4100 House: Here we go!

Our weekend was spent compiling to-do lists and reviewing pictures and trying to figure out exactly WHAT needs to be done and WHEN.  And we are eager to start!

We’ve decided there’s some equal priorities….

#1:   Front yard- got to have curb appeal before we can advertise the home for rent!  Who cares what shape the inside is in- if they think “ewwww” when they do a drive-by!  I’m calling to have the utilities marked this week so we can cut down the two trees in the front yard this weekend.

Here’s the awesome part: we’ve already got two guys eager to do the job on Saturday!

After the trees are down we can clean up the yard and get the curb appeal we need!  I think the neighbors will appreciate that since the yard has been a mess for so long!

Question: should the white picket fence stay or go?

#2.  Pulling Carpet from the stairs, upstairs loft and the three downstairs bedrooms.  

(no pics of the bedrooms)

The stairs will be a HUGE project in itself and we can’t wait to see what’s beneath the carpet!

But back to the carpet, we‘re hoping we can keep the carpet in the living room and the upstairs purple room.  

But there’s a huge stain in the living room that I need try to remove first.  You can see it at the rear left of the picture:

If it doesn’t shampoo out, then we’ll need to pull that carpet, too.  So my plan is to shampoo the living room carpet stain on Friday morning (assuming we have water then!)  Then I’ll hit Lowe’s to get a carpet estimate (we’ll use the same stuff we used in the 5745 house).

#3.  Getting the kitchen cabinets (and bathroom cabinets) started (remove knobs, scrub clean, lightly sand, fill the knob holes, start painting)

They are in really bad shape.  Cabinet cleaning/repainting takes a lonnnnng time…so that will be my first priority.

#4.  Paint matching.  Unfortunately, the former owners came back and took all their paint for the custom colored living room and dining room.  Fortunately, I had snapped a picture that showed the paint brand is Martha Stewart.  As for the exact colors- um, no idea what they are.

I’ll swing by Home Depot this week to pick up paint swatches for the Martha Stewart line and see if I can determine the color.  If not, then I’ll just cut tiny squares off the wall in an inconspicuous area and go to Miller Paint to get a match made- getting a gallon of each for touch-up painting those rooms.

I also need to find a neutral cream/tan color that we can paint all the bedrooms (which are currently royal blue, light blue and dark chocolate brown [not pictured]), and the upstairs (ugh, there’s TONS to do up there).

OH, and we are going to paint the kitchen and family room that same neutral cream/tan color….so yeah, there’s LOTS of painting to do in the weeks to come.

We’ll probably be hiring out a lot of the painting this time around.  

Oh wait, there’s some wall damage that needs repair, so we’ll be talking to Baltazar this week to get bids on that before we start painting.   Ugh.

Let the fun begin! (And no worries, we have a big to-do list for the kiddos as well!)