Works in Progress

So, since I found out some people actually DO read my blog (thanks, Hannah!) I thought I'd post pictures of our works in progress!  We actually did start sanding the floor in our front bedroom and are making slow, but steady progress.  We had to go out and buy a handheld drum sander because the glue was so thick.  We have actually had to use 36 grit sandpaper and the glue cakes on the paper very quickly.  It is hard to believe that anyone could do such a travesty to their beautiful oak hardwood floors.  Hopefully we can get things sanded and stained and sealed this weekend.  I would also love to get to our office as well, so I can have a nice, quiet, designated spot to read and study, but we will see.  Our first priority is the bedroom and then we will go from there. The good news about the office though is that the hardwoods were already exposed.  They have a few stains, but no glue, so they should be much easier!

Here are some pictures of the progress.  I can't figure out how to put them in better order, so I apologize, for them being out of order.

Here is a comparison of the sanded vs. un-sanded floor.  Look at the difference.  Unfortunately we still have a lot more sanding to do to get things even.

This is a picture of the whole room with most of the black stuff scraped off.  Getting the light green carpet out really brightened the room.

A close up of the sanded floor along with a collection of some of the sanded particles.  We are going to use some of this to make a paste to fill the nail holes in from where the tack boards were nailed in.

Horrible picture quality (we have no overhead light in the room...another story for another post) but you can see the sandpaper and how thick that glue gets.

This is a picture after all the black stuff was scraped and before the sanding began.

This is as far as we got on Sunday evening.  We were tired and running out of daylight.

Hopefully we can complete this project this weekend.  It will take a lot of time, but we are eager to see the finished product!

Lastly, since I titled this blog post "works in progress" I will also give a small update with the dining room.  It is the only room near completion, but we still need to hang things on the wall.  Here is a sneak peak though:

This is a picture of the dining room before we moved in, so this is the previous owner's furniture.

Above is what it looks like without our furniture.  I tried to get most of the room painted before our furniture arrived so we could move the china cabinet (my favorite piece of furniture) into the house.  We now have furniture, but nothing on the walls, so I will update once we get everything complete.  Also, I think a new chandelier or at least some coverings for the lights are needed too, don't you?  We also need new window treatments, and I have NO idea when that will happen or how to pick those out!  We'll see.  Suggestions are welcome!

Bedroom Before

So it's been a long time since I have updated anything.  Marc and I are VERY and I mean VERY slowly unpacking and we have so much work to do on our house.  We are trying to do most of the work ourselves to save money.  It started with ripping out carpets.  There are hardwoods under all of the carpets in the house with the exception of the family room (previously a garage) and the "three season" porch.  Here are some before pictures . . .

As you can tell, the room (minus the paint samples) was pretty drab.  We have now ripped up the carpet, but still haven't decided on  a paint color!  It has been QUITE a process though, and definitely more than what we bargained for!  Under the carpet was not only carpet pad, but also this horrible linoleum-like layer with a felt-like layer that was GLUED to the hardwoods. 

Look at all these layers (and please excuse the ugly toes!)

After the carpet and carpet pad were removed, we had to remove the tack-board that was nailed into the hardwoods.

We had to then scrape the third layer off.  This was very laborious and took DAYS since I had to do it a bit at a time as my work schedule and integrity of my hands allowed.

This was after one afternoon of scraping.  It took another round of scraping to get the black stuff off, but just look at those beautiful hardwoods underneath! We have now removed all of the black backing that was glued to the hardwoods and now it is time to sand and refinish.  We are hoping that we can do it all ourselves and THIS weekend.  I am so eager to get settled!  Wish us luck.  Will update soon once we are finished!

Arrived in Minneapolis

Marc and I rolled into Minneapolis on Monday afternoon, just in time for a fun BBQ at one of my fellow intern's house.  It was fun to meet most of my fellow interns.  We have a great group and I am excited to start the year with them.

Marc and I are "living" at a hotel right now until our house closes.  It isn't ideal, but it is cheap, which is a benefit.  We stuffed our car with as much stuff (clothes and other necessities) as we possibly could and headed due north.  We tried to pack up as much of our stuff as we could prior to pulling out of town, but Marc (and his brother, Scott--thank you Scott) are going to finish up the rest, load and drive the biggest truck they can possibly drive to Minneapolis soon, and I am VERY eager to have our things, along with our wonderful 14 year-old cat, Max, who Marc and I are missing terribly!  We are glad that Emily is there to watch out for him though!

Here is how we left our house (and remember, we still need to SELL our house!)

More updates later as we get moved into our house!

