Yep, the poor blog has been totally neglected this past month. I'd like to say I've been enjoying summer with kiddos and living life. But that isn't the case.
I'll give you the back-story here. When we finally made it up to our Michigan house that we're refurbing in April, after not being there since October of last year, we found a busted water pipe in the basement. So that week was spent cleaning out the basement. It was what we were going to do anyway, but it turned a 2 day project into a whole week project. It was not only throwing away all the stuff from the previous owners but also mold remediation. **I still have chemical burn scar on my arm where the rubber glove stopped to prove it.** The basement trash was bagged and placed on the front lawn. Yep, real classy hilbilly style! We hoped to be back in May and get a dumpster then. But in our household, we don't hold to that mamsy pansy "when it rains, it pours" nonsense. In our house, it tsunami's.
So it is now June, the 19th to be exact, and we trekked up with our loaded trailer to the
Michigan house. We spent the
next several days mowing and filling a dumpster with trash from the
house and the property.
Princess had her birthday that week as well. Her birthday wishlist were a stamp set designed by Kristina Werner and a camera of her own. Her other wish was to go to the butterfly conservatory on Mackinaw Island. Of course, we drove up on Thursday leisurely stopping at places that interested them and spent Friday on the Island. We'll definitely go back!
On Saturday the 28th, we went back to Ohio, and I spent the next 4 days loading the trailer up again. Then we returned to Michigan. We celebrated the 4th and even enjoyed a campfire with some fireworks of our own. I started to work on painting the basement. Quickly realizing that it wasn't going to be a quick weekend paint job. And that the HVLP sprayer wasn't going to work on the rough beams and concrete walls. The paintbrushes came out. Don went back to Ohio without us and worked through the week. Me. I painted and painted and painted and painted. I wished at one point that I was a prissy girl whose husband wouldn't even consider her working in a yukky basement...alone...One little bit had tears. Then I put my big girl panties back on. I would only stop to fix breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I stopped early on Friday though. I'm still not even 1/2 way through the basement. That first coat of paint on the ceiling beams takes forever, and I'm working around duct work and wires and some places I can't even reach. The old wood just sucks up the paint, even though parts of it had been painted before. I'm at 3 coats on the ceiling and 1 on the walls, and the kids helped with 1/2 of the wall. Princess is having belly issues - feeling sick like she's going to throw up the whole week to add to my already waning enthusiasm. I now realize that I'll need to stay another week.
Don comes up and works from home 3 days and takes off 2. He is now an official Michigan resident, woo hoo. $15 deer hunting license instead of $150. I also realize that I get way more accomplished without Don there than I do with him there. However, I now have 2 out of 6 new block windows up in the basement thanks to the man. They've been holes that are just boarded over. It lets light in and with the white paint, it really brightens the place up. He also shot his 2nd squirrel, but the first one that we ate. We (I) finish the ceiling and Don and I paint the walls with a 2nd coat. I clean up 1/2 of the painted area flooring and replace my freezer and we start moving storage things down there. I start the next section of basement. I can't remember if I just got the first coat or if I got the 2nd coat on too. Regardless, when we moved in August, I'll have to finish the basement before I can do anything else.
The Before
The After
I've decided that with these white walls and the ceiling that my treadmill can go down there. I don't think it would be horrible to walk down there. Obviously the before, I didn't even want to go to the freezer. yuk.
We'll be taking the next load up this weekend, but I won't be staying this time around. I'm at least viewing the light at the end of the tunnel as far as moving our stuff. So I'll probably reload the trailer and then work the next 2 weeks at the Ohio house cleaning and painting there. Unfortunately, it also means the kids probably won't start school until mid September if I'm lucky and first of October if I'm not.
