With a lot of help from our friends and family, we are one day away from moving day with the house pretty much ready for move in. Yeah, we need to paint the trim, touch up paint here and there, and finish the kitchen and bathroom, but we'll be able to get our furniture in and settled tomorrow - and that's what matters.

I'll try and get pictures taken pre-move in tonight or tomorrow morning. We'll see.

Now for the fun part - decorating!

seems to be missing.

All day Saturday was spent removing wallpaper. Sunday was more of the same, with some painting thrown in at the end of the day.

The boys moved everything out of storage into the garage - after leaving a little bit of room for the electrician to move (and I do mean a little), it's full.

Tonight I finished cutting in the hallway, then helped pull padding staples out of the hardwood floors while Gary pulled up the tack strips. He's gone back to clean and polish the floors (yes, at 1:00 am) while I write this and seriously consider bedtime.

This week we'd love to get the walls in the living room cleaned, primed and rolled with paint and the carpets up in prep for moving this weekend. We'll see. After I finish cutting in the paint in the master bedroom, it looks like I'll be dunking some sponges in TSP for an evening or two.

A few pictures from this evening (sorry for the bluriness - iPhone + lower light):

The wood floors, uncovered.

Looking out into the hall from the master bedroom. You can see the carpet that was in the bedroom as well as the bedroom (non-wallpaper!) paint color

The hallway (and living room and bathroom) paint color

For those who have been following me on Twitter, you'll have probably seen that Gary and I just closed on our first home!



It's a 1951 bungalow on 1/3 of an acre in the historic area of town, and we purchased it from the original owners who built the house. I really want to keep it as original as possible, which means I'm scouring restoration blogs to make sure the changes that I'd like to make won't detract from its charm. Who knew it would be so hard to find out what door knob finishes are considered appropriate for that time period?! (I'm reduced to looking at pictures in the blogs and going based on what is currently there. They may have been polished brass at one time - though I'm not a big fan of polished brass, so I'm looking for alternatives.) It looks like the tulip shape is proper.

I think I should have taken pictures of the current knobs - I only took one of the front door lockset.

Did I mention I've always wanted a magnolia tree? (Are my southern roots showing?)