Persevering with Paint and Putty

Welcome to Part 2- the 2nd story. I love the design of our house, its a cape cod with two front facing dormer windows. This means that both upstairs bedrooms have those adorable "nooks" in front. Makes me want to turn one into a nursery immediately and put a rocking chair by the window. But, practically speaking, a baby is not in the air and now that Lou is deploying for a year, come 2011, it made sense to turn one into a guest room and the other into an office for Lou's military paperwork and computer and my Ebay and Facebook operations. We also have an L shaped windowless space that fills a void behind our upstairs bathroom. We're not sure what went into the minds of the designers or builders, or why they decided to keep it window-less, but we also appropriated that space! Isn't it amazing how fast you can fill each closet, nook and spare room?

The stairs leading to the 2nd floor are carpeted, as are both bedrooms. They decided to break it up though and put linoleum in the landing at the top, leading into the same flooring in the bathroom. A bit odd, but we priced new carpet and tile and decided that it wasn't necessary for our happiness at the moment to rip out the old stuff. That's for another day......

Below was the original bath. Wallpapered and fitted out with woodtone 90s decor, 

  

Right down to the matching toilet seat.

 So the first thing was to kill all the lawyers...no, wait that's Shakespeare...or murder might be what's on your mind as you attempt to remove Elmer glue'd wallpaper from a bathroom wall. It wasn't on mine, but let's just say that I was happy when it was DONE! And told Lou we needed to eat ice cream and vegetate to celebrate!

 Next Lou ripped out the cabinet, plumbing and faucet. It was a mess, but we congratulated ourselves that it still looked better than our little house on 170 Summit during construction. At least the plumbing was well run and not cast iron 40s era.

 Then we started repairing drywall and sanding, which took several days. It was worth it though to finish it off with this paint-which I happen to love! The cabinet we were able to find at a surplus warehouse close by and it was a perfect addition.

 This little lantern light rests over the mirror and is actually an outdoor model...stemming from my vision-announced-to-Lou about creating a nautical/lighthouse/natural shells/dozens of pictures of adorable nieces and nephews at the beach for this room. He said,"You need a lantern light-like those porch ones they sell.." and I was like,"YES! Can we?" and he must have known this was coming, as he told me to go pick one out. :) I really love the look it gives the little room.

 

 Since this bath is probably my favorite room in the house so far, it will have the most photos devoted to it, I'm sure!

 I still have to hang the pictures and buy a shower curtain and hooks but I'm so happy with how it turned out! And now Lou is a plumber as well as a painter and carpenter....

 Next is the bare closet room with no windows. Most of these rooms were rental white with wood trim, so pre-photos don't do justice to the dirty walls and floors and dated lighting. I'm showing the after-work photos instead. :) This is the shelving unit that we bought at Lowes and then Lou adapted to the space and my needs.

 Its the Ebay inventory storing room at the moment, but later on it will make an enormous storage closet for normal people.....hehe, not that we're strange or anything!

 Again, this bedroom was white with grey carpet originally. We simply painted the ceiling and walls and installed new mini blinds. It will become an official guest room at some point, when we re-finish the full size bed we bought, but for now its an "air mattress for guests" room!

The office room is a lovely gray green color. 

We decided to make it more masculine (to offset the girly periwinkle wonder) by installing a triple light. Its fun and different from

our usual sedate brushed nickel/frosted glass circular lights that we replaced all the upstairs lights with.

With all this completed, I have been itching to get a bunch of family photos developed and arranged on the stairway in true Martha Stewart fashion! I also want to rush out and find perfect this and perfect that to finish off each room....as in curtains and shades and rugs- since not a WINDOW in the entire house has curtains! But, these are all things that can wait a bit and instead we are finishing the garage and setting it up as a workshop for Lou to organize all the tools and equipment into, while keeping it large enough to park a vehicle inside. He got his Christmas present 2 months early when we started attempting to cut angles on shelf brackets (60 of them) with a circular saw and realized we would be drawing social security before the project was done, at the rate we were moving/rate of error! So off to get the saw-and here he is, totally in love with it!

