The Joys of Buying a Used House

If I had the money, I would totally be one of those people who hire a maid.  I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do enjoy a clean house. I even might be a little OCD about it when guests come over. 

When we bought our house, we knew we weren't buying a perfectly clean home.  But I never knew HOW dirty it really was. We had have our work cut out for us. This weekend marked 4 weeks since we moved in to our new home.  I can't believe it!  It seems like so long, yet I feel like we just got here and haven't had time to do anything.  Jack and I got sick the day we moved and are still sick today. Brandon has been sick for about 2 weeks now, so we haven't really felt up to house work.  So things have moved slowly since we moved in.

So it is good to remind myself once in a while of all the things we have done so far and I will share it with all of you! This post is a little random, but just some photos to mark the past 4 weeks for you to see.

We got the keys to the house on Wednesday January 25th.

 

We got to take the sign down. We were so excited!

 

That night we started ripping out carpet and discovered just how dirty this place really was.

(You will see this picture again in our carpet post- coming soon!)

We spent every evening at the house getting our hands dirty while I packed during the day at the apartment.

Our little apartment all packed up.

Boxes everywhere!

 

After packing every day for 2 weeks, I started to realize we didn't have enough boxes. My sister came in town the day before we moved and because she is the sweet sister that she is, helped me find more boxes in the dumpsters!

I'm pretty sure this is how we initially got sick!

Brandon got to go pick up our new couches that we bought in December.

  

It was very difficult working on the house with a 9 month old baby.  He hated being confined in a pack n' play and there was just too much dirt and plastic for him to be free. I ended up getting nothing done.

 

When we replaced the floors in the kitchen (hint for you in this picture!), we took the oven out and discovered the strong stench of fermented soy sauce and spaghetti sauce. I was the lucky one who got to clean it. I gagged only 100 times. 

 

 

 

 

How did it get this bad?!

 

We moved in on Saturday February 11th. We had friends and family come help and we are so grateful! We rented the largest truck Budget rents out and still had a trailer full of stuff following the truck. How did we accumulate so much stuff?!

 

Sunday the 12th, we spent the whole day cleaning the blinds in the house. We googled remedies and tried many... and we struck out with them all. The one that worked the best was scrubbing them with dish soap and water, then wiping them clean.  This took two people and an entire day! I'm pretty sure they never cleaned these blinds. Can you see the spot we cleaned in the picture?

 Monday, my sister and I spent the entire day at the old apartment. We got the carpets cleaned and cleaned the apartment spotless. Here is Jack unrolling the whole roll of paper towels like a red carpet!

 Last week we got our air vents, ducts, and returns cleaned. To say they were dirty would be an understatement. I got a super good deal on it, so we had to wait 3 weeks to get them done. But it was well worth it. The service we got was normally $250 and I paid $9.99! 

This is a picture of just one of the 3 filters in our house.  DISGUSTING!

If you haven't replaced your filters lately, I highly recommend it. It helps circulate the heat and air, helps keep your gas bill down, and it reduces the amount of dirt and dander in the home.

Our filter

A new, clean filter.

The guy who cleaned our vents accidentally broke our drain (I am giving him the benefit of the doubt since he neglected to tell me he broke it). He must be super strong, because he broke the metal piece connected to the side. When I went to remove the broken drain plug, I discovered this hair ball rope. I don't think they EVER cleaned out their drains. I'm terrified to check the other tub drain.

On the far right is the top of the drain plug and the rest is hair connected to it!

Yes this is random, but had to be included. Yesterday I was driving home from the grocery store and I was stopped in the middle of the road by this!!!!

Turkeys in the middle of the road. One male and all his females.

Where do we live?! Seriously a turkey in the middle of the road?

 I promise the posts are gonna get better and better! So subscribe to our page. Sorry it's taking so long. We're struggling to find all the pictures we took during the process. But we will have plenty to show you.. so check back!