Take it off...

The title of my blog post this time does not refer to the fact -which you may have noticed in pictures- that my lovely fiance does the majority of his housework without a t-shirt (I joked that the neighbors might not think he owns any shirts since they usually see him in shorts only). Instead, it refers to our house, which Justin now deems naked.

We've been busy little beavers over at the house, trying to get everything ready for its first occupant next week. A lot of these preparations involve the dirty work of demolition - thus why Justin says the house is now naked. You already know that we ripped out two rooms worth of downstairs carpet. Since that update, we've removed two upstairs carpet, the [falling down] wood paneling in one upstairs bedroom, and pulled the carpet off the steps.

(No one misses the emerald green carpet from before...even though the current state doesn't look much better!)





I know, I know, the stairs are really ugly now, but I've got a vision for more scraping and sanding, then painting and a good runner. Stay tuned, I promise it will look nice!

We're racing against the clock with projects that create a lot of dirty dust (we rationalize that although we still need to spackle the kitchen ceiling, the dust created from that job will at least be from a known source, rather than potentially scary old dust in and under the carpets). We're also trying to get all the big stuff out of the house as soon as possible so that we can make a dump run and stop looking like red necks (we currently have a huge pile of debris, ranging from carpets to ramp wood to ceiling slats, in our backyard). Out of respect to our kind next door neighbor, Judy, we'd like to take that to the dump as soon as possible, but it seems silly to make little trips all the time, especially since such a visit requires borrowing the pick-up truck from our other neighbors. (I haven't mentioned it yet on our blog, but we have been blessed with AMAZING neighbors who have loaned us ladders, a truck, drywall equipment, a sander, and other tools, not to mention the food, water (and even a band-aid) that they have provided!)

Now that the carpets are out, we've been working on scraping the paint and removing nails and staples. When we went to Home Depot to inquire about renting a floor sander (prior to realizing that our neighbors actually owned one), a gentleman (who informed me that he had professionally stripped for 10 years) gave us a lot of good advice - and sold us a very helpful tool - to strip off all of the paint from the floors prior to bringing in the sander. We've heard it both ways - that you can just go in with the sander, or that you need to scrape first - but we're going the more conservative route, especially where we've got thick paint or remaining carpet glue.

I was scheming about a subtle blog post that requested visitors (read: laborers) when Justin's dad gave us a wonderful surprise visit yesterday. He was amazingly helpful in cleaning out the entire living room of paint, staples, etc, as well as completing a lot of other random tasks around the house. Justin and I both thoroughly enjoyed the magic of arriving at the house after work and having jobs accomplished while we were gone! I took a few pictures of the father-son team at work this evening. It's been great to visit, and great to have his help. We do welcome any visitors, and I'm just joking when I say that we'll put you straight to work (we like to have fun and show off Ithaca, too!!)