Whirlwind

Well its been a long long time since I've blogged!  I've been super busy lately.  Training is almost over at work for this project and that is awesome.  My best friend Megan gets married in 3 weeks and we just had her bachelorette party this past weekend.
For the party we went wine tasting in Hermann Mo, super cute little town and we had a BLAST.  We rented out a bed and breakfast, went around all day on the trolley and got really tipsy on wine.  We have about 100 pictures and several incriminating videos to document the fun.
Other than that I don't really know what I've been doing, other than I don't feel like I have had any free time at all....

Its been a few days

So I've been remiss in blogging for the past few days.  Want to know what I've been doing?  I've been enjoying not having to do anything on the house!  I've been lounging on the couch enjoying the fact that its just me at home.  (Hana and Spence have both been working when I've been home lately) and there are no saws going, no sawdust flying around, no nails being  hammered.  Its been awesome.
What else has been going on?
We had a bridal shower for Megan on Saturday, it was a success!  I am officially out of training and on the floor at work taking claims with  my team.  Slightly un nerving but exciting.  We are entering into the busiest month of summer/the year starting now.  We have Josh and Katie's wedding this weekend, Spence is in it and will be busy from Friday-Saturday night with that one.  Sunday we are celebrating my birthday with friends at the house.  Monday is my actual birthday! (we have a trip to the zoo planned) Next weekend is Megan's bachelorette party, the weekend after that is Spencer's friend Scott's bachelor party, (both those parties are weekend trips), couples shower for another set of friends the weekend after that, and then to round out the craziness Megan and Tyler's wedding. Phew.  I'm exhausted thinking about it. 

ahhhhh the finish line is in sight!

We got SO much done last night.  Here are pictures. I'll try and get some before pictures as well....

So close.....

My dad is a rockstar.  He knocked out 90% of what was left to do on my house last night.  He worked all day Tuesday, then went to his second job and worked till Midnight.  Got up on Wednesday and worked all day, then came over to my house and worked from 7-11:15pm on the floors.  Today he will go to work, go to his second job till midnight, Friday will work all day and then promised to come back and try to finish so the house is done by Saturday morning.  Rockstar. 
I have not been able to get my iPhone to connect to Snapfish to upload the pictures of the house, I'm so sad there are many things completed that I want to show off!
Yesterday we accomplished:
Entryway was 90% completed, Spencer is going today to get more trim pieces so we can finish it off on Friday evening. 
Spencer installed 2 new curtain rods and re-hung the curtains in the living room and dining room. 
Spencer also installed the shelves his dad built us beside the fireplace.  I cannot even begin to describe what a difference having those shelves makes. 
We ran to Michael's last night and bought some baskets to put on the shelves to help organize our DVDs.
Spencer put his WC Fields statue on top of the shelves, which to me looks a little creepy but he worked so hard yesterday and was so excited about him going up there that we will leave it (for now). 
My mom and I put down the foil/candles in the fireplace I wanted and got the tea light screen to put in front for some added sparkle.
We swapped out the things we had on the mantle and used some new candle holders (well new to the mantle, we bought them for our wedding last year).
We got the table saw out of the dining room!
Got out the glassware that I will display in the hutch in the dining room.
Brought over a rug to use for this weekend in the dining room.
Tonight the plan is:
Get the house ready for the cleaning people to come tomorrow (words cannot describe my excitement)
Get the scrap wood/tools down to the basement
Set up the dining room for Saturday
Clean off the top of the fridge so it doesn't look cluttered
Clean off the table in the kitchen for the same reason
Buy one more basket for the shelves at Michael's
Maybe, just maybe, relax a little?

Deep Breath. and again.

**WARNING** Ranting and childishness below:

I have been so excited to have the house done in time for Megan's bridal shower.  SO. EXCITED.  I knew we would come right down to the wire, because my dad is involved in the project and that's just how life goes.  This weekend I was getting a little nervous because of my dad's work schedule and not having a lot of time to dedicate to my house.  Then I got good news (for me), my FIL didn't have a lot of work for his cabinet shop (bad news for him) and would be able to come up and help.  Awesome, we are saved.  With both FIL and dad working for a  little bit then we stood a good shot of getting it all done in time. 
Found out last night that FIL may not come up to help.  I couldn't help it I just started to cry.  Poor Spencer, he just kinda sat there and rubbed my back.  I felt like such a baby, and I know its silly, but I was just so incredibly happy that our house was coming together, and the thought that it really might not, and that I'm having 20 people over in a few days who will all see it torn apart and not put back together makes me really sad, and a little embarrassed.

This is the first time since we've lived in the house that I really like how it looks.  We have cleaned out a lot of the junk stuff that we collected over the years and the main part of the house has this very pulled together, warm cozy look going for it.  The entry way is still plywood.  Not a pretty first impression of the house at all. 

Now onto positive thinking, I've seen my dad get a lot done in a short amount of time, tonight could very well be one of those nights and everything could come together wonderfully.  We have tonight and tomorrow night (dad works his second job so all wood install needs to happen tonight), the cleaning people come Friday morning and then the shower is on Saturday. 

