After receiving our keys on Friday, I got to work making a list of things that we needed to get in order to stay the night at our house. One of the more important items was to pick up an air mattress so we wouldn't have to sleep on the floor.
We hit up the grocery store to get some essentials like paper goods, toilet paper, bottled water and some ice for the cooler since the prior owners took their fridge with them. We packed up both of our cars and headed over to the house, the excitement was finally starting to take over!
I drove up first, ready to pull into the garage and was greeted with junk blocking my way. When moving the box of leftover closet hangers and wood, we also found out that they left the trash cans completely filled so we won't be able to use it until our next trash day. Throughout the house we learned that the sellers left several items, some good (a ladder, yard tools, fire extinguishers, light bulbs, instruction manuals), some not so great (broken lamps, old paint, old posters) and one with some potential - a large artificial Christmas tree! Once things die down a bit, I'm going to see how it looks before deciding if we get rid of it.
Once we dropped off our bags, we made our first of several runs to Home Depot. I can't tell you how happy I am that the Home Depot and Lowes are only about 5 mins from our house! We stocked up on some additional paint supplies, putty, shelf liners and a step stool before heading back in time for the pizza delivery. (On a side note, I really like Domino's feature of ordering online early and setting it up for a later delivery time). Eating pizza the first night reminded me of my family's move from Pennsylvania to Texas, standing around our kitchen island enjoying some Pizza Hut before our camp out in our new house. We popped a bottle of Champagne and toasted to our first night.
After dinner on the floor (note to self - take some chairs over), we decided to start painting our dining room. Thanks to Pinterest, the idea to paint the dining room half color and half white under the chair rail stuck in my head. Chris was totally on board, so our overnight painting session was on! We knocked out the white half first (Behr Ultra Pure White) before moving onto the bluish color on top. Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the Behr paint, because it was a can of oops paint that I picked up for $7 over a year ago.
The dining room before
Just painting the white half gave the room a fresh feeling.
Although it was late, we decided to start on the blue half, finishing up around 1 am. We called it a night since Chris had to work in the morning, and I finished the second coat on Saturday after hitting up Home Depot to color match the paint and get another gallon.
The iPhone doesn't really do the color justice, so I snapped a couple of shots with my DSLR on Sunday.
As you can see, the blue varies from different angles. I finished up painting inside all of the windowsills on Sunday while Chris replaced two out of three of our toilets. This was one of those fun unexpected to do items. We noticed that the toilets were old and having a really hard time flushing simple toilet paper so we went ahead and purchased high efficiency replacements.
Out with the old, 1 more to change out
And one more shot after the drops cloths were removed.
The room is still in progress as we have decided to paint over the beige ceiling. Since we are planning on having professionals handle the painting in our 2 story main areas, we'll leave the vaulted dining room ceiling to the pros as well. We also need to paint the doors that lead to the kitchen and the floorboard trim as the beige really sticks out next to the crisp white. Now for a side by side comparison.
Chris and I both agree that painting has helped to feel like it's our home and not just someone else's house that we will be living in. I was sore as anything after our first weekend of work, but I'm excited to work on other rooms before the movers are scheduled to come.
What did you do the first night/weekend in your home?
Congratulations on your lovely new home! Those windows are TDF!
ReplyDeleteThanks! The windows provide some great light, but since there are a couple of trees out front it also doesn't get too hot so it's a win win.
DeleteYay, congratulations! I love the new dining room color!
ReplyDeleteYour dining room looks amazing!! I'm so jealous of that chair rail
ReplyDeleteLove that color! We are anxiously awaiting the first night in our new home, so this was very exciting for me to read :)
ReplyDeleteI hope your first night is a great one! It's just such a great feeling once you get in!
DeleteI love it! Its going to look great when the ceiling and doors are painted :)
ReplyDeletewow how exciting! the paint looks great. and hooray for new toilets.
ReplyDeleteThe dining room is looking good! The color looks similar to our living room color - Winter Lake by Behr. We spent our first afternoon/evening doing yardwork because the house was bank owned and abandoned for about 5 years. I still look at the before pics in shock that it looked so bad! We couldn't move into our house until over a month later since we had no pipes (they were copper and had been stolen several years before).
ReplyDelete