House Saga: The Prep

One we cleared out the junk from the house, it was on to the serious stuff. With the exception of the master bedroom, upstairs bath and the outside shutters, we had painted absolutely nothing in the house. After seven years, things were looking pretty bad. Actually, they didn't look that great when we moved in, so now they REALLY looked bad.

I didn't do anything but house stuff for a month. Seth got a complete break from school. He used his time to figure out how to turn on the projector and DVD player so he could watch cartoons whenever he wanted to. And they watched a LOT of Garfield cartoons.

A Facebook status from that month: "Should my sweet children happen to inform you that we spent the day coking, please know that they really mean "caulking.""

I had so much fun caulking things like this 1/2 inch gap on the basement stairs:

Yes, our house was clearly built with a lot of love and care.

On top of the expected repairs (which were many), we also enjoyed a few unexpected ones. Like when we had granite counters put in, only to come downstairs a day or two later to find this lovely leak on our ceiling: 

We can't prove anything, but we think the granite guys knocked the valve just enough to start a slow drip (which is why it took so long to notice it). Sigh... 

Our lovely new hole (which Kevin repaired gorgeously)

And our lovely new granite countertops: 

And a beautiful new sink! 

I basically wore the same outfit for an entire month of painting.

These are my gorgeous pants: 

Not too bad for painting almost an entire house!

But let's not forget our favorite part: The Saga of the Shed. Here's brief recap:

(Shed is located on our property, but is apparently in an HOA drainage easement. HOA has never accessed said easement and does not intend to, but insists the shed be moved anyway).

HOA: Move the shed!

Us: Seriously? All our neighbors have sheds in the same place. It will look stupid if we move it.

HOA: We don't care. Move the shed.

The County: You have to get our permission before you can move your shed from one spot on your property to another spot on your property.

Us: Seriously? On our own property? Okay...(We go pick up a shed-moving permit)

HOA: You can't move your shed unless we give you permission.

Us: Wait. You were the ones who told us we had to move it in the first place. And we have a county permit.

HOA: We don't care. And we don't care about the county--you have to have OUR permission to move it to a new spot BEFORE you move it to a new spot.

Us: (Move the shed anyway and put in a fire pit over the giant dead spot where the shed used to be)

Moral of the story: HOAs are basically only useful for keeping harmless, well-meaning people from doing harmless, well-meaning things. But go right ahead and leave trash all over the common grounds or park your rusted-out, immobile car for three years--the HOA will turn a blind eye. They've got sheds that must be moved!

After a late, late night finishing up painting (2 am...I am way too old for that nonsense now), we were ready for pictures!