Our New Abode - Week Four, dated March 28, 2003

I had hoped to write this latest update from the house, but it's not going to be that way. But we're getting closer every day. Yea! We're still in the hotel, but hopefully should be out of here on Monday.

Last night hubby finished up the laminate flooring in what will be our bedroom. He's got two walls done with the molding, so it's almost 100% done. Yea! This morning we're going to move over the very heavy, solid wood dresser that was my mom's. Once that's in place I can start unpacking some of the clothes that I've hauled over there.

Every day, all this week, I've been going by the storage units and shuffling things around. I'm trying to get everything into one unit, but that won't happen by the end of this month, like I wanted to. I'm slowly putting things into one unit that we won't need right away. Which means it's mostly my stuff. Fortunately the two units are close together, in the same row, so I'm able to stuff things into the truck and move them around quite easily.

While I'm over there, I also take over a couple loads each day to the house. The kitchen is getting pretty full of stuff, as is the bathroom. Those are the two rooms I'm able to unpack. I've also been putting contact paper on the bookshelves that were left (long wood shelves that go up on the wall on those metal wall and shelf brackets). Nice green marble looking paper - same stuff that I'm using in the kitchen. I could have painted the shelves, but I got tired of doing that long time ago. They did get one coat of primer, for the most part, just to cut down on some of the odor. I've unpacked a few boxes of books and videos, so the shelves aren't completely empty.

Hopefully today I'll be able to sort through enough of the larger storage unit that I can dig out the bed. I've found the metal frame, but that's about it. It's one of those Select Comfort airbeds, so the mattress is very easy to lug around. I can see the mattress, on top of boxes, but it's much farther back in the unit that I've gotten to (so far!). I still need to find the paneling for the box frame that the mattress sits on. And the pump and controls. They'll get found, eventually. I hope! Things weren't very organized towards the end of our packing in Spokane, so some things that I want to find won't be found very easily, unfortunately.

The bedroom we're using should be large enough that I can *finally* have a bedside table! I'm excited! I've gone 8 years without one, so it'll be great to have one again. The bedroom in the trailer in Spokane just wasn't big enough for the bed and two side tables, so I went without since I was on the side near the door.

The bedroom looks SO nice with the nice, light colored laminate flooring. And the white walls. Last night I cleaned the cover over the light in the middle of the ceiling in the bedroom. Instead of being an icky yellow color (from smoke), it's now white and clear. Amazing how that works. HA! It'll be great when the rest of the place is all finished with the flooring. The other bedroom next. I'd prefer the living room, so we can set up the entertainment center and couch, but Dirk wants the back bedroom so we can use it for storage. That way we won't have to move stuff around several times. Which does make sense. But after that, he's working on the living room, whether he knows it or not. HA!

Dirk took yesterday off from work, so he could finish up in our bedroom. He's also taking today off, so hopefully he'll get much of the flooring done in the other bedroom. It was slow going in the first room, but I'm hoping that he's gotten the hang of it, so it'll go faster than before. It also helped that I found his jigsaw and circular saw in the storage units. They've been a great help in trimming the boards down to the proper length. For those that want to know, we got 48 boxes of the stuff from Costco last Sunday. Each box weighs 30# and hubby hauled them all out of the store and into the house. I only had to move them from one side of the dining room to the other (he had put there where the bookshelves were going up). That just about killed me, so I can only imagine how he felt after moving all of them a far greater distance. The flooring doesn't require glue and basically snaps together (but not as easily as that sounds, to put it mildly). He mucked up some pieces while trimming them down, until I found his saws. The flooring goes on top of some foam, so there is a bit of cushion underneath. I also found the knee pads, which have helped quite a bit.

Yesterday I bought one of those Swifter type mops, as I won't be able to use the vacuum cleaner on this floor. So, it'll take some adjusting to. But dust mites won't be lurking in it, so I won't have to worry about getting a reaction to them again. Yea!

All of the blinds are now up. I got the two that needed more trimmed off, done yesterday. However, when hubby went to hang them up, one of them is too short! Even though I checked my measurements twice in the house and twice at the store (double checking I got the right size), I still mucked up one of them. Oh well, out of 21 blinds, I guess that's pretty good. They're about 5 or so inches too short.

That's about it regarding the latest with the house. With the next 3 days devoted to working on the place, we should be in good shape to move in on Monday. The place will still need lots of work, but at least it'll be livable (more or less). It looks so much better than it used to and it smells so much better, as well. There's still a bit of an odor related to the place, but it's probably coming from all the painted surfaces. I can smell a bit of it on my clothes when I get out of the house. I'm really hoping it'll go away with time, as it's kind of annoying.

Next weekend (first weekend in April) is NW Congress, a large model horse show held here in Renton, at their community center. I knew I wouldn't have time to dig out my horses, much less my tack and props, so I'm not showing this year. I will be judging both days, as well as hanging out with some of my buddies. It'll be great to actually live near the show again, instead of having to go back to Spokane afterwards. And I did find enough of my inventory, that I'll be able to take some stuff there to sell. I'm really looking forward to a break in working on the house and doing something fun.