So that translated into using it for the rest of the day!

 And building these amazingly nice looking utility shelves! There will be 2 units, each about 8 feet long. He also plans to build a fold down table unit that he can use as a project table, but have the option of collapsing against the wall when a vehicle needs to be pulled into the garage.

 

And did I mention the cat? We have a cute little black and white kitty that has been coming around for the past two weeks. She probably belongs to one of our neighbors, but no one has marched over irately demanding that we "don't feed the kitty" so I continue to put out milk and scraps for her. Now she has become both lazy and friendly and sits on the back porch sunning herself and waiting for the next handout!

 

And I'm very glad to have made a new friend-albeit non-human one! So, with all the house re-modeling  "planned and executed " I'll catch you up on regular ol' life here soon! Whoops, although there will be a post sometime soon about the Rubber Ducky Wonder Bathroom, as we are envisioning a grand project. But, between all this we have been fitting in church hunting (check) seeing friends (check) holiday plans (check) Ebay listing and selling and packaging and mailing (check) and Lou's orientation to 2-2 of the 1st Infantry, 3rd Brigade at Fort Knox! (check) Let us know if you're passing through, we'd love to see you! (and put you up in our very sparest of spare rooms)

Our House-Before and After The 4 Day Storm

When I say "storm", for those who might be confused, I'm not referring to Kentucky's normal weather patterns. We have been here for several weeks now and the tornado watches are as common as "cloudy today" forecasts in Washington State. It keeps life interesting! I haven't been good about updating all my "non-facebooker" friends with house re-modeling photos and life in the new place, so I'm going to make this all about "Kentucky house project"-just a warning to those who get sleepy hearing about wallpaper removal and plumbing reworking! 
We closed on our lovely little place on October 4th, a Monday. We had planned on leaving from unloading the moving truck to head to Lou's parents for a 10 day vacation, but found out that Lou's paperwork had been changed so we were unable to head out until Friday afternoon. That gave us Monday,Tuesday,Wednesday, and Thursday to begin tearing out lots of dated house paraphernalia! Monday was full......Lou and I unloaded 8,000 lbs from the moving truck in a little over 2 hours. Then, I climbed into bed for 3 days to recover.....well, not really, but it was exhausting, albeit exhilarating! 
Tuesday involved working on the laundry room-which housed the previous owner's dog for time-outs, it seems. Enough dog hair to stuff a pillow with adorned the baseboards and nooks! We cleaned and painted the closet white, the room itself a yellow "Butter", one of my favorite foods!

Large linen/storage closet in laundry room

My faithful slave-husband painting the ceiling bright white

The newly painted closet and creamy yellow laundry walls

We were even able to have a large pantry space!

We tackled the hallway and master bedroom next. The hallway was covered in dark red paint bordered by patriotic wallpaper from the mid-90s. A lot of water and peeling went into its demise...

Very patriotic in its day, but not what we wanted

Our house-after the bomb detonated-take special note of the washer in the middle of the kitchen!

Post wallpaper removal

Newly painted! I really love this blue in the house.

We decided on a blue/beige combination for the kitchen/dining/hallway as they are all connected. As we continued our project I fell in love with both colors and we eventually painted the living room the same coffee beige as the kitchen. Its such a warm comforting color.
The diningroom and livingroom were all "patriotic primitive" so we had a lot of priming to take care of the blood red and dark blues. I pulled off yards of wallpaper border from around the ceiling and chair rail height as well. It was a good feeling. I don't think I'll ever put up wallpaper border again....and definitely won't use Elmers' on those stubborn pieces that don't stick. 

This photo makes me feel a bit claustrophobic-the blue doesn't show as dark as it actually was

Border removed-tripping over curtain rods, packing boxes and our own feet.

I love the view from my window-down to the robins in the birdbath and stray cat who comes for food.

