Round Three - Saturday

This is where it starts to get good. Now I have to admit, I was a poor photographer on this day and so many of the jobs are not documented, but I will fill you in and catch you up to speed with my long-winded wit!




Susan drove in and arrived in town before I was even awake. This woman is amazing. I'll tell you, she blows me away. Get her some coffee and breakfast and she can go all day... occasionally all night too! What a great mother-in-law she is to me. I could not be more blessed by my in-laws!

So we got started early. Ran a few errands in the morning, picked up some paint from my new favorite local paint supply store, Spectrum. They are so friendly and helpful, I would highly recommend them to anyone starting on a painting project. You will not be disappointed, but be aware: they close at noon on Saturday. Don't let their "contractor's" hours, stop you from getting work done. I made that mistake and it is so frustrating!

My mom went right to work, she was in the kitchen hard at work, finishing those places we had missed the day before. I love her for this, I cannot seem to stay focused, but she always does. What a huge help, I was so tired of that kitchen. Thanks Mom!!


My dad was hard at work on the cabinet faces and drawers. I think he started the day with like 12 to finish and by the end of the night, he had finished them all!

I think I asked him to do like 73 things throughout the day, I would pass by a place that needed to be caulked or touched up and I would point it out and a few hours later, it was finished, along with something else, I had not even noticed. He is good. Real good.


David was gone for the first part of the day, working, his "real" job. But when he arrived, he had his work cut out for him! There were plenty of cabinets ready to be hung. And as you have figured out by now that always comes with plenty of detours and hang ups!

Then he and my dad finished off the end cabinet. This cabinet has been a concern since the project begun. When we ripped out the cabinets above the bar, it left a "problem" cabinet. But David did a fantastic job fixing this cabinet and making it look "normal" again. Compare to the ugly duckling story - happy ending! I am not even sure how it all came together, but by the end of Saturday we had one great looking cabinet. And I am pretty sure he impressed the genius again. [This does not happen frequently.] Now I just need to find cute little baskets to fit on these shelves! Suggestions?



My mom and I spent most of the day in the closets, painting, cutting in and touching up. It was definitely not a "high priority" job, but important to me. In fact, I have been told by many people that the closets were "not a big deal," "don't worry about them," "don't spend too much time on them," "do them later on, after you move in" etc. But they were a big deal to me. I wanted to move in all of our stuff to a clean and freshly painted house. And my mom seemed to be the only one who COMPLETELY understood that and even AGREED with me. (That didn't happen all the time either, people agreeing with my decisions, that is.) But it was awesome to have so much help with those; her and I and Susan tackled those closets and finished them. Actually they did most of the work on those closets. I had to meet a bride for a wedding consultation and when I came back, I could not believe how little there was left to do.


Oh yes and one thing that I have failed to mention throughout this entire "house story", is the amazingness of my mom. Umm... everytime she came up to help, she brought tons of food. I mean not just food, but she brought dinners, lunches. At home she would spend her "free time" making food for the weekend. She would prepare it, freeze it, pack it and then bring it down, so that we would not have to leave the house in the middle of the day to get food. There it was, hot out of the oven and ready for us to eat. Burritos, hot dogs with chili, you name it. oh and cookies... yes please. She is the best mom EVER. Ask any one of my friends... they love her. She bakes incredible treats and meals that only a fool would turn down. Am I right?


Susan did an incredible job cutting in and touching up some rooms that still needed that special attention. And she helped out in the closets also. I am not sure how Susan did everything she did....

I do know that she has one INCREDIBLY steady hand. I think that every room and ceiling in our house has been touched up by her! Maybe it's a left hand thing, I am not sure, but she is just darn good at that. And the most wonderful thing, is that she does not seem to mind, she always volunteered and did the BEST job. Thank you so much Susan, our house looks like a professional paint job, thanks to you!


