journey on: d-o-n-e ??!

Thomas and I can't believe that it's true. We are "done" with Hobbs house. As in, so-done-that-renters-are-living-there, done. When Thomas gets home from work, he doesn't know what to do with himself. Micah doesn't understand why he can't go "wrestle" and have "jerky" with his daddy across the street anymore. I am having fun making a list of our own house projects to complete now.

I realize that I have not written an update since July. But we have had a few other things going on in life as well.

We took a trip to Colorado with my Sellers family.

And a trip to Pawley's Island with the White family in August.

Micah got glasses.

And stitches.

But my biggest excuse is that we found out I'm pregnant with a baby girl. We are so thankful and looking forward to this next "project" arriving near the end of March.

Now on to what you came to see…the completion of Hobbs!

When I last wrote, we had just finished the shell of the new bathroom addition and finished the siding on the house.

Next came a HUGE work weekend with the help of my parents and brother TJ, who came up from Florida, and sister Bethany and her husband David who came from Winston Salem.

Our main goal was to finish the trim in the house, which is much more involved than it sounds. Installing the interior doors turned out to be a difficult and frustrating task.

Installing and painting the baseboards was also time-consuming!

Door and window trim went up slowly. And with a lot of caulk.

By the end of the weekend, we had met our objective and were even able to move on to hanging the cabinets.

At this stage, we were ready for the floors to be laid.

Linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms. Carpet in the hall and bedrooms. (hey, it's a rental)

And Micah was thrilled with his new playrooms.

Once the ground had finally dried out, we gave the outside a little attention. We laid a brick walkway with the salvaged brick and graded the whole yard for better drainage.

And then we started weekly (or more) trips to Home Depot for all of the finishing projects. We had to pick out all of the counter tops, sinks, vanities, toilets, hardware, mirrors, towel racks, and on and on. So many decisions!

We also began looking for all of the appliances to fill the kitchen on Craig's List. (once again, it's a rental, people) Thomas found some great deals on a refrigerator, stove and dishwasher. Then we decided to go ahead and provide the washer and dryer as well.

In November, we also decided to start a preliminary listing of the house for rental. Since we didn't have time to do a lot of work, and we didn't have any finished pictures of the house, we just thought we would put it out there and then get serious about renting it in January. We put a listing on Zillow, with one exterior picture, for no smokers, no pets, and a higher price than any other home on the street…and somebody wanted it! We couldn't believe that it was such an easy "sell", but are so thankful to have some people that appreciate all of the work we put into the house. This deal gave us a January 1 deadline…so we hopped to it.

One of Thomas' favorite experiments was building the bar top for the kitchen. He used reclaimed wood from Gordon's Grocery, another old mill building in Pineville that was torn down, and some kind of special epoxy that gives it a really smooth, shiny surface.

One of the most miserable finishing projects was adding the doors to the closets and hanging the bar and shelves inside them. Thomas had to adjust the doors numerous times to get the right fit due to the out of level and odd size issues we have had all along.

Around this time we were spending SO MUCH time painting. It felt like every day I had to go do another coat on some interior or exterior door or cabinet door, or something. (I know, not the appropriate pregnancy activity) Then came all of the touch-up painting on the walls and trim.

And finally we were at the stage of cleaning. Windows, appliances, floors, bathrooms.

And clearing out all of our construction tools and ALL of the stuff still left in Hobbs' shed in the back. This produced another huge load to go to the dump.

And then of course we enjoyed a celebratory taco dinner at our favorite "Mexican on the corner" restaurant that fed us through our whole project. (yes, we do look exhausted)