Newly painted kitchen-updated cabinet hardware and appliances at some point!

Diningroom-new lights coming later!

Looking from the diningroom into the livingroom-you can't tell from here but ceiling fan is "seashell" theme!

From there we started on the master bedroom. It was a simple renter's white with stained trim and wood flooring. We gave it a grey green finish.

It looks a lot cleaner in photos than in real life!

Newly painted and rug in place

One of the two closet doors-its a full length closet with a husband/wife separate sides.

 

 And with that accomplished, we decided to take a break and head up to New Jersey for a little time with Lou's family. We had a wonderfully relaxing break, we got to spend some time in the beautiful outdoors kayaking on East Creek and Pickle Pond. We went to East Point Lighthouse after church and it was open to visitors-which only happens once or twice a year! Of course we had to take a tour and it was my first time in a lighthouse! Pretty amazing. The cousins and some friends came over a day and we decided to kayak from East Creek to the Delaware Bay. It took us 2 1/2 hours and we were "plum' tuckered out" by the end, or at least I was! Mom and Dad Crist were working on Corrie's new bedroom so we all got to pitch in and do some drywalling/flooring work. Corrie is so excited about her new place-I'm sure it will be decorated ala girl to the hilt in no time! 
We came home to a lovely 1st floor (minus the wretched ducky bathroom in bright banana yellow) and a 2nd floor that needed lots of TLC. So, my next post will highlight all our 2nd floor re-vamping! Coming soon.......

Wisdom from the Beehive Lady on Moving

Last night we were in bed and I sighed,"I don't know why I make the bed every day, it just gets messy again." (This was one of my stellar thought-processes)....Lou said teasingly,"Well, I guess what the Beehive Lady said just doesn't work, huh?" (Me confused.) "Beehive Lady?" Lou said,"Yes, remember how you told me (at 6am, of course one morning) that she said if you made the bed as soon as you jumped out in the morning, you would have no urge to climb back in and take a nap?" Finally a light dawns, as I'm lying there still focused on "Beehive Lady". "Ooooh, you mean the FLY Lady?" He's like,"Yep, oh....... FLY/BEEHIVE, I knew it had something to do with flying/buzzing" Lots of laughter from me.....followed by him tickling me for my insolent dis-respectful un-wifelike behavior! :) Whew, sometimes having a moment like this at the end of a busy day makes it all wonderful! And what does the FLY Lady have to do with packing? She's a great motivational organizing coach! And this I need during packing for the move!
We are packing! We are leaving for Kentucky on Thursday, September 30th, Lord willing. We are doing a DITY move, moving ourselves. This last month has been full of collecting boxes from the ABC store (yes, our house is full of liquor store boxes- closet alcoholics that we are.) For all the un-movers who are thinking ?? about the liquor store boxes, they have many benefits.

1. They are designed for glass bottles and are re-inforced cardboard, so they hold books and glass without falling through-yay!
2. They are typically uniform in size which appeals greatly to the OCD personality of the packer (ie me). Can you imagine the pure joy in having boxes that are stacked evenly with all the same labels? 
3. If you're really nuts, you can categorize based on various brands.."Hmm, how about the Jack Daniels for the encyclopedias and the "Jose Cuervo for the mystery novels?" And yes, I even pack my Calvin's Commentaries and Concordances in them.
4. They are free free free! And some nice ABC store employees will give them out still whole, unbroken down. That way you don't have to put the box together and tape before you even begin putting stuff in it.

So, enough about boxes. In addition to packing, I am trying to get the last of Ebay clothing listed online and sold off....so there's not quite so much to pack. Right now I have 100 listings. I have a pile of 15 skirts and tops waiting to be measured and descripted (not a word, except in Kim's vocabulary) I am motivated by pure greed and dislike of packing to get rid of this pile ASAP. In the meantime, I have gotten over a dozen letters from friends in the last week who are interested in selling on Ebay and need just a little help to get started. This has gotten me thinking about writing a short "blurb" about Ebay selling, or perhaps starting a group/blog to just address Ebay Selling for the Post Recession World. (since we've been informed that the recession is now a thing of the past, this title seems highly appropriate) It can be a very rewarding way for a stay at home mom/wife to help supplement an income with "furniture fun(d) money", as Mom Crist does. She can excitedly show off her new/old set of 8 Windsor kitchen chairs that were purchased with "bag sale clothes" turned to profit!