So here we go... CLEAN UP...



that's right on Saturday night before we left, we cleaned up the entire house. We removed all of the drop clothes, blue tape, and random trash bags. Vacuumed the entire house, swept the floors. I. Mean. EVERYTHING.


Susan and my mom cleaned the grossest things from this kitchen. My kitchen will NEVER be as clean as it is right now, thanks to these two incredible moms! I'm telling you, they both keep such clean houses at home that I should have known this would happen.

I am so blessed that we got to the cleaning point. Because if we had not, my kitchen would have never been what it is now - pristine! Nothing like a clean kitchen.

My mom cleaned cobwebs from the vent in the hood above our stove top. How does a spider live there? It looked like new when she was finished.


David started hanging the outlet covers!



As we were cleaning my dad decided to fix something that was not perfect and I am so greatful he did. I know that I get my perfectionism from him and I absolutely LOVE that about him. He does each project perfectly, I mean everything, every little project. So... I had painted the hutch counter top and had planned to do a perfect Steve-quality-job, but it was not smooth like I had hoped. I pointed it out to him early in the day and at the end of the night, he took on the huge project. Sanded down the top and repainted it. NOT FUN. And it is 100 percent better, hardly any scratches, knicks, bumps, etc. Thanks dad.

Okay, as I said at the beginning, few pictures, lots of words. Look for the final post tomorrow, our finished and clean house. Hold your horses.

Oh ya, we love our family.

Round Three - Friday

Friday night... deep breath...okay here we go.

My parents arrived around 7 pm, again amazing... left straight from work, grabbed a quick bite to eat on the road and showed up at our door as soon as they possibly could have! Can't believe it.

So we put 'em to work.


My mom and I had another HUGE job. I had tried so hard to paint the cabinet faces in the kitchen, pantry-laundry room combo that I could, but there is just so many cabinets. So my mom and I set out to finish that on Friday night. And we did! Thank goodness. So my mom... can I stop for a minute to tell you how incredible this woman is? She works so hard at everything I asked her to do. And so many times I didn't even ask her, she just found the next project and got after it. She is so detail oriented and I think there is even a bit of OCD, perefectionism in her. Under cabinets, on the floor getting baseboards, that hardly anyone will ever see.... there she is. We spent a while in the pantry-laundry room combo painting and it was really fun. We laughed alot. I definitely get my sense of humor from her! oh yeah and my good looks!


Meanwhile, my dad had taken some cabinet doors to Texas to have them fixed to fit properly with the new hinges. I could go into details, but I would have to make up alot of stuff and pretend to know what I am talking about, but instead I just trusted the genius. It worked well, but not perfect, always acting on the safe side, we did not have the people remove enough edge on the wood, so that left another "project" for the guys to fix. And this is where I get to tell you how amazing my husband is. He took on the task of making these doors fit and did alot of measuring and drilling new holes and was able to make all of these unique doors fit perfectly! He did such a great job, I think he even impressed the genius a little bit!


They were not excited about stopping for the camera, not sure if you could read that on their faces or not?


As I mentioned in the last post, my brother finished all of the drawers and did alot of little things I was so tired of doing. He had his share of contact paper to rip out of a drawer also. He too is amazing. Pretty much comes over, every opportunity we give him and lends a hand... agin for no reason. I think he likes us...


He started painting these shelves that go in our closet. Pretty boring job.

That is about it, we tried to get out of there early, but we didn't. They are such troopers!

Thanks mom and dad, I love you

Almost there....

This post is going to update you on what we did last week, after our parents left on Sunday evening and before they returned again on Friday evening.. YEP that is right, our amazing parents came back to town for ROUND 3!

I am telling you, David and I have the Best Parents IN. THE. WORLD.

