This extreme cold weather is giving me some Déjà vu. So I think it is about time to fill everyone in on the tales of our moving west at the end of November during the first super duper cold snap we had. I will start from the beginning – mid-late November the First Moving Day: Kid Free –
Kid-Free: Except for help “packing”
William and I are super heros and packed up and unpacked this first trailer, including appliances – the house we were moving into had none left – pretty much by ourselves, which is a feat in itself with two little ones. Thank goodness for great babysitters. We also packed up our painting supplies (a paint sprayer thank goodness because this place was in need of some major updates). And since this would be The Rancher and I’s third house remodel/build together – yes we have only been married for 5 years – we were prepared…or so we thought.
Long, Tall trailer we took – Thanks Richard Gross!
So the road trip begins! All was going great, until we stopped at Buffalo, Wy for gas, we had been fighting a terrible wind and ice spots on the road. The Rancher was doing a once over on everything, and somewhere along the lines, we had lost an entire tire, not just blew a tire, we lost the whole thing! One would think you would notice this change, except for the wind was so stinking crazy (because we are in WY, that we just thought it was the wind pushing us). Thank goodness for the great people at Big Horn Tire, they fixed us up and we were back on the road in no time. Mind you so far we have been on the road for nearly 6 hours, and this trip total normally takes 6 hours, and we still had many miles left on icy/snow/wind roads.
Finally we get to the Lodge Grass exit. Pull off, and meet the sellers of our property on the road, they have a huge crew! 5 trucks, 3 trailers and lots of people. They were still working on getting moved out! Well, Not exactly how I had envisioned this. I guess we were here so on the drive up the mountain we prepared ourselves to get ready to paint. Except once we got there, the house was locked! Yes, locked! The bunkhouse was left open, so we got ourselves settled in there and made a game plan for the next day.
The “New” House (Are we at the north pole?!) Looks like it :D!
Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It’s off to painting that paneling we go! No time to sheetrock as the official move day is about 5 days from now and the kids will be with us, and I HATE sheet rocking. So paint it is. If we wouldn’t have had the paint sprayer we would not have gotten the job completed as there was the dining room, living room and all three bedrooms that I required painted because we moved. The rest is pretty much old wallpaper that is peeling. That will have to wait for another run of energy.
After 12 hours of painting everything had 2 coats of primer, 1 coat of paint…GOOD ENOUGH. Now for the carpet, I’m not a big fan of carpet to begin with and it is throughout this house. So we began ripping up the very old, yucky carpets to replace with more carpet. Sometimes you just have to use what you have and can afford! So now the house has a new living room floor (all the bedrooms need replaced but we are doing that every couple weeks!), and a new paint job and most of it. We opened up one of the bedroom doors and it fell off (whoops!), and of course there is the door that won’t shut. The Kitchen was another mess but after much scrubbing and a new coat of paint on the cupboards it is just fine. There are several layers of wall paper throughout the dining room and kitchen, the most recent are pictured below. It was a hard 24 hours of work/unpacking and getting the move started, but at least Grandma and Grandpa had the kids!
This is the Kitchen Before/After Picture – Stuck with the Blue background because we had leftover paint from Cody’s room!
I think we can all safely say I’m glad the quick remodel job is over. Home is definitely where the HEART is, and blood, sweat, and tears! Hard to leave a brand new home to go work on making another house home, but as The Rancher says, “You don’t buy a ranch for the house!” After being here for 6 weeks now I can officially say this house is definitely our home! Amazing what some paint, TLC, and new curtains will do for a place!
Have you ever had to remodel? Tell me your funniest story!
More to come on this move later in the week, trust me….this was just the beginning!
