George is back!

Now that school has started back up the work pace at the birdhouse has slowed down. A lot. Now our weekends consist of to-do lists that we make on Fridays and then go back and reevaluate on Sundays! There is so much to finish- little projects here and there still to do. It seems like it will never end. I was just looking back through all our photos looking for one particular pic. As I was looking through everything I realized (pictures really are worth a thousand words) how much work we really have accomplished in just a short amount of time. We signed the papers for the birdhouse July 2nd. This Wednesday will be September 2nd. In 2 months time we have completely changed this whole place. Wow!!

Alright- back to the weekend! Long story short we picked up our new King size bed Saturday afternoon, exchanged the sheets we had previously bought (they were CA King size), washed everything and were sleeping that night on a HUGE bed. King beds are SO big! I'm on one side, David's on the other (duh!) and there is a TON of room between us- so crazy! My queen size bed looks so puny now! Max and Gina were over to help us get the mattress up the stairs- thank goodness! It barely squeezed up the stairs!



Pronto- we will be getting a bed skirt! :)



We finally got to use the headlamp we got for a shower gift! David wanted to wait until it was cool out to change the front porch light, which means dark outside. So, out he pulls the headlamp (thanks Aunt Bernie!) and gets to work! He was quite fast actually. One negative he told me- lots of bugs are drawn to the light!



We had George back over to re-texture some of the walls in the bathroom. The former mirrors that were on the wall left dark glue on the walls and tears in the drywall. Our good friend (and handyman) George took care of all the mess. In just a few hours the bathrooms looked brand new!



The hole in the wall is for a medicine cabinet- a very long and narrow cabinet. They don't even make a medicine cabinet that size anymore! We found one we liked that was just as narrow but not quite so long. George patched that up and now we're good to go!



Next we'll paint, install the vanities and faucets, install a toilet in the guest bathroom, and almost be good to go with the big jobs! Hooray!

remember that wedding stuff...?!

We never actually brought most of our wedding presents that were shipped to us into our apartment. There just wasn't any room! We've been keeping them at David's boss's house (I think I did those possessives right!) until we had a place of our own that had more space. We have our space now so it was off to the boss's house for our gifts. Instead of unpacking the dishes we've been using we left them boxed up and are donating them to a women's shelter in central Phoenix that always needs kitchenware (among other things). We met up with Gina and Max to help us load up our car.





While we were unloading we ran into the mailman and asked about getting our lock fixed. We haven't been able to get into our mailbox because the key doesn't work right. After explaining how to pronounce David's last name (it's Italian, not Spanish...) the mailman told us we had to go down to the post office, fill out a form, pay $40 and the guy would change it out.

After that lovely encounter it was off to unpacking all the boxes! It was like the day after the wedding all over again! We really had to figure out where different items were going and ended up rearranging almost all of our kitchen in order to get all our items in a logical place. I must say it's been nice to eat out of bowls again. I've been eating my breakfast cereal out of tupperware for the time being. :)





Now our weekends consist of us finishing up some project around our place. I'm not complaining one bit! Even my mom came over to help us get our flower beds in order. Turns out I still don't know much about gardening (should've listened more to my great-grandmother Hazel). We just bought our last toilet for our 3rd bathroom and 2 motion-detector lights for our front and back doors. While David worked on installing the back patio light I finished up taking all of our tools that were inside piled high on a temporary table out to our storage shed area.

This past weekend we finally installed new door locks on our front and back doors after David dremmeled off the lockbox. We only ran into one problem- having both door knobs on the security door and front door do not let us close one of the doors. They run into each other about an inch before the 2nd door closes. For now we just took the door knob off the front security door and we'll figure out how to fix that mess.

This weekend we're off to get our King size bed (David's happy for that!) and possibly a kitchen table and chairs. Our handyman friend George will be back over in a few days as well to help us fix up the bathroom walls so everything will be good to go in there.

BTW: we made a short video to show off what the birdhouse looks like at this moment. Downstairs only at this point. Upstairs will be version 2. Check it out! (You can also find us on youtube by typing mudacorsa in the search)

...the rest of the days...

