Project Update

Our project is steadily moving along. In the past few weeks we have done taping, texturing and painting. We haven't quite finished all of it in every room but mostly. There are a couple of windows that need painting around still. Home Depot is scheduled to come in to do floors and carpet next week and so we're really pushing to get as much as we can done before they come. I'd rather not do messy work (like sanding, texturing or painting) on our new carpet and floors.

Spraying on texture in the closet (and other rooms).

They call this machine a "hopper".

Sanding gets a bit messy.

Me painting the pantry.

Me painting the dining room/kitchen wall. Unfortunately, you can still see a bit of a bump in the middle.

Painted pantry (in the drying process).

Doing the knock down texture on the ceilings. This is in the bathroom.

I slacked off on getting pictures of everything we did but after Curtis did the texturing in the master bathroom and hallway, I did the painting. Both of us did the painting in the master bedroom and closet. We moved on to do the stairwell by the front door last weekend and had a bit of a set back. After removing the popcorn ceiling texture, Curtis had to cut open the corner of the ceiling by the front door and chimney because of water damage from the roof leak (before we bought it). He thought it would be a quick fix of just changing out sheet rock but unfortunately, he saw some rotting wood that we felt needed to be replaced. 

Built our own scaffolding. It was a little nerve wrecking but it worked.

This is the most difficult part of the house to work on.

Plastic up and ready for ceiling removal.

Plastic covering everything.

The two smaller boards on top were actually okay and we could leave those but we took out the big board which is a 9x2.

He had to chip away some more "rock" to get to the wood in between the chimney and the door. There was one piece that we had to take out and replace on that side. We thought it might be more but thankfully one is all was needed.

Curtis had to buy some lumber to build temporary support beams.

Got the new wood pieces in. One on top and one on the side.

That was all we could get done on Saturday and because of time constraints, Curtis decided he needed to work on Sunday to finish getting that patched up and textured. The girls and I went to stake conference while the boys stayed to help dad. Although, I don't think Garrett actually helped with anything because he said he had math homework to do. Curtis was willing to work on Sunday but I was not. My body told me I was tired and needed the rest. I did the priming and painting on Monday.

I painted as much as I could but the walls around the door and windows weren't ready yet.

It's hard to tell but this is after I painted the walls. I painted around the ladder for now.

The line where the popcorn ceiling was removed in the small section between the hallway and the living room.

Now you can see where I had to go around the ladder.

We finally got our vanity installed. It needed to be done before floors can be installed. Home Depot will be installing the countertop as well. We wanted granite but it is pretty expensive so we went for a solid surface to save on cost.

That's all I have for project update for now. This weekend we'll work on finishing the stairwell painting and prepping floors. We need to add some stuff to a corner in our bedroom that still smells like dog pee even after two coats of Kilz primer. Some floors still need screws in them to stop the squeaking noises when walked on. The boys will also be removing our other bathroom floor and the kitchen floor. They'll be doing that while I'm at our Relief Society Super Saturday. I'm on the activity board so I "have" to be there. I also need to bake some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and pumpkin bread for the activity, so I'll be doing that today.

On a side note, our black cat, Coco, (I used to spell it Cocoa but most people kept spelling it Coco anyway so I just decided to change it.) disappeared last week and we think the last day we remember seeing him was on Monday, Labor Day. I posted on Facebook lost pet pages and printed a poster to post by the mail box and handed some out to neighbors. I also drove around nearby neighborhoods. With each passing day that we didn't see him our hope of him returning grew dimmer, especially when we reached 5 days. We looked all around the house and at one point I thought for sure he might have squeezed himself into an air vent that was open in our pantry because it's not covered yet. I was ready to call an HVAC company to use their cameras to check. I used my own camera to check as far as it would but that wasn't far. Prayers were said that he would be safe and come back home. 

I didn't realize how much I would miss him until he was gone. It was so hard not knowing for sure what happened. I think it was Monday when someone messaged me about a dead black cat found 2.5 miles away. I went to check it out. It was hard to tell but I was pretty sure it wasn't him. There was no white fur on his chest or belly and it looked more brownish black. Every time I looked out the back window and didn't see him there waiting to come in my heart would sink. By the middle of this week, I was just sure he wasn't coming back. Something must have happened to him, I just don't know what. But then as I was cleaning up after dinner Wednesday evening I looked out the kitchen window while doing dishes and saw a black cat drinking from the pool. I immediately told the girls and we went out to check if it was Coco or if it was our neighbor's cat. Our neighbor's black cat would have run away but this one didn't. It was Coco and he had returned!! We brought him inside and fed him immediately and he was very hungry. We were more careful this time (than we were with our bird) and forced him to stop and wait for an hour after he got some food in him before feeding him more. He looked skinnier but overall still healthy, for having been gone for 9 days. We're so glad he came home. He won't be going outside for a few days. We need to fatten him up again and get him rested.

It was hard to get a good picture of him because he was moving so much to try and eat or find more food.

Sage was happy to see him too and didn't fail to sniff his rear end, like usual. Although, she did get mad at him later that night when he laid on her spot on the couch downstairs. You can tell she's in charge, but I didn't let her get away with it.