Another one bites the dust

Well, I took another part of the CPA exam this morning. Finally. It has been so crazy trying to juggle work, church calling (ward clerk), buying and remodeling the house, and studying for the hardest exam ever! But, now one of those is off the list. And after this Sunday the ward clerk will be off too, since we will be officially moved to Orcutt. We actually have to move in with my parents, a whopping 8 houses down from ours, until I can finish the remodel work. I only need another week or so to get things wrapped up. We already have two coats of the clear polyurethane on the floors, with another couple to go. Then a couple days worth of painting, a couple broken pipes to fix, new carpet and we can move in officially. Thank goodness for the 6 car garage to store all of our stuff while the inside of the house is a mess. I am so excited to kill that commute. Plus Darcy gets to grow up around the corner from one set of grandparents and also around the corner from Cameron and Rachael's kids, her cousins. Rachael is Tara's sister. Well, gotta get going to start loading the truck and trailor. I'll post more info and progress pics later.

Progress!

Well, after starting the painting of the pine covered ceiling in the great room and kitchen last Monday, today it will finally be finished! It took from Monday to Thursday last week just to get 1 coat of primer up there. On Saturday I went down to Frazee and bought some Shellac based primer, real toxic stuff, but highly effective. It will keep the naughts from eventually showing through the paint. An entire coat of that went on in about 3 hours. We got an entire coat of finish paint on in about 2.5 hours too. We ended the day by getting about half way through cutting in the joints. Today we can finish that and paint one more coat of paint. Then comes picking baseboard so we can finish putting together the kids bathroom. Hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday we can start the sanding process for the 1000 square feet of hardwood floors. We are still hopeful of being able to move in at the end of the month. I also found out that we have to replace the septic tank as well before we can move in. But we are making progress. Things are beginning to come together. I painted the two kids bedrooms last week as well, and they look great. I'll get some photos and post them later this week.

We finally bought a house!

We closed escrow on July 31st! After a ton of effort and offers on other houses that fell through, we finally found a great house and were able to get it. It is located in Lake Marie, in Orcutt, about 8 houses down the street from my parents. It needs quite a bit of work, but that is ok. I've already started by ripping down almost all the landscaping that was covering the front of the house in the picture. Behind the pine tree/bush thing on the left hand side of the picture is the front door. I ripped out that tree. It has a newly remodeled kitchen with amazing cabinets, countertops, and Dacor appliances. The house is 3007 square feet, a huge difference from our 400 square feet apartment now. I am finishing remodeling one of the bathrooms and I'm re-finishing the hardwood floors as well. We will try to paint everything, inside and outside too, but that may be after we move in. Luckily we aren't moving out of our apartment until the end of this month, so I have a few weeks to get things done. We are so excited to finally be able to buy our first home. It has been nerve racking and crazy. Many many many headaches, but well worth it now that we have it!!!! We will be posting many more pictures as I get things done. I will take some photos today for some before/after postings for later. Our new address is 2211 Crystal Drive Santa Maria CA 93455. I will keep you posted!! This picture of the house isn't very good, so I will try to take some more later today. I've already started a bunch of demolition, so you may see that in the next pictures.