DIY for the "handy"-capped

Purchasing this house has been the most exciting and stressful time in my life.  I'm feeling more stressed now than I did in PA school for goodness sake!  Putting a house of this size together on a budget is getting tough!  Especially since neither my darling husband nor I were born with the handyman gene.  But that hasn't stopped us from buying "assembly required" furniture and painting 3 rooms on our own.  We've also replaced bathroom fixtures and plan to replace the kitchen lighting and install ceiling fans.  It's been a tough road, let me tell you.  And we still have SOO much more to do before our big housewarming party in 8 days.

We've been lucky to have some help along the way.  For instance, my mother-in-law's boyfriend kindly helped us hook up our dryer (needed a different cord) and install those new sink fixtures in our guest bath. 


And our wonderful brother-in-law got us a great deal on paint for our bedrooms!  Now if we could've only convinced him to help us paint them too - haha, oh well.  We finally finished the first of 3 rooms last night.



Before: bright yellow - yuck



Mid-painting: Primer on the walls



After: a nice calming, neutral color, aah

Now tonight's project is painting the smallest of the 3 rooms, our workout room.  Unfortunately it had a hideous stripe of wallpaper running across the wall.  We spent 3 hours last Friday night painstakingly removing that. 

Goodbye hideous safari paper

We also purchased a new desk and bookshelves for our office.  In an attempt to save money we bough the self-assembly stuff.  With great intentions, I started unpacking the desk parts to put it together only to discover the top piece had a big crack in it.  Now we have to wait for the replacement part.  In the meantime, the pieces are strewn across the office floor and there they will stay.


Last, but not least, we just received our beautiful patio furniture set.  We unpacked the ginormous box last night and set all the pieces out.  This morning I attempted to assemble the two swivel chairs.  And, I can't seem to get the nuts and bolts to tighten like they should.  Probably my error but I couldn't help but muttering a few choice words about the manufacturer before giving up.  So there they sit - waiting to be assembled.

In the meantime, we still have boxes to unpack and haven't done any decorating.  Yep, we've lived here for a month now and I've yet to put a picture on the wall. 

Looks like its going to be a busy 8 days around here!!