A look back…November

We decided that our house was in good enough shape that we wouldn’t be embarrassed if anyone came to the house so we decided to have a couple parties. Our first party was an open house with the neighbors and the second was with family and friends. In order to get ready for all of that, there were some “small” projects that we had to complete first.

We finally had to finish the staining and polyurethaning the hallway. This required a lot of work and inconvenience. We had to camp out in the living room for a few nights. It’s a great thing to have finished though! Once the floor was finished, we had to paint the ceiling, walls, trim, and doors and install the trim and radiator covers.



The house was full of incredibly dated, ugly, disgusting light fixtures and November was the month to get rid of most of them. We replaced the foyer, dining room, den, bathroom, and medium bedroom lights. Now all the rooms are bright and not cringe inducing.



Just before our housewarming party, we were able to finish most of the den – painting, installing trim and radiator covers. This was the room with the strongest odor of dog urine when we bought the house but now it smells nice and clean!



We also had some exciting unexpected things happen in November. The first was Tucker’s face swelling to twice its normal size. It turned out to be a bruise that became necrotic, turned into an abscess and caused fluid to build up in his face. After the vet drained it, he got to wear the “Red Babushka of Shame.”



The second unexpected thing was a deer dying in the back yard. A group of deer were scared off by Tucker – most cleared the fence, one jumped straight into a tree and broke its neck. Chris went to work and I field dressed my very first deer…in my suburban back yard while a bunch of contractors next door saw me running around covered in blood wielding a hacksaw and knife. My co-workers now call me “deer slayer”, Chris’ family calls me “Sarah Palin,” and my dad made me a “Deer Skinnin” sign. I’m never living this down.



Well, that’s all for our first year of owning a fixer-upper. Hopefully at this time next year the house will be finished! HA!