday evening after work. That evening we painted the bedroom and started painting the closet.



The Bedroom paint in Progress.





The closet after mudding, sanding, and priming the patches in the dry wall.



On Saturday morning, my Mom and Dad came over again to help me finish cleaning the kitchen. We finished the other half of the kitchen cabinets, scrubbed the sink, cleaned out behind and beneath the refridgerator, and wiped down all the walls in the kitchen, pantry, and laundry rooms while Travis worked on spackling, sanding, and caulking the Master Bathroom.

Mom and Dad clocked out about 4pm and I went back to, you guessed it, painting. Travis and I painted for a few hours until he ran out of paint.

So, we packed up at about 6:30pm, ran home, showered, then took a little late night trip to Lowe's and Home Depot to buy more paint and two new toilets. This was probably the silliest part of our weekend because while we were staring at toilets and comparing their sleek designs and flushing capabilities, Lowe's was turning out its lights and doing security sweeps. They literally ran us out of there. (Only the two of us would go to Lowe's at 10:30 at night to buy a set of new toilets. And it is either the pure absurdity of that or the lack of sleep and physical exhaustion that makes that very funny to me.)

Sunday morning was much the same -- painting, painting, and more painting.

 If you are wondering what in the world requires so much painting, you should know that Travis and I take our painting pretty seriously. We prime with Kilz and then we paint at least three coats of high-gloss white trim paint on the baseboards, door frames, window frames, and crown molding. We allow it to dry thoroughly and then we tape it all off using Scott's Blue Painter's tape. Then we edge the molding with the flat enamel wall color paint with at least two coats and then we roll the rest of the wall with two coats. It is quite a process but we do it right. And it looks great when we are finished, if I may say so myself. But we do not skip steps and we do not cut corners, thus making painting quite a job.

We did getaway on Sunday long enough to celebrate Travis's Nana's 75th Birthday. She is such a joy and with all the trials she's been through it is truly a blessing that she is happy and healthy at the age of 75.

On Monday, we had more helpers. Mrs. Charmin and Mr. Keith came over to help clean the guest bathroom and install our new toilets.



Mrs. Charmin can work miracles when it comes to cleaning!

Yay for new toilets that actually flush! I'm sorry I had to do it, haha. 

Along the way, we uncovered some unexpected and downright scary finds which grossed us out and set us back time wise. Here are just a few of those discoveries and what we did to fix them.

Eww!!

More eww!!

Ah, so much better.

 With this nasty find, Travis cut a few pieces of luan and covered the back wall and bottom of the cabinet and caulked all the cracks. Then I painted it with a few thick coats of Kilz. The issue that had caused this water damage had been remedied years ago but the previous owner obviously did not feel the need to fix the actual damage.

Surprise...look what we found behind the dressing room mirror.

And wha-lah!

A good scrubbing and a few layers of Kilz and paint fixed that little problem right up.

A few other odds and ends got done this weekend too but when and between what tasks, I could not tell you. Looking back the weekend is a complete blur.

Closet light fixture Before.



Closet light fixtures Now.

As for Cooper and Cody, staying out of the paint proved to be an impossible task.

There's only a few things left to do to finish up the Master Bedroom and Bathroom makeover before we can move in. We've set this coming Sunday as our goal for making that move. Cross your fingers (and your toes) that we make it.

I think we can, I think we can, I think we can!!