We moved into our house at the end of October. And like idiots, we decided to give ourselves a deadline on when our house would be ready to host people. December 21, less than 2 months after we had moved in. My 26th birthday. We decided we were going to have a huge party which would turn out to be part birthday, part housewarming/look at our new house party.
Looking back now, maybe it wasn’t the smartest decision to give ourselves such a sort time frame to get everything done. But at the time we thought it was a smart idea. We were living in a huge dusty mess, our bedroom our only form of sanctuary. At the time, and the mess we had on our hands, it made complete and total sense to give ourselves a timeline. And we were also able to celebrate Christmas, our first one together, in a clean home.
A majority of our time was spent on the ceiling. After taking out the asbestos, we were presented with the task of putting in lights and mudding/painting the ceiling. The mudding came first. Which went on and on and on. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to mud a ceiling, or anything for that matter, but mudding something that is UP, is not fun. It grates on your neck and is just..exhausting. And messy. Our house looked like it was snowing. Only after were we finished were we told about the sponge/water sanding technique. We will definitely be doing that in the future.
Once we were all but done with the ceiling, we took out the giant fluourescent light that was in the kitchen and Matt hired an electrician who came over and helped/taught him how to put in can lights. He was here for only a few hours and helped with a couple. The rest, Matt did himself. For someone who had never wired anything before, the end result was quite fantastic.
Before long we were ready to put the walls up. I am pretty sure we didn’t get them up until about a week before our deadline. It was a race against time. My contractor uncle and my dad came over to help us put up the drywall. We only had a few days to mud and tape before we needed to paint. As you can imagine, our house isn’t perfect by any means. But damnit if we didn’t get it done.
The day before my birthday, I took the day off to paint. My mom came over to help and we were able to paint the entire living room and kitchen in a day.
And by some small miracle, we were presentable for the party the very next night. And a successful party it was.
It’s funny, the things you can do if you put your mind to it – and maybe an unrealistic time frame. Our house in nowehere near to being finished. It’s a learning experience, but a fun one at that!
Rain City Life 