3 month update

It's been about 3 months since we closed on the house and we wanted to throw in a little "progress report" about what has been going on. Besides Ken being out of town for close to a month due to work, Mel growing a baby (now around 35 weeks!), and Austin potty training and doing big boy stuff- well, we have actually made a little progress on the house. Sometimes it's more one step forward and two steps back, or at least it feels like it. So first with the fun stuff.
Here is the progression of Evie's room. From move-in (dark chalkboard walls), coat of primer, and now light pink walls with clean white trim. Yes, even the trim was a yucky dingy yellow and had to be painted. The ceiling had well over 100 glow in the dark star stickers. They took about 3 hours to scrape off and unfortunately being stickers, the glue stuck to the ceiling quite a bit. This lead to having to paint the ceiling also. The end result is clean and bright looking so it was worth it! We have quite a few more steps to get her room ready and hopefully in another week we will be there.
*click picture to see larger version*

The living room has also been a beast. In this room, the trim was painted a light lime green and there was ALOT of trim. Once we got the beams primed and painted, we attacked the walls with a neutral gray-blue color. Mel painted the trim work for weeks as it took several coats to cover the green, and the bookcase had to be painted white as well. We still have several things we need to do:
Trim/cabinet for the other built-in book case, find a new rug and end table and install a roman shade. Not sure when these lingering projects will end, but at least the living room is more comfortable for us now.

Ken updated our lamp-post. When he went to change out the light fixture alone, we found that the wood was rotten and the post broke in half. We ended up getting a metal pole for our new light fixture and it looks and works wonderfully.

Our AC repair took around 2 months mainly as we were dealing with the home warranty company and technical difficulties. We managed with 3 window units for a while when it got hot. The AC coil had a huge Freon leak and there was another leak at a connection. That is the one that unfortunately has made a mess of the ceiling below.
Here is a picture of the coil before the repairman cleaned it up.

And after:

So for the past week and a half, we have enjoyed the whole house being cool. However, we are worried about our electric bill since they opted to repair the super old AC instead of giving us a new unit. We'll see. Once the AC was behind us, we went on the the next problem. Our basement. If you remember, when we moved in we had to have a mold remediation company come and we also gutted it. Well, it's gotten VERY humid and nasty down there and sadly the mold came back. Also, we have ground water seepage. You can see how it's damaging the wall down there and the foam Ken put on to "seal" it before we knew what was going on.

The groundwater seepage is basically water coming up from the floor for no reason. It hadn't rained in 2 weeks one of the times we noticed it. So the last week was spent getting quotes for repairing our issues. This is not a DIY project we want to attempt as it involves jack-hammering the entire perimeter of the basement, installing weep holes in the walls and a sump pump. To add to this, we finally caught the three mice in the crawlspace but noticed that there is black mold growing under there as it too has moisture and humidity problems. *BIG SIGH*
We are on the schedule for the basement repair right around the time of Mel's due date!! In the meantime, we moved a window AC unit down there and a dehumidifier to help things out. We are hoping to use the basement for good storage soon as we still can't park in the garage. :)


Now, on to a fun update! The pool repair happened finally a month ago as well. After we had it drained, the liner was not in good condition and we opted for a new liner. We chose a liner that would give the water a Carribean feel (as we both love the tropics!). It took 10 days for the liner to come in and another few days to have it installed. We have been enjoying the pool and learning to balance pool chemicals. Here are some progress pictures from the pool. They placed foam over the steel walls and repaired some areas with concrete.

The pool repairman's son posing for a picture as the water poured into the new liner:

Playtime!

Since we are on the countdown to baby, there is probably not a whole lot more that we will do for a while. We have some wiring/lights to change out and pictures to hang and painting to finish...but that's about it...at least we hope! :)