Little wins

Whew! It's been awhile. Now it's warming up again so no excuses about not having heat in the house. We have A LOT of work to do to get this place livable but it's the little wins that make me happy for right now. Today I finished steaming the wallpaper off one room ( I detest wallpaper) and scraping the tar backing from old linoleum out of one of the hallways. It was an icky sticky mess but under the linoleum was seemingly beautiful hardwood so fingers crossed that is cleans up well. Anyway, two more small things ticked off the list and for now those little wins are big for me.

History comes forth

So far we have found out that our new house has a style ~ it's known as Tudor Revival or Storybook. It was cool to find out that info as I had always referred to it as the Swiss Chalet house. We also found out that it was originally built for the Sisters of St. Catherines Convent to be used as a parochial school. It only operated as such for about four years, was then sold and converted into apartments. It has been used as an apartment building since the 1930's. It is interesting how many people that Robert has spoken to have said they or someone they have known once lived there. In any case, we are planning to turn it into a single family dwelling. It has lots of room/rooms for the kids but it is going to take awhile to get it to where we imagine it can be. Wish us luck.

The Adventure begins

We close today at 4:30. Then we get to work......

Well..I wasn't expecting that...

So we've only been waiting for two weeks to close on our house. Not that long. But the waiting has been ....not at all what I expected it to be. It has been excruciating for me. I was expecting this time to be filled with excitement and anticipation. Weirdly, though, I found myself miserable and hardly able to speak without tearing up. All I could think about was the time that I had spent in my current house. The babies that have been raised here. The yard that my kids have been growing up with. All of the intended projects I didn't get done here. I really just could not get past this overwhelming emotion. Then I had a conversation with my girls that seemed to calm me down considerably. "What are you looking forward to the most about moving?" I asked hesitantly, tears threatening to burst forth. "We get our own rooms and so much space inside and we get to be in town close to the parks and the pool and the library and friends and Dad will just be a block away when he's at work....". This list went on and on ....and on. "What will you miss about this house?" I asked, confident the list would be equally extensive and that I would not be the only teary-eyed person sitting on the trampoline. "Ummmm....the yard, the quiet and we won't get to play paintball as easily." That was it. I guess I really just needed to hear from the rest of the family why this move was a good idea and they have convinced me....almost to the point where the tears are again filling my eyes but this time because I know that my family will have a great time at the new house as we work on fixing it up. And because I have realized in the past few weeks that really, in the end this house and the new one are just houses.. our HOME is our family.

still waiting

The most difficult part of waiting is that doubt has time to seep into your thoughts. At least into my thoughts anyway. I haven't been sleeping particularly well since we found out that the house is supposed to be ours. Things can still happen, right? Something could go horribly wrong and the house could no longer be ours - technically this could happen. Because there are still minor ifs regarding this transaction, my mind is constantly spinning~ What were we thinking??Is this the right move??? Where do we even begin?? Can we do this?? It's going to be fantastic when it's finished. When are we going to accomplish this seemingly monumental redo?? Can we even pull this off?? What about the kids?? Some of them are struggling with this idea of moving. It's going to be a lot louder in town. What were we thinking??

AUUGHHHH!!! I do not like this kind of waiting.

now we wait

SO...Robert and I just bought a new house. Well, not new but new to us. We have not officially closed yet nor have we come close to selling our current house. Ahhh...but we cannot wait to get the keys, get in there and...open the windows. The house does not smell good. You become accustomed to it after a bit but I think some fresh air will do wonders. The kids cannot wait to explore and run around inside. But for now..all we can do is wait for closing.

We haven't been sleeping well with all this waiting. There is just too much to be done and it's difficult to quit adding to the list. To start with the electrical, plumbing and heating (there currently isn't any heat) all need to be gone through and be repaired or replaced. The basement needs to be cleaned..or should I say scoured and sanitized. It's really not a good smell down there. The workshop needs to be created. The carpets need to be removed and immediately. ALL of them. The walls need to be scraped, patched, painted. Everything needs to be CLEANED. It's not what you would call move in ready. The list just goes on and this is just to make it livable.

This wouldn't seem so bad but this really isn't a little fixer upper. It's huge. Over 5,000 sq. ft currently divided into 6 apartments. Did I also mention that Robert works two jobs and I homeschool 7 kids?? I think we might be on the edge of crazy...but we're up for it if it means we can have this fantastic space to turn into our home...