Commence Refreshening

That's what I decided to call it. We're refreshening this house, not remodeling. We're not moving any walls or anything drastic, we're just... freshening it up! 

And we got right to work.

 Removing carpet is a job which requires muscles, which I lack. Fortunately, my husband has an abundance.

 Doing great, babe! Keep it up!

Once the heavy part is out it's pretty easy from there. Pull up the pad, remove all the staples, and run the ShopVac over it a few times. I helped with this part! Proud of me?

 Caleb told Emmy he'd give her a penny for every staple she pulled. This kid earned $2.00! That's a lot of staples!

Plus this was her future bedroom, so she had that motivation propelling her forward in her work.

 Jonah was on electrical plate removal duty. Anything that involves using a Tool, he's all over it.

 Yes, we painted it pink. The color was carefully chosen, and I promise it will be a lovely room when it's finished. Don't be alarmed. Stay tuned.

On to the Jonah/Claire room!

 Emmy on electrical duty.
It is a scientifically proven fact that sticking out your tongue increases the brain's ability to focus on the task at hand.

Just kidding.

The walls were pretty beat up, and required a lot of puttying and sanding. The people who lived in this home before us were great, and they loved this house! We're SO grateful that we found a home that was loved before we came to love it, too. They just didn't ever repaint in the 16 years that they were here, so it needed some... Refreshening! That's what we're doing. And the walls cleaned up nicely!

We decided that we needed two shades of blue for this room, because we couldn't decide on just one.

All of this work happened over the course of just a few days, and was made possible by the presence of JoJo. If she hadn't been there playing with kids, it never would have gotten done! I know this to be true, because I've been working on painting the spare bedroom for approximately 9 days now, and it's not done. And it's half the size of these rooms.

What I'm trying to say is THANKS JOJO!

I let the kids help, but not much. I'll be honest. They each took a turn running the roller up and down, and Claire tried her hand with the brush for a while, but it was always in a pretty controlled environment. I love their help, and I love involving them and letting them experience new things and learn something new, but I have my limitations! I like my walls as perfect as possible!
But look at that face! I couldn't tell her no. She was so happy to help, and she loves that she helped paint the walls in her room. Did she make a mess? Yes, a little. Worth it? I guess. I mean YES!

 Once the bedrooms were finished we scheduled the carpet. Then we hurried and removed the carpet from the hallway and spare room! I didn't have time to paint them, because we were getting pretty desperate to move the kids into their bedrooms. I did get all of the baseboards painted though, so I can just lay drop cloths when I paint the walls.

Bring on the carpet!

 New pad! Yay!

See those naked stairs? Not for long, whah whah whah...

(that was supposed to be an evil laugh. For the record.)

 Hello big truck full of soft lovely goodness. Welcome to our home.

Keeping these kids out from under worker-man's feet was a trick. JoJo eventually stuck them in the car and took them... I'm not sure where she took them. Hiking? The Library? Feed the ducks? Something like that. Bless her.

 Worker-man arrived at 9am, and by 7pm he was packing up and heading out. That was a full day of work! He was awesome!

"This my NEW BLUE ROOM!"
She says it that way every time. Even now, and it's been about 10 days since this happened. I'm super on the ball with blogging lately, have you noticed?

Consider this room refreshed!

Now for that spare bedroom...