Monday, December 10, 2012

Dash to the Deadline

We are refinancing (again - how many times have we done that in the past two years?!?) to take advantage of the low interest rates before they shoot back up. Did you know they're expected to get back up to 12% starting in January? Whoa. This refinance will break even in two months. A serious no-brainer.

What this means to me is that we have to be ready for an appraisal. And I just am not ready for that. Really. However, appraisals do not wait for homeowners who just want to sit around wrapped in a blanket reading a new book. I got a call from our appraiser on Friday, asking to see the house today. Yikes!!!

So Doug and I went to work. Trying to look at the big picture, we decided that we needed a finished wall in the front room, and it would be really nice to have the painting done in the kitchen. Saturday was also Malena's piano recital and a church Christmas party (at which I was singing and accompanying a quartet - that hadn't practiced). So it was a busy, busy day.

It worked kind of like this:
  1. Prep the kitchen while Doug pulls electrical to the other side of the wall.
  2. Prime the kitchen.
  3. Take girls shopping for a birthday party (oh yes, that happened too).
  4. Eat lunch. Doug is still playing with the electrical.
  5. Go to recital. Drop Malena off at her birthday party.
  6. Paint the kitchen (coat #1). Doug was now finishing the wall by installing a new corner bead and mudding the new drywall.
  7. Rehearse with the quartet.
  8. Paint the kitchen (coat #2). Doug had finished what he was going to do, so I was all alone...and loving the solitude.
  9. Go to the Christmas party. Eat dinner (mostly), then rehearse again.
  10. Perform. Repeat.
  11. Fight with Sophia, who was soooo tired at this point (no nap).
  12. Go home and crash.
It was kinda crazy. But here are the results!

A painted kitchen. Sadly, this is one of those things that you don't notice - and that is a good thing. I should be grateful that no one is noticing it because it's bad, right?
Before

After!
A finished wall. The electrical isn't quite done, but I can now sand, prime and paint the wall to match everything else, too. Yay!
The back of the wall

And the front of the wall.
Sunday I put all the electrical plates back on in the kitchen and basically rested, and rested, and rested. Monday I tried to put the house to rights (weekends are hard on the house with everyone home) and finished vacuuming moments before it was time for the appraisal. I made it! Hopefully the rest of the week won't be so chaotic and demanding. Of course, that's just wishing for pie in the sky, but a girl can dream, right?

1 comment:

  1. Well, it looks great. I hope you get the refinance you want!

    ReplyDelete