Friday, May 15, 2009

finally!

(pretty pretty foyer)
love love love)

so, i told you we've been working day and night to finish working to get my parent's house ready to sell. sadly, they are in the process of divorce, and my mom just can't afford this house; after all that has happened, she doesn't really want to live there even if she could afford to on her wildy extravagant private high school teacher's salary. 

let's just say it didn't look like this when we started (hence the day and night work for 2 months straight.) for instance, my sweet husband worked 17 hours on. his. birthday. 

do you love the baseboards & all the pretty white woodwork? 
um, not that i am compliment hunting (ok maybe a little), because i prepped it, primed it, and painted it all twice. the woodwork in the upstairs of the house acted as my bff's for about a week since we spent so much quality time together. it was just the two of us and this american life podcasts sustaining me. (sigh, thanks ira glass, i love you.) um, you never notice how much woodwork there is until you have to paint every single inch of it.
(um, i don't know why this chunk of text is a weird color but i can't change it, 
so i'm going to embrace it)

i can't even tell you how many hours this bathroom took multiple people working in to look so amazing.
 for a lot of reasons. 
hours and hours and hours.
if i could give out a purple heart for bathroom renovation, 
there would be some recipients for this stellar job.

i was going to blog all about how so many people came to help my mom, and get this house ready, and truly transform it into this beautiful home, but well, it's friday afternoon, and my baby is cute, and so is my husband, and i'd rather go play in the overgrown backyard with them than sit in front of a screen, my sweet darlings. so, instead, you get pictures of this pretty, amazing, glorious house. 

it feels surreal that after two months we are finally done. surreal but oh-so-nice. i hope, hope, hope that the house sells quickly even though it is a not-so-good time for selling houses. anyone out there have secret buckets of money hiding somewhere that you want to exchange for a really beautiful home? if so, do i have the place for you...

7 comments:

  1. lovely. we are looking for a house but I'm afraid a Richmond middle school teaches (single income) doesn't make enough to afford your mom's lovely home. hope the open house goes well.

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  2. WOW!!! That is MY kind of house! You folks did a fantastic job! If I had a secret money stash, I'd buy it, but alas. And I know what Bay Area housing prices are like (I lived in San Jose and then Santa Cruz for 9 years), so that should fetch a very very pretty penny. Good luck with the sale.

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  3. Stunning!
    Kudos on your woodwork, S. I ripped out the soul-less baseboard in my house 2.5 years ago with every intention of replacing it with awesome woodwork and it is still bare..but now I'm inspired!
    I'm thinking it must be very bittersweet to have this 2 months of hard work behind you guys. Hugs to you and your mom, too.

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  4. Beautiful, beautiful--& hours and hours of work I can only imagine (our little project of painting one bedroom in our house that took 6 weeks ... ).

    Miss Q looked at the beautiful foyer picture & said "perfect place to play games." She's quite fond of finding little nooks and filling them with toys & it's an especial plus if the space happens to be an area that we regularly need to walk through!

    love to all you lovely people in Oakland, from we in Lewiston!

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  5. WOW. The dream house in my head look like that one. If only I lived in the same state and had won the lottery. It's beautiful! I hope it sells quickly.

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  6. this will sell in no time. espesh because of the brand new lights ;)

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  7. I am with you about the selecting, priming and painting trim and woodwork. I tell you that the corndog-shaped soft roller is my very best friend. Corncob shaped is a close 2nd.

    Good job, sister - it looks amazing. Thinking of you often and much. xoxo

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