Who else would selflessly give us 3 out of 4 weekends, to do TONS of manual labor, for absolutely NOTHING in return. That is right, we didn't even have to buy them food, in fact normally they bought us food!? I guess that is such an incredible picture of God's love... we absolutely do not deserve their love, generosity, kindness and help... but they love us SO much that from their overflow of LOVE we are so blessed by them. Their kindness seems to never end, even when I was short, irritated, frustrated or needy, they continued to love us. WOW! I could go on and on and trust me, I will, but for now, I want to prove that David and I DID work when they were at home. I have pictures to prove it:


While they were here last time (Round 2), we had run out of cabinet/trim paint and so I had set myself up for a BIG job. I needed to paint as many of the cabinet doors as I could before they returned. Let me tell you there are almost 40 cabinet doors in the kitchen and living room and 3 of them are over 3ft tall, so this was no small task. Not to mention we had to paint both sides and give the front side two coats. Each coat took at around 5-8 hours, with prepping, painting and drying.


These are the first set that were finished, my dad and I started them during ROUND 2 and I finished them after he left.


I have to brag on David quite a bit here, he picked out the handles and knobs and they look so awesome, I was convinced we could find ones we liked for cheaper, but I was WRONG and I am so glad he was RIGHT. They are exactly what we wanted. He was also in charge of adding the hardware and making them fit, which again was no small task. That ended up being another project in and of itself. But if was all worth it, they look phenomenal!


I had finished about 28 of them before my parents arrived on Friday evening. In between coats, I would head to the kitchen to paint the faces of the cabinets... yuck. I am glad we have a big kitchen with lots of storage, but this week, I hated it. It took so long and I had to be so careful, no streaks, no drips, full coverage, lots of drying time, it was quite a mess!


My friends, Aimee and Lauren started priming our drawers. And let me tell you, that Aimee, she ripped out all of the wallpaper/contact paper in the bottom of one of the drawers. We had given up on it a couple of weeks ago, but she would not. Thanks Aimee, now I am not laying in bed at night worrying about the contact paper we painted over in one of our drawers.


David found a ceiling fan for our bedroom and hung it by himself one evening...not sure how he did that now that I think about it....hmmm? but he did! I love him. :)


My mom painted our closet before they left during ROUND 2, so this is what it looked like when they left. While they were gone, David did some more carpentry work and added a shelf across the top. More shelving in our closet is definitely necessary.



This was basically the look when my parents arrived on Friday evening. Starting to look finished!

Get ready... it will only get better from here.

Round Two - Sunday

This was the last day of the marathon weekend of house updating, so I have a few pictures I want to post, but at the end of the night, we were in such a rush to get home that I forgot to post pictures of the finished project. Don't worry I will do that today and post some in the near future.


I didnt have picture of it on the last blog, but this is what the bathroom light fixtures looked like after Russ and David spent hours working on them on Saturday!




Since we started painting the closets on Sunday, we had to move all the supplies in to the bathroom tub. I think that was a great solution.



My dad and David spent a big chunk of their day putting the scalloped edge on the top of the cabinets. Since we ripped out the cabinets above the bar, there was alot of challenges that come with that. But they did a great job and it looks awesome, we were very lucky with the way some of the pieces fit together.

Oh and my dad is a genius, if I havent mentioned that before, he acts like he doesn't know what he is doing, but he does. So if he says something like, "this is what I would do if it were my house..." I suggest you do it.


My dad also spent time touching up this bathroom, the caulking job was so bad around the counter top, so he just scraped it off and redid it. I tell you this man is a genius.




Rachel spent a few hours in the morning painting trim and doing all kinds of random jobs that I didn't want to do. Then a little before lunch time, I locked her in a closet and told her to paint it I didn't think she could possibly be hungry, so I did not feed her lunch and made her wait until 7 pm for dinner. I did let her out of the closet and into the hallway to eat though. I doubt I can hire her back for next weekend...


I'm not sure why she is not in the closet for this picture, it must have been during her afternoon bathroom break.


My mom spent all of her day I believe in one of three closets painting the inside. I know it sounds dumb that I am painting closets and that I am wasting my friends and family's time on closets, but I am OCD. And these closets are dirty and dingy and I dont want to put my pretty baskets and blankets on dingy shelves. Plus my dad, the genius, said I will have the best looking closets... so there!

