Getting ready to move in.

Drywall needing some repairs! Oh yea, we needed
a new back door too. One headache at a time, please!

Before we could move into our new space there was some work to do. Fortunately, the wall were up however the drywall was not finished and the seam tape had begun to peel off because of the moisture problems. So, Kris went to work. In the beginning he was no drywall expert, but he learned a lot and did a fine job. Oh, drywall is so tedious and frustrating! Especially if you are patching up an old job.
After about a month of working non stop, we still weren't done, but enough was finished to start sealing the drywall. Unsealed drywall is like a sponge and we need our place dry out. We primed the drywall and painted it all white. Guess what? Priming and painted a ceiling and 1700 square foot space takes a long time! Whew! I needed a thirteen hour massage to get the kinks out of my aching neck!

Painting a ceiling is hard work!

We also discovered some problems with the floor. I'll start with the back room. The room at

the back of the house had a raised floor like 

a stage. We were going to leave in until we 

found out that it wasn't structurally sound. 

We ended up tearing it out. That's when we 

realized the oak flooring underneath was wet

and beginning to mold and rot.  Oh geeze!

We cleaned up the floor and put a 

dehumidifier in the room to dry it out. We 

ripped up the rotten flooring to find rotten 

Maybe the previous owner needed a stage for tap dancing.

floor joists. Aagh! Repair time, baby.

Stage removal.

Rot-o-rama

 Kris replaced the floor joists in the base-ment. We used salvaged wood flooring from the laundry room  to fix the floor.  We're planning to tile the laundry room. 
Removing the laundry room floor wasn't too bad until, surprise!, more rotten floor joist.    

OMH!

Thank goodness my dad was in town! OMH, old man Hud, as many of us call him is a wizard at home repairs! Instead being like "OMG!" when we discovered yet another big hole in the floor, we were like "OMH." Let me tell you, they fixed that hole in one day. It would have taken Kris and I a week of head scratching and tears to figure out that repair since it involved a major support beam in the basement. Nothing like  big holes in the floor to make a mother of two small boys have a nervous break down. Good thing it got fixed so fast. 

"Hey, where'd that big hole go? " 

Stripping off the grime!

We sanded the floors through out the house to clean them up. It was very exciting to see them transform from dirty 70 year old floors to beautiful oak floors. Now that was a nice surprise. 
More help came from my cousin Michelle and her husband Danny, who drove up Arkansas to help us with the floors and the doors. Danny did some hard and grubby work, while Michelle took care of her three kids and our two. Who's job was harder? Hard to say. Michelle freed me up to do more painting and cleaning. The guys framed out and hung new doors and sanded that floors for about twelve hours.

Moving day!! 

The back room and laundry weren't totally finished, but our lease was up on our apartment; so we moved in. Yea! So far, so good.