Hello Little Yellow House

A couple weeks ago, we bought our first house. We've been working on it nonstop since the first night when the keys were in our hands, getting it ready for our official move-in date of June 23rd. We thought we'd try a blog to share our progress with everyone and keep ourselves motivated.

We set some pretty lofty goals for our move-in date:

1. Have an electrician add more circuits to our 5 circuit house (which won't happen until after the 23rd)
2. Have a plumber replace corroded pipes in the basement, add a water line for the fridge, hook up our bathroom plumbing.
3. Prep, prime and paint all of the closets
4. Finish the main bathroom:

• Remove the wallpaper
• Repair, prime and paint plaster walls
• Tile the shower
• Board up, waterproof, and tile over the strange bath cubby with lid
• Re-glaze the bathtub
• Have a plumber install new shower hardware
• Buy and replace the vanity, sink, and faucet
• Prep, prime and paint the linen closet
• Sand and re-paint the existing shower curtain rod
• Scrape, sand, prime, paint and seal the window sill (to protect against water)
• Buy and replace the towel rods
• Buy and replace the medicine cabinet
• Buy and replace the vanity light

5. Kitchen upgrades:

• Remove wallpaper
• Repair, prime and paint plaster walls
• Replace counters with butcher block
• Tile the back splash with leftover bathroom tile
• Sand, repair, prime and paint cabinets white
• Rehang cabinets, cabinet doors and install new hardware
• Remove the low table counter
• Replace floor tiles where damaged

6. Paint the dining room
7. Paint the living room
8. Scrape, sand, prime and paint dining room and living room windows
9. Remove carpet from the upstairs office
10. Remove carpet from the guest room
11. Move all of our boxes from the apartment to the house
    

Now that we have 1.5 weeks left until we move, our goals have scaled back considerably. We were warned everything takes a lot longer than you think to get done. It's so true - there just aren't enough hours in the day. The dining room and the living room have been painted, the plumber is coming tomorrow, and we'll hopefully get the carpet up and the closets done. The big goal? I just want the bathroom usable. It doesn't have to be painted, pretty or finished, I just don't want to have to wash my hair in the basement laundry sink.