Catch-Up Part II: The House & Our Move Back

I think the last time I posted on our house was when the hardwood floors were starting to be installed. Most of the work was completed while we were out sailing the Mediterranean. Stefanie and Danny checked on it daily while we were gone and even e-mailed us pictures.

When we got home, this is how we found them: BEAUTIFUL! The guy who installed them(Jason from Lowe's) did an outstanding job. He really showed his skills and meticulous attention to detail when we worked around the hearth in the living room. We could not be happier with the outcome. Meanwhile Stefanie and Danny were installing the tile in the bathrooms - this is the master bath in progress!
Main bathThe day we got back from our vacation, the carpet installer (Mark from Lowe's) came and put in the carpet in the bedrooms, and the indoor-outdoor carpeting out on the porch. Since we weren't expecting them that day, we had not gotten all the equipment out of the bedrooms. We were really impressed that Mark and his team, moved everything, installed the carpets, and left everything nicer than it was. Again, this was a very pleasant surprise!

The master bedroom

The porch

Once we got a few things taken care of (like the equivalent of one working bathroom) we moved back in the 6th or 7th of October.

We made about a dozen of these trips back and forth from the rental.

Once we moved in we had floors but NO interior or closet doors, NO baseboards, casings, or moldings, NO kitchen, and the equivalent of one working bathroom: The toilet in the main bath worked, but we could only use the sink (the ONLY sink in the house) and shower in the 3/4 bath off the kitchen CLEAR ACROSS the whole house. Yes, that's right, you'd have to do your business in one room and wash your hands in another, but remember, we had no doors, so you didn't need to touch anything on the way over. But, we did have hand sanitizers in both baths. The master bath was no where near ready for use--there were no fixtures.

Shortly thereafter, the kitchen and bathroom cabinets arrived. Looks like fun, huh?! It was a big puzzle trying to determine which cabinets went where.

The room was packed. Unfortunately, when they brought the cabinets, they forgot to bring the bathroom sinks. Those came about a week or so later.

Pretty cherry cabinets, wouldn't you agree?

Then came the installation of the cabinets. That took a week or so as Dave, Derren, Jake and Danny had the time.

Here is Danny helping Dave to get the new dishwasher installed. Did I tell you the story of this dishwasher? Well, one Saturday, Lowe's had a sidewalk sale and they had some scratch and dent appliances---this Maytag higher-end (stainless steel interior) dishwasher was one of them. Since we figured we'd be spending about $500 on a new one (lower level), I checked it out. Here was a higher grade appliance that was marked down to a mere $300 because it was scratched on the front. Well, for a price like that, I could learn to live with the scratch across the front. Or so we thought....until we got home and realized that once the protective coating on the front was peeled away, so was that scratch! Score one for us! The dishwasher wasn't scratched only the protective coating! Whoo hoo!

These are all the pictures I took until Christmas when most of the house was done! You'll have to wait for those posts---or actually, once this is posted and I continue to add chapters, you'll see that post before this one...crazy...