We're Alive! And we moved :)

I was going to wait to post this until we were a bit more settled, but for today I'm sick of unpacking....so I'll blog instead!  We officially survived possibly the longest 3 weeks of our lives!  Hooray!  The real crazy started on Feb. 27th when we got the go ahead to get in and start gutting out the "basement" of the house.  I use the term downstairs loosely since it is only 2 steps down :).   The downstairs had flooded while the previous renters were living here and we had some serious demolition to to. 

We had to rip out laminate flooring and the linoleum that was underneath that so that we could lay tile in the whole downstairs area.  Our friend was laying the tile for us and I have to admit at first I was cursing his name as we were scraping glue and linoleum off of cement, but then as I smelled the moldy smell that was trapped under that linoleum, I was praising his name.  We cleared out the whole area.  Stripped down the laundry room to just bare walls.  And left the downstairs a bit of a mess.  We closed on the house the next day (there are some perks to buying a house from your friends :) and we were in the door and painting.  And painting.  And painting.  We painted the ENTIRE house.  It was exhausting.  It took days. 

We did a lot of cleaning, brought shine back to the hardwood floors.  John built cabinets for the laundry room. He cut and laid tile.  He and our handy tile friend Drew raised our microwave and tiled behind that as well.  We replaced light fixtures.  We cleaned some of the carpets.  And in the middle of all of that we moved everything we owned to our garage, had to sleep/live at my parents for almost a week, cleaned out our old house, and got our renter moved in.  All in less than 10 days.  I can honestly say that I've never been more exhausted in my life.  I figure we were working 15-18 hours a day non-stop the entire time.  I woke up one morning and my fingers were swollen and I literally could hardly move my fingers.  We still have boxes to unpack and a laundry room to finish but here are pictures as requested none-the-less!

This is the front of the house.  Honestly the color is on my to do list...I really don't like it, but that will have to wait until I'm ready to look at a bucket of paint again without feeling anxiety!

This is the view from the front door and into the dining room. 

This is the living room immediately to the right of the front door.  Currently the junk room.  And due to our lack of furniture soon it will be the "Piano Room"  since that will be the only piece of furniture in it.

This is the kitchen, which I am loving!  I used to keep half of my kitchen stuff in the garage and still felt cramped, I currently have ALL of my kitchen stuff in the kitchen and it fits!  It's glorious!  And notice the raised cupboard and microwave....that my friends took 2 men several hours to accomplish.  There was tiling, cutting, drilling, and all other sorts of shenanigans going on to make that happen.  Now the plan is to add moulding to the top of the cabinets and stain them a dark espresso color.  I think it will be gorgeous.

I have a pantry for the first time in my life...I went grocery shopping today and finding a place for the food didn't cause me any anxiety, it was wonderful. 

2 steps down off the kitchen is the family room.  This just shows part of the room.  There is a large cut out behind the couch where we will eventually put a family desk.  We are actually going to inherit the desk that used to be there when our friends lived here.  I think it's fitting that the desk gets to come home....after it has received a fresh coat of stain. John is also working on building some built in bookshelves with a friend of his who has serious wood working skills.  I think John is more excited about that than anything else.  So much so that all he wants for his birthday is money for wood. 

And here is the hallway off the downstairs family room that heads out to the garage.  This is where we pulled out all the floor and laundry room.  The laundry room is still a disaster area and is worthy of a post of its own...so more on that later.

I think the tile turned out great!  And here is the bathroom that flooded that led to all the work needing done to the house. There is still some water damage to the side of the vanity that we'll have to cover and then re-stain the entire vanity....but it looks a million times better than it did-

Ainsley's room, that is not actually blue and not decorated...but hey, I'm tired.

The master....

The stairs :)

Emmie's room...

And finally Owen's room.

And just for fun....here are a few before shots, although they really don't show how much better things looks now than they did!

I'm really happy with how everything has turned out thus far.  And I'm loving this house! 

I think the most important thing that I want to remember from all of this was how blessed I felt.  We received more help than I ever dreamed of.  Many people spent countless hours helping us paint, watching our kids, bringing in food, and the list goes on and on.  I literally don't think I saw my kids for days.  Friends in the ward took care of them and fed them and passed them off between each other so John and I could keep working.  Michael and Rachelle took our kids the night before moving day for a sleep over so we were able to finish up all the odds and ends of moving.  We had lots of help from friends and family on moving day.  Multiple trailers and several trucks were at our door that Saturday morning to load up our things.   My parents took the kids at nights and fed them and put them to bed so we could work.  Our house was never lacking people helping.  It was a bit overwhelming.  At more than one point I was teary eyed because I felt so grateful for friends and family who took HOURS to help us.  It was such a blessing. We have such amazing friends and ward members and family.  I am so grateful that we are able to stay in our ward and neighborhood and live near family....I wouldn't want it any other way.