"Little by Little"

"Little by little". That's the mantra that our general contractor kept saying as he worked on our house. He did a ton of work - crown molding, picture hanging molding, window casings, a corner cabinet, and let's not forget the hole in the wall.

Dick and I adopted the same mantra whenever we talked about what needed to be done with the new house.

Yikes! It's been an entire week since my last post. What can I say? It's been a busy week.

here's a brief update:

everything did go according to schedule! :)
The painters finished the bulk of the work Tuesday evening. They pulled up all of the paper covering the floors before they left. They did come back to finish painting the kitchen cabinets on Wednesday morning.

The cleaners came Wednesday morning! that was very exciting! We really did try to keep the upstairs clean while all of the work was going on downstairs, but it was pretty difficult with all of the dust. They finished by Noon, and we had a nice, clean house - upstairs and downstairs! :) We also had a plumber come in on Wednesday afternoon to help us with some gas caps under the light fixtures. We needed to get these installed before we could hang up our new fixtures. Dick also finished the downstairs bathroom - he installed our new medicine cabinet, and the two wall sconces. (he had down all of the electrical wiring for this on Sunday. What a handy guy! The bathroom is gorgeous!

Our new gi-normous refrigerator was delivered on Thursday morning! It's fabulous. The delivery guys were amazing - they took my refrigerator down from the upstairs unit, and hauled it away. They also moved the (newish) refrigerator from the downstairs unit up to the upstairs unit, then installed the new refrigerator downstairs. Lots of work, and they did it in about 20 minutes. The painters came back Thursday afternoon to put install and paint the last two ceiling medallions. Dick and I were then able to install the new fixture in the kitchen. We also had a locksmith come in on Thursday to change out the rest of the old locks. We spent the evening bringing down some of the boxes that we've had upstais in storage, and bringing most of the kitchen stuff downstairs to the new kitchen.

The movers came back Friday morning to deliver the rest of the furniture that we've had in storage for the last month. (it was used to stage Dick's house while it was on the market). My wonderful Mom also came and spent her day off helping us unpack and arrange the furniture. It was a very productive day! We spent the evening hooking up the Plasma TV in the TV room, and hooking up all of the components. I have to say - the TV room is just brilliant. Really. The set-up is amazing. Our general contractor also came back and spent the day finishing up the built-in corner cabinet in the dining room. That room had previously been used as a bedroom, and the original cabinet (like I have upstairs) must have been removed decades ago. Our contractor build a new one based on the design of the original piece upstairs. It turned out really well.

My Mom spent the night (in our new and improved guest bedroom!) and my Dad drove in Saturday morning. We spent most of the day finishing unpacking, and completing projects. We also took a quick field trip to Berkeley - everyone piled into the MINI! We had to go pick up our light fixture rods which had been shortened. (we brought all of Dick's alabaster light fixtures from his old house to the new one. We needed to get the rods resized since my ceilings are 1 1/2 feet lower than in his old house) After we came home, Dick and my Dad were able to hang up one of the alabaster fixtures in the TV room. It looks wonderful. Jim and Cynde came over, and we grilled steaks, and pork chops. Our first dinner party! We were able to eat in the dining room for the first time - really nice.

We took most of the day off on Sunday. Sunday was Mother's Day, so I drove down to Milpitas to spent the day with my Mom and family. My parents hosted a BBQ for our entire family - both sets of Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and nieces! About 20 people in all I think. Happy Mother's Day!

The painters came back yesterday and started to work on restaining the front doors. They are also working on fixing some dry-rot on the back of the house. The last project that they'll be doing is to paint the corner cabinet in the dining room.

So that brings us to today. The painters are still here working on all of the projects mentioned above. I also ordered new blinds today. They should be here in 2-3 weeks. That's exciting.

We were also (just) offered tickets to the Giant's game tonight! Woo Hoo! I'm very excited about that. Should be a blast. I haven't been to a game in a couple of years. It'll probably be pretty cold, so we'll have to bundle up.

So that's the scoop. I'll post pictures soon. I'm going to work on making a little website of the house now. I thought it would be a neat way to show everything.