House Hunting

Marc and I began our house hunting journey in The Twin Cities sometime in April.  It took us a bit to figure out when we could make the trip, but we eventually made one and have made 2 since--well at least I have made two additional trips!  It was definitely a learning experience.  We had to figure out what part of town we wanted to live in and to make the process longer we had to figure that out in 2 cities...Minneapolis and St. Paul!

We began our search in St. Paul.  This city seemed to have more of the older home characteristics that I wanted, but we just couldn't find the right house.  We loved character like this:

but this house was in foreclosure and was in very bad shape.

We ventured over the next day to Minneapolis and started looking around.  We finally figured out what part of town we wanted to be in, but that too came with other limiting factors.  We didn't want to live on a busy street or on a bus route, but wanted to be close to local amenities.

We finally found the perfect house, and by perfect house, I mean a house that will BECOME perfect.  We made an offer over Easter weekend, went back and forth a whole lot and then finally gave up. The guy just wouldn't budge on price.  We again became frustrated with the whole process.  We had some time to cool off, but were getting in a time crunch since I start on June 15th.  I made a quick trip to Minneapolis during my time off from school once some new listings popped up, again found a house that we loved, made an offer and again couldn't reach an agreement with the seller. This time, it wasn't the price but was over inspections.  They REFUSED for us to inspect the sewer and the chimneys...sounds fishy huh?  So after more back and forth, they still refused a sewer inspection, so we again, gave up.  

We went back to the original guy, he came down somewhat on his price and we reached an agreement.  Now we are in the inspection process and are keeping our fingers crossed.  I am just hopeful that I will have time to help Marc with the move, painting, updating, etc., and even more time to blog about it because home blogs are great to read.  I am sure it will be quite an adventure...as long as everything goes through!

More Hawaii

I know that I said that I would have more pictures of our Hawaiian trip posted, so please excuse the delay.  I haven't had a lot of time recently to blog (surgery rotation, looking for a new home, trying to get ours ready to sell, etc).  Perhaps, it is my wish/hope to go on another trip before June 15th (my "report" date), but I wanted to share some more pictures from our wonderful trip to Kauai.

This is obviously a lighthouse, but the water and the green color of the landscape were just to die for!

More of that same point

This was one of my favorites.  SHAVE ice.  It was incredible and below that big, colorful, tasty ice shavings is yummy ice cream!

Enjoying my shave ice in Hanelai.

Waimea Canyon

More of the canyon at a lookout point

We got out of our rental car to hike a little bit and this was some of our terrain!

We went to a beach called "Glass Beach" where (unfortunately) a lot of garbage, including glass was disposed into the ocean years ago, and much of the glass came back to land and due to nature's forces has now made this beautiful beach.

This was also on Glass Beach

One of the blowholes on the island.

A beautiful bird during our chocolate farm tour.

During our chocolate tour, we had a chocolate tasting, which was fun and interesting.  I discovered these tasty treats called cacoa nibs (covered in dark chocolate of course), that are now one of my favorite snacks and are also packed full of antioxidants!

Marc had very mature descriptions of his chocolate "palate."  He never ceases to entertain me!

We loved being able to use our iPhones in paradise.  Little did we know that just one month later, we'd be able to call the Twins our hometown team!

Beautiful view from our hotel grounds in Princeville.

We took very few pictures of ourselves....

We definitely stopped at the one Wal-Mart on the island MULTIPLE times.  Most of our meals consisted of mac and cheese and PB&J, so we made trips to Wal-Mart to get meal supplies.  We thought it was funny that they had a free shuttle!

BEAUTIFUL waterfall on one of our driving tours.

Toward the end of our stay, Marc and I decided to take a tour of the vacant Coco Palm.  This was "the hot spot" in Kauai before one of the hurricanes destroyed it in the 1990s.  Elvis stayed here a lot and actually filmed the movie "Blue Hawaii" here, so we of course had to stop in!

Outside of Elvis's bungalow.

The Coconut Grove

A destroyed piano in the storage area.  I like to think that Elvis tickled these ivory (although not real ivory) keys!

View from our room's balcony.  Not bad for using hotel points and getting 25% off of those points! I love that Marc still has great perks left from his old job.  Too bad he doesn't get them now!

Our trusty rental car which we named "Merlin" because it was a Dodge Caliber (close to Excalibur). 

There were roosters EVERYWHERE!

One our way home...open air airport! 

It was a great trip and one we'd definitely LOVE to repeat.  Who knows, maybe (cross my fingers) another fun trip will be in store before I start residency!

Stay tuned for house hunting stories!