Staging the House

I spent the last two weeks of July going through our house and packing up or carting out about 1/3 of our stuff.  Family pictures went in the attic, extra clutter was cleared away, comforters and pillows were ordered for the boys bedroom, the crib was replaced with a toddler bed for Abbey, etc. etc. in order to prepare the house for the market.  In order for us to catch up from debts incurred while Logan was unemployed in 2010 and also to downsize our budget so that we can afford for me to homeschool the children, we are putting our house on the market.  Staging was a huge ordeal!  I had just finished the most stressful summer season at work, trying to keep up with thousands of documents in too little time each week, and went straight into this task when my replacement had been found for the office.  The house looked much nicer by the time the realtors took pictures!

 

Artwork

We have some "new" artwork hanging up:

A print of my favorite of my dad's paintings.  Newly finished and specially framed from dump wood!  Dad started this when we were living in Dexter, Maine...30 years ago!

Abigail was given these beautiful prints as a newborn, and I've finally hung them up.  Her closet is beginning to look more like a real room!

And here's the rest of her "room."  The ballerina photo was a wedding gift from Dad, nearly eight years ago.

It's a photo by Jay Stock.  I LOVE this!  I had Abigail's artwork framed in July, 2011.  I'm a little slow at getting projects finished.  :)

The Mighty Oak

The tall oak tree in the middle of our backyard had begun to lean toward our house and the bark was splitting in the back, so Logan was eager to cut it down and eliminate our concerns about the next nor'easter blowing it into our house. So that was his big project this past weekend. Here are the pictures: Uncle Jim helped all weekend. Logan had cut this limb, and here they're giving it a tug.

Here it comes!

Rigging up for the main pull.

Making the cut.

All done!

Now for the fun part...

Clean up!
Many hands make light work.

Thank you to Uncle Jim and to Dad for you help!

It is very good to have this done.

The Evolution of a Staircase

I didn't capture all of the stages of the project very well, but here is an incomplete slideshow of the progress of our staircase project. This project enslaved my husband for the entire winter, and we are sooooo happy to be done (except for a few finishing touches)!!!

This is a picture of our living in 2006 when we first moved to Maine

"The Hole"
To get to this point, Logan had to have the shop and living room re-wired and he moved the door at the bottom of the stairs over one foot, sheetrocked, and put in temporary steps. A lot of work!!! The attic floor is still up from wiring.

Josiah "helping".

The boys had their tools out all the time!

Josiah helps Daddy with the banisters.

Logan also had help from other friends, including Paul, Brandon, and Maynard.
Cutting trim.

Mudding and sanding, mudding and sanding, mudding and sanding......(while I dusted and vaccuumed behind him, for a week straight!)

The stair treads.

Josiah helps Daddy paint the walls.

You can sort of see the new outlay of the living room in this picture.

Staining the treads.

The Perry Construction Zone and Boothbay Harbor's Newest Resident

This weekend, Logan got the walls around the new staircase painted! That means NO MORE DUST!!!!! While Logan has been busy mudding and sanding every day this week, I've been trying to keep up with dusting and vaccuuming. I can't tell you how happy I am to have this phase of the project completed! I'm not going to post pictures of the new paint job until the stair treads and trim are done next weekend (knock on wood). Then I'll do the whole "Before and After" slideshow for you. :)

Josiah had the important job of helping Logan with priming the walls. Benjamin was extremely put out about this! (notice the dust on our floors and on Logan in these pics):

Saturday was also the big moving day for Nana. She left her home of 30-something years in NH for the beautiful Maine coast. I'm sad to say we were no help at all. We couldn't manage to finish our work in time, and I had assumed a later arrival for some reason. No excuses for bad behavior though; we are truly sorry!!! Despite our complete neglect, we still crashed the moving crew's dinner. Thank you for being so gracious Aunt Linda and Uncle Jim! :)

Nana's geese fooled the boys, who thought they were real! :)

Jonathan and Danny came up to NH and then to ME to help.

Nana and Aunt Linda were enjoying their deeeeeeeelicious beef tenderloin feast prepared by Mom.

Uncle Jim was learning his alphabet along with the boys.

Benjamin having fun with Papa.

Josiah had fun at church yesterday with his palm branch, waving it like a madman. It looks a little worse for wear in this pic! :)

Josiah and his new buddy Avery were waving their branches at each other. The elderly couple in front of Josiah caught a few blows!

Sunday afternoon was GLORIOUS!!! The boys loved playing outside all afternoon, and went to bed like angels. :)

The Week in Pictures

I'll do a separate blog with pictures from Mom's birthday party last night. Here are pictures chronicling the 'other' highlights from our week:

Josiah and Benjamin help Daddy with the balusters.

A new train set entertains for hours and hours.

Benji is developing a decent head of hair (16 months old now).

Visiting Grandma at the hospital while she was in for a blood transfusion. Still waiting to hear what is causing the severe anemia...

Always smiling...:)

Watching "The Polar Express" this afternoon

Going to dinner at The Thistle Inn this evening...YUMMY!!!

Josiah was proud of his 'big boy cup' :)