It can help out with saving for a house fund, as I do. It does take time and effort and research, but in the last two years since I started I've learned so much. Selling on Ebay our first year of marriage, along with all the jobs we picked up on the weekends painting,plus not eating out,plus not taking vacations- helped us to pay off our $24,000 worth of car/student loans in a little over 14 months. All while Lou was still in school so it was such an encouragement for him to graduate and us to be debt-free the month before! Anyway, all this to encourage you out there, if you want to try, you can do it! You can start small-and then work your way up, a little at a time. Some of my most exciting moments are the ones when I find something as ugly as:

 

This parrot-adorned wonder from Michael Simon NYC at a little rescue thrift store in Panama City Beach, FL. Cost: $3

Sold: $50!

 

Or this dress that popped up at the local Goodwill here in Columbus, GA. The brand Diane Von Furstenberg looked familiar, but I just couldn't justify paying $6 for an ugly wrap dress in a size 14 without really remembering whether the brand was good or not. I went home and listed some clothing, and in the middle of listing looked up "Diane Von Furstenberg Vintage" and found dresses selling for as much as $300! Imagine my chagrin and then immediate want to rush back to north Columbus (a 30 minute drive) before it was snatched up by another savvy Ebayer! Lou took me that evening and it was still hanging there, so we had pizza to celebrate! I cleaned, ironed and listed it and within 2 days, it sold for $199!

These are obviously not my normal everyday sales, but I wanted to highlight them because they are so exciting to be able to share with you all! Found at a local thrift or Goodwill, and just a few dollars but yet someone out there is willing to pay much more to be able to purchase them with a click of the mouse. 

Most of what I sell is more in the $20-30 range. It adds up though throughout the month. And this helps. It helps us out when we have unexpected expenses, its encouraging to be able to give more to missionaries/Christian ministries, its just all in all a rewarding thing for me. Its not for everyone, I know.

A normal post-thrifting/rummage sale livingroom sight! (the dvd is Lou's sole purchase)

The "digging through old clothes looking at labels" and researching and visiting "thrift stores" on every vacation/trip I take are not what everyone wants to be doing. :) But, its a big part of my life right now and that's why I'm telling you about it. And for those of you who have contacted me with questions about it, I want to be to help you get started and begin to be able to save a little/make a little money without having to march out to an 8-5 job. You can do it on a smaller scale with your kids in tow-except for my wonder sister, who has 4 kids and has twice as many clothes listed as me! :) But she's just that awesomely organized!

Anyway, enough about Ebay and packing boxes.......we are moving....as long as we can get signed out of housing on Thursday. We will hopefully be staying for the weekend in Bowling Green, KY for a little siesta-during-moving process and visiting the Corvette Museum, maybe some parks/caves as well. Bowling Green looks like a lovely little place to spend some time relaxing-any hotel/cabin suggestions?

And then closing on our house in Vine Grove, KY on Monday, October 4th. This will happen as long as the title company has all the paperwork in order by that date. They have guaranteed closing by the 6th, but they think they will be able to have in on the 4th. This would work out so well for us!

We are going to unpack the moving van that day-and maybe on Tuesday if necessary. We plan to just "throw everything in the garage" as Lou poetically puts it! 

