House Journaling!!! 9/20/09
So much has happened this week with our first house I decided I wanted to make a special journal entry for the adventure. Eric said several times by the end of the weekend that he was happy that we own a house, and that it’s going to be fun to play with it! I’m so excited that he is getting into the spirit as much as I am!!!!
My personal goals for the ten days between closing and moving day was to complete the major designs in the two upstairs bedroom so we have livable spaces for Serenity and for us. I want to remove popcorn from the entire house eventually, but I was afraid that was going to be too much! But I held firm that updating the house required the removal of the popcorn =) Eric doesn’t really understand this and my dad tried to talk me out of it, but I am SOOO thrilled with what we accomplished! During the week we removed the popcorn from Serenity’s room, our bedroom, and the upstairs bathroom! It was a lot of messy, dirty work but so worth it! It’s just beautiful! And now the house feels so much more mine, now that I’ve done things to it! In case you want to remove popcorn yourself, there is a whole blog dedicated to the hatred of popcorn and it’s removal =) If it’s new enough and never painted, you just get the stuff wet and it scrapes right off!! It’s a giant cleanup but not hard. Definitely works the muscles! Sanding is more challenging, and spackling so it’s perfectly smooth before painting is important. We primed and painted the two bedroom ceilings, and today I dusted in the bathroom so it’s ready for ceiling primer.
Our wonderful wonderful friends Gavin and Jennie drove down (with Cocoa and Cari) to spend the weekend in remodeling heaven. =) Jennie likes painting and Gavin volunteered selflessly to entertain Serenity when she could be distracted from wanting her Mama =) Alisha Jones ended up coming over to help too! So we have now painted our room Blackberry Farm purple (the name of the color is so important =) and Serenity’s ceiling is Pasture green and her walls are Summer Splash blue. The inspiration for Serenity’s room is an upside down garden (which is a whole story in itself, just ask Eric sometime =) So the ceiling is grass and the walls are sky. Then, Jennie, Alisha and I painted a mural on her wall!!! It’s big loopy green spirals and big red and yellow flowers. I kept the primary color scheme so her quilt and bedding all still work in the room. Plus it’s cheery and fun, and she’s so excited by colors now I think it’s good for her. She also loves flowers, and picks all Grandpa’s marigolds and says “flower” (although it sounds like flover) and “gimme gimme” (which actually means “give you”. Pronouns are confusing. Although this phase only lasted a week or two, today she started saying give me it to you, and then give it to you.”) Anyway, when we showed her the mural, she was very excited by the flowers and colors!
Dad was so incredibly helpful all week! Even though he was against the idea of popcorn removal, he completely pitched in and helped us do every bit of what we accomplished! And he built us custom baby gates for the stairs, and he helped paint, and he watched Serenity when he wasn’t doing that!! I am so so lucky!
Tonight Mom came by with brownies and offered to help pay someone to do the rest of the popcorn. She understands the desire to be rid of the popcorn, and she lived through the dust once and didn’t want us to have to do it, since there was no way we could possibly get it down ourselves (both because of the time involved and because we have some vaulted ceilings.) Hopefully that will work out, it would be amazing! Then my wonderful helpers and I can focus on the more fun work of painting and decorating and dreaming!!!
And what does Serenity think of all this fun? Well, I think she has noticed that Mama is suddenly very busy sometimes! She was so sweet and snuggly all weekend. She said “hold you Mama” and “snuggle” a lot! She was very good to play on the stairs, be entertained by Gavin, Jennie and Daddy, and to watch her special birthday dvd when Mama was painting or de-popcorning. I think she approves of her new house so far. =) And just wait till some of the fun designs Papa and Mama are coming up with get built!
Oh, I just have so many plans and ideas! Soon I’ll be moving on to tree planting and garden design!! Woo hoo!!!
You'll have to keep watching for after pictures, I forgot to take any!!! I'll get some tomorrow hopefully!