Crunchtime

It has been a while since I have had 5 seconds to sit down and write this post. The house has consumed every second of my life and I suppose that is typical when one has a deadline to meet. Taylor and I are on deadline to be out of our old house by the end of the month, so it is crunchtime. Not like we haven't been working around the clock on the house anyway, but now it is more stressful than ever.
I took the last two weeks of 2008 off from work to focus on the house. What tends to happen is that a million things come up when you are on vacation and still in town. Christmas parties for work and family, hair appointments, etc. so not as much work got done as planned. Anyway, while I was on vacation, I worked with Ethan to get all of our tile down. We had a deadline of New Years to have flooring down and plumbing installed. We met our deadline and kick started the year off with a party in the new house! It was a lot of fun, but very stressful. The water wasn't quite ready for drinking and the hot water wasn't really working, but when people are throwing back the tequila, no one seems to really care!
After New Years, I went back to work and Taylor and I have been working evenings at the new place. He is just about done with all the sheetrock and seaming that needs to be done. I have started painting with the help of a few close friends and relatives...(thanks to all!) and have finished the guest bedroom and bathroom and am part way through the walk-in closet; or so I thought. I have never used blue painters tape, and don't think I ever will again. I painted the ceilings and then put tape up to protect the edges from the paint going on the walls. I pulled the tape off and half of the paint came with it! I am now swearing off blue tape and am going to freehand it from now on. I felt so accomplished until I pulled that damn blue tape off. Now I feel as if I've taken two steps back.
I stayed at the new place quite late last night to clean up the kitchen. Since we didn't have good water, the dishes have not been done since New Years Eve! On top of that, there was a film of sheetrock dust on everything. It felt really great to unload the first round of dishes out of my new dishwasher. Man is that thing quiet. I didn't even know that it had started! I continued to put the first of our dishes away in their new living quarters and it is definitely harder than it seems; trying to figure out the most obvious places to store things so that they don't have to be moved again...took me forever!
I'm missing what my floors look like as everything is a mess and I'm definitely looking forward to cleaning it all tomorrow. I swear, that is the last time you will hear me say that I am looking forward to cleaning! As a whole, the house is coming together very well. Our basement doors and windows came in this week and were installed, so we finally were able to get rid of our "ghetto door" made out of plywood and wire...trust me, it was interesting. The new french doors are beautiful and will hopefully seem more obvious as our front doors than the ghetto door.
Anyway, Taylor and I are trying to get the guest bedroom and bathroom completely done so that we can set up shop there by Monday. The rest of this week is devoted to painting the main living areas of the house. I can't wait to see the bold colors go on the walls. I'm so excited.
Pictures of progress will go up later when I have a few more moments.