Around the first of August, my broker convinced me to take a week off from work. It had been one helluva year for real estate--I hadn't taken any time off in the past 14 months and as luck had it, as soon as I found out I was pregnant, the market REALLY heated up. And that was back in late February! Since then, a "normal" week has been 70-80 hours and I've had one or two "slow" weeks that had me averaging about 40-50 hours. And I managed to take off two entire days (Memorial Weekend) since February. With a baby soon on the way, my broker knew that 1) I had to be just plain exhausted and 2) I would never have another chance to relax and have a little down time. With that, I recruited another agent to work my transactions while I took a week off...and the countdown to having an entire week off began!
FINALLY, my week of down time was here! And then the phone calls came in.
After a 3-month wait, our painters could start on the house this week.
Our windows (that had been back-ordered for nearly a month) were ready to be installed.
Justin's buddies had extra time to work on our garage.
And to top it off, the roofers figured out a way to make my dreams come true (and not in a dirty way, but more on that later!).
Holy crap. Are you freakin' kidding me?!
Knowing that we needed to get the jobs done while the contractors were available, and before a baby has to live through the mess, we said COME ON OVER!
With that, the painters showed up Tuesday morning as I was getting ready to leave with my mom and niece for a Girls' Day Out. I knew it would be a mess and was more than happy to leave town and do some shopping! Mom's first stop of the day, ironically enough, was at a liquor store...as much as I wanted to have a drink, I have to admit my niece was SUPER excited to be surrounded by bottles of booze!
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| Another ornery smile for the camera! Some day she'll realize you DON'T want to give yourself a double-chin for pictures ;-) |
Once we did all the damage we could do in Topeka, it was time to head home and check on the day's progress. The painters spent an ENTIRE day prepping the north-side of our house...what a reminder of WHY we're paying them to do the work!
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| Lots of scraping, sanding and caulking! |
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| Remnants of the home's 90-year history...and all the chalky residue from years of moisture penetration is now gone! |
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| I feel like our yard looks like a flea market. This is what it looks like (both side yards are full of crap, too!) when they're packed up and gone for the day! |
After evaluating their progress, it was time to pack up the inside of our house to make room for the window installation. Everything, in all the rooms, got pushed to the middle...it was quite fun waking up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and having your bed in a totally different spot! And no side table to grab onto so you don't have to roll off the edge just to get out of bed....ooooops! Should have thought that one through :-)
Wednesday morning rolled around and the window contractor was ready to start work at 7:15 am!
Replacing the windows was a hard decision for me--not so much for Justin, as he was always eager to do it. I'm the first one to judge people for ripping out original windows and replacing them with vinyl. Just drives me nuts--a GOOD storm window will do so much good and they're less expensive! After purchasing our house, I convinced Justin we should just invest in those "good" storm windows that I've always been a fan of. But we ran into a problem--we could NOT get the existing storm windows off the house...
So, we lived with the windows as they were for a few more years. But the problems started to compound. I couldn't open the windows on my own--most of the time, Justin struggled to open them, too. For a few summers, we lost power for extended periods of time (meaning, multiple days) and our house became an inferno. Numerous panes were cracked. The weights were broken. All the windows needed re-glazed. I called my window buddy in because if anyone can save old windows, he can do it. Unfortunately, the repair expense was going to be about the same as doing a total replacement. And because I've referred so much business to him, he gave us an amazing discount so we said, DO IT. The hormonal me kinda wanted to cry because I felt like I was betraying everything I had ever preached, but also knowing that we'd only be in our house a few more years, the Realtor in me accepted that new windows would help with re-sale.
Once they started in, I remembered why we decided to pay someone else to do the job...when it came time to remove the storm windows, it was a HUGE pain! Took a good 20-30 minutes per storm! Turns out, the storm windows were not only screwed into the frame, but also caulked over AND painted over. They never before had so much difficulty taking off storms!
Once the storms came off, this is how the windows looked!
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| Replacement window on the far left, original windows on the right |
While the windows were being installed, the painters were still hard at work. They had 6 people prepping the backside and south side of the house, while their carpenter tore into our porch columns.
Ohhh, our poor porch columns...the base trim had been separated when we bought the house and it appeared to have been that way for a LONG time. The painters were going to pull off the trim and re-install it...
But once they removed the trim, they realized the columns weren't sitting on ANYTHING but the trim pieces. And this supported our porch roof for 90 years?! Needless to say, they had to jack up the porch roof, cut new (solid) base pieces and trim for all the columns in hopes that we will continue to have a roof over our head--literally!
On the upside, so much has already been accomplished! The windows are all in and looking AMAZING! So, so glad we made the leap. Oh, and just last night, we already noticed how much sound they block! Just can't wait to see what our utility bills start to average for the coming year :-)
The painters continue to labor away. Today, they're prepping the front of the house--TONS of sanding and filling in gaps. I truly pity the person who gets the task of caulking our beadboard porch ceiling...because most every single inch of that ceiling needs caulked! At last count, there's at least 5 more days of prep and painting to be done, so it will be fun to watch it all unfold.
And fortunately, progress is being made with our garage...we just might have it done before the baby arrives!
In just a few afternoons, it went from this:
To this...
To this.
The north and west walls have been framed and plywood hung. This evening, the guys will hang plywood on the south side, then move on to the east side and figure out something with the garage door. Until we figure out what we'll do about refacing the door, the guys can start hanging the wood siding and we'll be nearly done!
In the meantime, baby girl will just continue to acclimate to lots of noise!
This week marked week 30 and because I never remember to have Justin take a picture when he's around, I resorted to taking some "selfies." I feel so dumb photographing myself (okay, I even feel dumb trying to smile for Justin!) but I know that down the road, we'll be glad we were able to (somewhat) frequently document the baby's growth!
Until the shape changes, I'm going to call my bump my "camel humps." Seriously--I thought that by week 30, your belly was supposed to be nice and round?! But nope, mine just sticks out like there's a torpedo in there!
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| Definitely gaining enough extra mass in the front that, one of these days, I may just tip over! |
As much as this construction mess and noise is wearing on me (and killing the "point" of my vacation), Justin keeps reminding me that it's good "practice" for the chaos that will ensue once baby girl is here. And he's certainly right in that life will be more chaotic than we ever imagined...I'm just glad that the construction mess is temporary and she'll have a beautifully painted house to come home to and a nursery that's not leaking cold air or lots of street noise!
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