My mom and I finished painting the wainscoting in the hallway and entry way. It was such a mess. When we removed the blue tape, it peeled away some of the paint on the walls and it looked terrible. But my dad, the genius, came along and caulked thewalls and repainted the edges and they look brand new.



Doesn't this kitchen look awesome! I love it! This is what the girls worked on all day Saturday and now it is just lacking a final coat, that hopefully I will find time for this week!

I think that is all for today folks... look for a few more pictures soon!

Round Two - Saturday

We woke up to a rainy day... which was not too much of an issue, since most of our work is done inside anyway. It just seems like paint drys at a much slower rate.

Let me introduce you to the team that made this Saturday so productive:

David's mom, Susan, who is the all time best painter. Her specialty - cutting in, touching up and painting thick! I mean she works off of no sleep....


David's dad, Russ, who can apparently fix anything and everything, and he is not afraid of electricity.... so watch out!



My mom, Debbie. She will do anything. We usually found her doing the boring, mundane, tedious, long lasting projects, like painting the inside of cabinets or closets... she loves us ALOT.


My dad, Steve, who is definitely the Genius.... trust me.... he knows a lot of stuff, even if he claims to not kno what he is doing. But most of the time he lets us know how much he does know...

My brother, Kyle. He is a painter. I mean give him a foam roller and he will get to town on some wide open walls. Not a big fan of cutting in though. Sorry girls, he is engaged, to my wonderful sister-in-law -to-be, Meredith.

Here she is: Meredith. What a worker. She came up on her Saturday off to paint and hang out with everyone. This girl is tough, if she can stand to be around this family all day, she should be able to fit right in.



Rachel Rios, one of my best friends from high school, who drove 2.5 hours, with my parents to help us this weekend - WHAT a trooper! She is the best.


Let's not forget our good friend, Jordan Satarawala. He too will do anything, we are lucky that he still likes us, because everytime he "drops in", we put him to work. oh and did I mention he is single and he is a good painter? I'm just sayin'

And this was our favorite guest of all, my Grandpa Jim! He stopped in to supervise! It was great - everyone loves him!




On this day, David and Russ worked on putting up some new light fixtures in our guest bathroom, it was such a mess. The previous light fixtures had been installed poorly and part of the wall fell out. etc. etc. It seemed to be one thing after another with this project and the guys spent probably 4-5 hours on this one project.


After they finished with those lights, they hung lights in our bathroom and fans in two of the rooms. It was great to have Russ help with all of this, as good as David is, I am not sure this would have ever been accomplished without Russ! (If you look carefully, you can see Jordan behind the ladder, I think he helped too!)






There were so many things going on, I know I will not cover them all, but the master bedroom and bathroom were being painted. My mom and Rachel were giving the bookshelves in the fireplace room a second coat of paint. I was finished the baseboards in the front room. My dad and Rachel had to router (sp?) all of the cabinet doors - this was a mess.... But it was the best solution to our hinge problem. And of course with every solution, there is usually an additional problem, so we have a few cabinets that are still needing a little help. But after they were routered, we cleaned them off and started priming them. It was quite the assembly line.

Here is our front room, with all of the cabinet doors primed and waiting on a coat of paint.

Not only cabinets, but the scalloping edges for the tops of the cabinets. Its always something.

The girls started priming and painting the cabinet faces, wainscoting and trim in the kitchen. this was defnitely a NEVER-ENDING job. Thanks girls for tackling this beast of a project. Hopefully I will have it finished before they come back!


Jordan, Susan and David all helped paint the guest room.



David's parents left late on Saturday night to head back to Tulsa, it was so great of them to come!

oh and if you are wondering why you never see pictures of me, its because I just walk around with my big clipboard and assignment sheet and boss people around each day. Sometimes I don't even feed them lunch. It just the way it goes.