Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, it's off to work we go

Shew, we have been BUSY!  When we aren't at work or out running, we are working on the house!  We've been trying to get ready to list our house for sale for AGES, as I've mentioned here before, but we weren't really making much progress.  We finally sat down and made a list of all the projects we wanted to do and actually put them on a calendar.  That put things in perspective, because with mainly only have time to work on things on the weekends....well that was going to take a lot of weekends.  We've been hard at work for about 6 weeks solid and we've actually made a lot of progress!

We have work to do in every single room in the house.  A lot of projects are just fresh paint and curtains, but we knew that both bathrooms and the kitchen needed major overhauls.  We've already redone the floor and countertops and sink in the kitchen, but the raggedy wallpaper needs to be removed (yeah, I talked about starting this in the Spring of 2014 and I'm ashamed to say only one wall got done back then), the walls and cabinets need painted, new hardware will be installed and new lighting will need to go in. 

I'm thrilled to say that the upstairs bath is DONE!!!  Well, we still need to install one more towel rack, but I'm calling it done anyway!  We replaced the flooring, shower surround, vanity and counter, both lights and painted the walls and I think it looks really great!

BEFORE:  Sadly I lost the other before pics I took when I accidentally deleted all the photos on my phone

AFTER:  Vanity cabinet purchased at auction, top from the Habitat for Humanity REstore, and the faucet was an auction leftover!

AFTER: Shower Surround after!  Also bought at an auction. The shower head and faucet are also from plumbing auctions

AFTER:  New lighting, purchased at the REstore for I think $15.

The downstairs bath is basically done too!  It was a HUGE huge HUGE change.  The downstairs bath is really a half bath with the laundry and utilities also housed in it.  Until recently, it had mis-matched paneled walls, exposed rafters, icky flooring, a cheap accordian door, a bare lightbulb, and the heater and water heater were very much out in the open.  With the help of Adam's coworker/contractor, we now have clean white paneled walls, new flooring, a drop ceiling, can recessed lighting, a newly stained vanity with a new faucet, a sliding paneled door (like a pocket door, but it just slides against the wall, and a the utilities are now tucked away in a closet with slatted wood doors.  I'm thrilled with how it turned out!  I love the doors and the lighting! It was so dark and dingy before and now it's bright and clean!  I need to put a coat of paint on the door and hang curtains, but then it's done too!

BEFORE: Dark, mismatched walls, exposed ceiling

BEFORE: Exposed utilities (excuse the litter box)

BEFORE: accordion door, exposed duct work/pipes

AFTER: New sliding door, enclosed utilities with slatted doors (REstore, $10 a door)

AFTER:  Stained Vaniety and added hardware, new walls and towel rack.  Mirror Walmart $15

AFTER:  New flooring, drop ceiling, recessed lighting

This weekend we painted our hall (just white, not very exciting, but fresh and clean) and finished up some things on the bathrooms.  I feel like we've made progress, but there is still a lot to do. We are taking next week off work and we plan to work on the kitchen walls and also outside.  Outside we want to paint the shutters and front door, remove the damaged outdoor carpeting from the porch and stairs, clean out the gutters, power wash the patio, porch and siding, put up a new porch light, and do some basic pruning and weeding.  I also need to put down a little grass seed in a few places. Eventually I'll plant some flowers in the pot at the curb, but I'll probably leave that until right before we list.  Of course, these outdoor plans are hinged on the weather, which has been really crummy here lately.  Enough rain!  Don't make me call Noah!

Over the next few months, we have more painting to do (master bedroom, Tyler's room (sob!  Goodbye pawprints!), living room, downstairs hall, and mom's room), flooring (stairs and upstairs hall and new carpet in the family room), change out the ceiling tiles in the basement, lots of lighting (family room, entry, hall x2), and putting up curtains in basically all the rooms.  It's overwhelming at times.  I hope we can keep this momentum going and I hope the money holds out (actually that's it's replenished, because Adam has been working so much on the house that ebay has suffered).  I touched base with our realtor and she's happy with our progress and they're going to update our information to give us a better idea of our budget and what we might expect to get for our house, so fingers crossed for some good news there!  Michelle started her new job awhile back and it's going well so she's starting to look for a place as well, so it seems like things might be beginning to fall into place. I hope I'm not wrong about that!