Then perhaps Wednesday or Thursday we're heading up to Mom and Dad Crist's house in New Jersey for a longer vacation....that is, as long as the Army grants us the leave. We won't actually know until we arrive to Fort Knox on Monday, just as we won't actually know until this Thursday if the main man who signs us out will do that/be in residence that morning TO sign us out! :) This is Army life, but its becoming more of a normal procedure around our house-planning based on last minute information! :) And if we can't leave Thursday, we'll head out Friday and camp out in a hotel somewhere for a while! And if we can't go to Jersey to see the family again, we'll just have to work it in sometime before Lou deploys!

Anyway, in the midst of packing and planning I wanted to give you all an update on life here and that I might not be updating for the next couple of weeks! Much love and appreciate all the thoughts and prayers for us as we transition from Georgia to Kentucky! We will be living here: (at the green star)

 

for those of you who are passing through the area we would love to see you and we have extra rooms at our house for sleepover parties, weary travelers, budding Ebay sellers and devoted fans. :)

Kim for the Touring Crists~

Furstenbergs, Bradleys, and Critters...

 Last week was a "wait and see"game, and then towards the end of it we got the word that not only had our offer on the house been accepted, the other buyers who were dragging their feet about quitting the battle (due to issues with their loan approval) had finally signed the release form making it official! How exciting! We launched into the loan process immediately, printing and scanning into our computer multiple "required" documents certifying that we were sane, wealthy, and employed....or somewhere in that general vicinity. Today the septic inspection and home inspection were completed, we mailed the last remaining documents to our loan officer, and were set up with a title company for closing. I'm still laughing about the section of the home inspection report that stated,"Vent pipes appear with nothing to keep out little critters." 

This was taken during our weekend to Kentucky, before we knew that it was to be ours! (I added the text later, lol

Lou's orders for Knox are still backdated for September 6th, so when I went by the housing office here I got the "you have two heads and one of them is purple" look from the woman in charge. I explained the situation with the mech leader's course and got a stern admonition to "bring them revised orders in as soon as he gets them" or else........we'll have to pay 6 months' rent, our BAH (basic allowance for housing) will be eternally revoked, we will be used as guinea pigs in the NIH's next round of medical experiments? Your guess is as good as mine! :) Now, if you've never had to "get orders" in the military, it sounds like a simple process. Go to some office, say,"Can I have a large order of orders and a small drink?" Nope. Its a painful process, similar to the DMV, only a tad slower. It could take weeks, nay months, to get this handy piece of unintelligible acronyms/dates/and most importantly-something in the mix that states,"Assigned to: 0001 IN 03 BDE FWD (WACVFD) FT KNOX KY 40121
Reporting date: October ___2010." I relayed this to Lou when he got home tonight and now he's on a mission to get these orders! 

Lou started Mech Leaders' Course Tuesday and has spent most of his time so far playing around in the Bradley Fighting Vehicle (BFV). He has a whole book of PowerPoint slides for this 3 week course and last night on our way to north Columbus I learned some interesting facts about the BFV. Namely, that it weighs 63,000 lbs. and has a speed of 38 MPH. (that's 12 miles faster than the WW2 German Panzer) Recent improvements made to it include: bench seat, storage lockers for gear on the outside of the vehicle, 3 "hotboxes" for 50 rounds of 25mm shells each, and other interesting and random facts. :) Its a "Tank Killer" and "Armored Personnel Carrier" (APC) all rolled into one. And THAT is probably more than you needed or wanted to know! 
I am keeping busy with listing clothing on Ebay to sell, in fact our unplanned trip to Columbus last night resulted from this mini-business of mine. I was in the middle of listing a dress and decided to search "Diane Von Furstenberg", as I had seen a hideous dress at the Goodwill 2 days ago and the name rang a bell. I couldn't in good conscience buy it at the time (since when did Goodwill start charging $6 a dress!) but when I found them on Ebay, the prices ranged from $40-$300 for used dresses. Ahhhhh, the anticipation built until I ran back into Goodwill and saw it hanging on the rack still. And why wouldn't it, after all, it is a terribly ugly teal with black spatter print wrap dress-resembles a poorly designed bathrobe. 

This is the same design, in another horrifying pattern.