Deck part 2 (final chapter for now)

So.....Friday evening I got home and started staining the deck.  My mom came over and we decided there was NO WAY we had enough stain to do what we needed to do.  So we headed to Home Depot to get more.  Now in Spencer's defense (because he is the one who originally went to purchase the stain), I did give him the wrong dimensions of the deck and our deck was as dry as it could possibly be.  This meant that the deck was drinking up the stain faster than we could put it down, and that even if it wasn't I probably told him to get the wrong amount.....maybe.  So we got another gallon and foolishly thought we had enough.  We worked for a few more hours and realized AGAIN that we hadn't bought enough!  So back to Home Depot we went and got another 2 gallons. This was enough, for now at least.  The first picture is just to show the difference between the washed wood and the stain color. 

We used a paint sprayer to do most of the deck floor, it made the work a lot faster!  The last 2 pictures are just before the sun went down on Friday night, one coat on.  You can tell that its better but that the wood absorbed a LOT of the stain as it dried. 
Worked until we couldn't see anymore, then woke up Saturday to finish up the work.  Poor Spencer!  He woke up on Friday, worked on the deck for 3 hours, went to work for 10 hours and then had to get up early on Saturday morning to do it again!  All in all it was a good mornings work, we got 2 coats of stain on the deck and had several hours for it to dry before the rain started up! 

I'm also happy to report that the floors are really coming along!  I took some pictures this weekend that show the clutter still around the house from the tools....but my dad has been working all day today and got a LOT of the work done that still needed to be done.  We still have the entry way to finish up, exposed plywood is not my favorite look for a first impression, but the dining room is TOTALLY done, most of the living room is finished (just some detail around the base of the fireplace and some finishing work on the baseboards).  Spencer's dad is off work this week and will probably be able to come up to help work on the entry way.  The deadline for the project is Thursday night.  We are down to the wire but I think we have a good shot of it at least looking done. 

Excitement

Last night was a busy night at the Hilt house!  We sanded down the rough spots on the deck to prepare for the staining project starting today.  My dad came by to measure for the trim pieces we need to finish the floor (I hope to have additional pictures to show off after this weekend of my pretty house), and proceeded to tell poor Spencer that he bought all the wrong things to use on the deck.  Lucky for me Spencer is about the most laid back guy ever and didn't get upset by the tone of voice my dad used to convey this info.  I however got a little bit hot under the collar, (Spence and I had talked while he was at Home Depot and I heard the paint guy in the back ground telling him to buy the things he came home with!).  Oh well, no harm no foul, my dad took the things we (erroneously) bought and exchanged them for the correct (in his opinion) things we needed.  I checked out of the convo when Spence shot me  look that said "this is not worth being upset over" and let him and my dad discuss what he was going to go get instead. 
After we sanded down the rough spots we decided to just see what a little area of the railing looked like with the stain on it....I was really happy with the outcome and think it will look great on the deck today!

Behr is having a great sale on paint at the Home Depot until Monday, and we got a mail in rebate, woo hoo! 

My mom also came over (I told you we were busy) and helped us out by painting some of the baseboards that will need to go down before we can call the project "done". She also dropped off the finished product of 2 of the pillows she covered for me.  If you remember in one of my first blog posts I had some pictures of fabrics that we were going to cover for pillows to use in the living room.  Here are the 2 floor pillows she is done with now.....

The best news though is that there is enough leftover fabric from the pillows that I can recover the dining room chairs!  I really like the fabric and its really sturdy (its upholstery fabric).  There isn't enough of either to do all 6 chairs, so I'm debating on either picking one and then going back to Hobby Lobby to buy an extra half yard of fabric to finish OR doing 3 chairs in each color.....time will tell.

As if that weren't enough excitement in our night Spencer's best friend Josh and his fiancee Katie just closed on their first home yesterday.  We called and they invited us over for a look around, so at about 8pm, armed with flowers and a few bottles of champagne we went over to congratulate the homeowners!  We stayed over there for a few hours, its been ages since we all got to hang out.  As a result of the late night, though, I am dragging today! 

Just a few more hours at work (like 7) and then home to stain the deck with my mom and relax afterwards!

Deck part 1

Last night after work I went home to find Spencer power washing the back deck.  Now our deck was not a pretty sight, at all.  We really hadn't done anything to maintain it in several years (sound like a familiar story yet?).  Here is the before picture of what the deck looked like.....

Please note the weathered gray-ness of the wood.  We assumed that the dark parts would come off and the wood was about the light gray color you see there.  Well weren't we surprised when we realized what color the wood really was underneath 5 years of grime.....

Our little George blends right in now!  There were a few spots we got a little closer than we should have and we have some sanding to do on a few of the spindles.  We were so shocked at the color the wood was when we were done! 

I don't have a picture of this part of the deck, but we have a corner that has been taken over by a birds nest, complete with 4 little eggs. We couldn't bring ourselves to try and move the nest and potentially kill the eggs so we washed around the nest and plan to leave them alone until the eggs hatch and the birds are gone. I'll try and remember to get a picture of it tonight at home. I talked to my mom about it, she is convinced my deck will now look shoddy because that one corner will never look right again. I figure its small enough I can put a potted plant in the corner and no one will ever know.....

We ended up going to Home Depot to look for stain color, we plan to let the deck dry today and tonight and then try to start staining it Friday morning.  We were disappointed when the man at Home Depot told us we needed to wait a week to let the deck dry out totally before staining!  I think we are going to go with a reddish semi-transparent stain so we can at least attempt to see some of the wood through the color.  All in all it was a very successful evening, got a little dirty from all the grime flying about though.....

You cant see it to the full extent on the picture, but my legs were COVERED in flecks of grossness.  I really do think that it was all worth it with this as our result from this part of the project....