It Always Takes Longer and Costs More Than You Think

I haven't had time to post much here lately (or visit my blogging friends--sorry!), because WE HAVE BEEN BUSY!

Last week, our friend came to help us paint, Papa Rooster took off two days of work, the kids and I let homeschooling go, we cancelled our Memorial Day weekend trip to visit my folks in Ohio, and we:

--removed and painted the front door (white)
--replaced the knocker, the peephole and the doorknob with brand-new, non-tarnished ones
--painted two interior doors in the front room (white)
--painted the high ceiling of our great room (white)
--painted the front room (a light butter-beige)
--replaced all the yellowed switches in the front room with new, white ones
--replaced a rusty heating vent in the main level half-bath with a new (white) one
--replaced the old, brass, frequently malfunctioning light fixture in the same bath with a new, satin nickel finished one
--replaced four exterior porch lights
--painted the garage door (white)
--stained the deck (brick-orange)
--set up the awning, deck lights and patio furniture
--removed half the furniture from our front room (anyone want to buy a roll-top desk?)
--replaced our tall, ugly, laminate TV stand with a low, mission-style wooden one
--began planting petunias, a few at at a time
--packed up boxes and boxes of books from Papa Rooster's office (just clearing the carpet!)
--went through boys' clothes I've been saving--thinking erroneously that surely, with 4 boys, somebody would wear it someday--and filled 3 garbage bags full of donations
--began to prep the boys' basement bedroom walls for painting--removing thumbtacks, sticky-tack, and foamy stickers (the worst!) and filling nail-holes and many dents with vinyl spackling

In the midst of all this, two potential buyers with urgent time-frames asked to see the house! We made them wait a couple days till the front room, at least, was painted and pulled back together--and my, that room makes an excellent first impression now. With half the furniture arranged only along two walls, the room looks huge.

And one of them says they want to buy the house. We haven't seen the offer yet--it IS Memorial Day weekend, of course--so we'll see what comes of it....

Meanwhile we still have a lot of work to do this week!