Still, if it fetches $70 on Ebay, it will more than cover its costs! Plus, Lou stopped on the way home and bought some delicious pizza for dinner! So, it was a win-win situation!
In addition to Ebaying, I started doing some babysitting using the Sittercity website to advertise. Apparently, sitters from large-enormous families are in high demand, no worrying about them having difficulty making suppers of mac-n-cheese and putting kids to bed on a schedule. :) I have been contacted by over a dozen moms, but since we're leaving at the end of the month, I've only taken a few jobs temporarily. One is this Friday and I'm really excited about it, its going to be great to spend time with 4 little ones! The oldest is 7 and then there are 4 yr old twins and a 3 year old. Plenty of kid time, since Mommy and Daddy are going to a military ball and those last ad infinitum, like our Colonial Balls in Virginia. I've missed babies since our time at the beach with all the little nieces and nephews!

With all the "going to and fro, and walking up and down"as Rachel Lynde calls traveling, for the past few weekends, this Labor Day 4 day break was just that, a break. It was a good time for thinking about and discussing our goals for the future, our plans (Lord willing) and reflecting on our blessings-sort of a Thanksgiving/New Years minus the turkey and champagne. There are so many things we are thankful for, but sometimes I think that I just don't take time to slow down and see them. The weekend in Kentucky God dropped them into my lap, where I couldn't miss them! Below are two of them.

• The house. We were driving down a little country road, with nothing in mind other than sightseeing. We were going to rent. Our house was on that road! It was under contract, so even if we had been LOOKING for a house to buy, we wouldn't have found the listing online. The realtor was at a wedding and unavailable, but another realtor (who normally leaves town on the weekends) just "happened" to be in town that day to show it to us. The financing wasn't approved for the buyers, so we were able to purchase it. Its 10-15 minutes from post so Lou can have an easy drive and yet its still 20 minutes from Elizabethtown, where I'll most likely work while he's deployed. Its in the country yet unsecluded, with neighbors an acre away. 
• Sunday on post at Fort Knox we sat two rows behind the general and his wife. That also was worked in such a providential way. We had originally planned to go to a Baptist church in Shepherdsville with our friends, but they had decided Saturday night to go to the chapel instead for the first time. When worship was ended, we all headed out the door....but of course I had to use the restroom...again. (For those who know me well, and especially my husband, this is perfectly normal :)) When I walked back into the foyer, who should be talking to our friends and Lou but General F___ and his wife! It was an honor, but more importantly the general gave us the date for Lou's deployment, which is something else I had been worrying about. Rumors in the Army are like rabbits, they multiply and hop in all different directions. We had heard he was leaving: October, November,December,January,February......well, you can see how precise rumors can be. Just knowing now-per the general-the month he'll leave has helped me tremendously. I'm certain that the Lord knew (in spite of my trying so hard to not worry) that I would be giving myself a stomach ulcer long before the day came for him to leave, with all these options available. 

This afternoon I read an interview Time magazine did with Joni Erickson Tada and was saddened to read that she was diagnosed with cancer this summer. The interviewer was very pointed in her questions, yet Joni took them on boldly. What a testimony she is to us, and an encouragement to me. Sometimes my problems in life look so big, because I'm the center of my own universe. That should never be and she hit on my problem,"If we can come up with a simple explanation, 'You did something wrong,' then it's something we think we can control." That's it for me, I feel so often the need to "know" everything in my life: When will Lou deploy? Will we ever be able to have a baby? When will I stop committing the same sins over and over again? What if something happens to Lou overseas? What does the future hold? What if I lose all my hair? (yes, this is a real fear :)) etc. etc. etc. So, I'm praying that God will help me to let go of my (perceived) need to know it all, in future. And finding contentment in blessings he has given me this far in my trip through life! Here's the link to the article. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2016484,00.html 

Many things about tomorrow,

I don't seem to understand;
But I know Who holds tomorrow,
And I know Who holds my hand.

 Yes, I do.