Sorry we sort of fell off the map there for a while! Internet was a bit scarce, which makes blog posting difficult!

Two Saturdays ago we finally moved. We had been concentrating so much on renovating the birdhouse that we didn't spend too much time packing up ahead of time. Luckily Gina came over early to the apartment to help us box up our things. A little later my dad and Andy showed up. We had just started to think about the kitchen when Cyndie showed up to help as well. Boxes were being packed and items were being moved down the stairs. David's parents also came over to help us.

Three loads later (we used our friend's trailer instead of renting a truck) and before 12:30 pm we were out of the apartment and the keys were turned in! For lunch we all met at Chuy's and rested!



We had a lot of unpacking to do over the next few days. Gina and Cathy V. stayed after lunch to help unpack the downstairs boxes. We got a lot accomplished in what felt like a short amount of time. The next day Cyndie came over and she and I reorganized the guest bedroom boxes. Until the stairs and office are done all the boxes are in this room.

The Monday after moving day was a back-to-work for Katie day. Lots of meetings at school occupied my time while David worked on things at the birdhouse. The rest of the week I was on contract and had to spend my time at school getting ready for the school year to begin.

Our first weekend in our new home we spent finishing up projects that still needed completion. The first item on the list was finishing the downstairs flooring that ran from the living room, small hallway, and into the kitchen. Plus, we needed to put flooring under the fridge and under the front legs of the range.



It took us a bit of time to get back into the swing of things and we had a few annoying cuts to do around corners and edges. It was a little difficult to move the fridge up onto the wood without damaging the edge of the wood already on the ground. A few scrap pieces of wood fit under the wheels and we were soon up and over the lip. We also had to pull the range forward and used our kitchen rug to help us. With two of our appliances out in the middle of the kitchen it was a tight squeeze to lay down our wood pieces. Once we finished, the fridge rolled back nice and easy and we pushed the range back half-way. My dad came over the next day to finish the range plug and then our kitchen was complete!!

Our next order of business was putting up our last set of blinds. The other ones we had were accidentally cut 1 inch too short. We ordered a new set and they came in just in time for the weekend!



Monday, August 10 meant the first day of school. David and I each went to work (something we hadn't done in forever it felt like!) and came home later in the day to a half-finished birdhouse! Our stair pieces had come in over the weekend and the installer was coming Tuesday to work on the stairs, hallway, and office.

We also had the cable guy coming the same day to hook up cable (we haven't watched t.v. in 2 months) and internet at the birdhouse. Lots going on while I was working away in the library! I came home to a house that looked completely different than when I left it! What do you think?!

Our next flooring to-do is attach the baseboards and paint them. Then our floors will truly be finished! Our past weekend trip to Home Depot meant we also bought a sink and faucet for the master bathroom. Haven't installed it yet- but that will come! In the meantime we have plenty of little things to keep us busy!

• day 29

We read the directions for putting our sink together and realized it was pretty easy. But, we were getting down to the wire and move in day was approaching quickly. So, we decided to call our plumber Scott to come help us out. While Scott worked on installing the kitchen and bathroom faucets and sinks David and I worked to finish more of the downstairs floor.



We had gotten pretty far the day before. Today we moved farther down by the front door and worked on the areas in the kitchen. Ralph was over and helped us upstairs by vacuuming the new carpet a few times. He also finished cleaning the linen closets and bedroom closets. Gina and Cathy V. came by as well and cleaned up the cabinets so we could move our stuff over the next day.

We realized that our wood needed to match up in the small hallway leading from the front door to the kitchen. Somehow it actually worked out! We thought we might need to put in a transition piece if the wood didn't match up. Lucky for us it all worked out! Gina, Cathy, and I went to the apartment and brought over all the clothes and shoes in our closet so we had one less thing to do the next day. We have one last row to go before the entire downstairs is finished!

Our kitchen and bathroom sinks are in and look great. It's so nice to have running water with a sink inside the birdhouse again!

The next day is moving day- oh joy!