Sealed and ready for wax. First night in new house!

Here we have pictures of the counters from this morning. Rory finished the 3rd coat of sealer late last night and they will be ready today after work for a coat of beeswax and then buffing. I can't wait. You can see a satin finish to the sealer, and a reflection in the counters now that wasn't there before when they were raw.

We spent our first night in the house last night. We woke up to a beautiful back yard view through the french doors of our bedroom. When we were making coffee this morning standing in our kitchen, I looked at Rory and said "We look like real adults now" and I feel like it too. We have an adult sized home now and there's room for normal life. Last night as we brushed our teeth we weren't bumping into each other, we have 2 sinks!
Rory was sad and sentimental about leaving our little old rental, but I wasn't.
This is going to be fun, and exciting.

Sealing the counters.

The counters are installed! We had a few great big guys come over on Wednesday, they helped Rory lift those massive slabs of concrete into place. Yesterday Rory sealed the counters with three coats of sealer, one of the penetrating sealer, and two of the satin finish. Today we will coat them with beeswax and they will be done! Then Rory can permanently install the faucet, caulk the sink, and grout the seam lines.

The carpet is installed

The carpet guys came early yesterday and installed the fantastic and super soft carpet in the master and guest bedrooms. It looks great and feels better, and the house has that new carpet smell. Baxter certainly enjoyed it and is starting to warm up to the new place more and more. Rory is making great progress on the counters, and will install them hopefully in the next couple days. We started moving our clothes in today and should finish by tomorrow. The closet space is really nice we had no problem filling them, and there is room for all of my shoes!

The move!

We are moving, it's fully a reality these days. And just in case anyone was worried about Baxter's feelings on the matter, he is dealing with it.
He is upset about his "bed" (futon couch) being removed and moved out to the new house. But he is making do with the makeshift bed we have made for him. He looks uncomfortable doesn't he?

Counters....

Rory has been going full throttle on the counters for the last few days. He made all the molds and mixed all the batches in just a couple days. He was in hyper drive! They are now out of the molds and fully drying. They are massive, and looking pretty good. They need some patching and filling and then Rory will polish and seal them, and they should be ready to install. Tomorrow morning we get carpet installed in two of the bedrooms, and then we can start moving in.

Nicole-One, 33 year old contact paper-Zero

I spent the entire day scraping out contact paper in both of our bathrooms in our new place. There was no way we were going to move our stuff into those cabinets without completely sterilizing them.

The original contact paper was still on every surface, and in some spots it had 3 layers of contact paper, each marking it's own era in time.

The 70's version which was the original was the hardest to remove because it would tear from going brittle over the years. But a sharpened putty knife and a lot of scraping took care of it. Then I painted all the cabinets, shelves and drawers with two coats of white paint, and tomorrow I will re-contact paper them in white.

Rory worked diligently on the all the templates and started the molds for the counters. He installed the sink, (it's awesome) and he should get the concrete going on Tuesday when the materials get delivered.

Appliances!!!

Holy Cannoli! I never thought I would have such awesome new appliances.
We got the first delivery today. They installed the Refrigerator, and it is sweet. So many bells and whistles that we are really going to enjoy, filtered water dispenser inside the door, and an automatic ice maker in the drawer freezer! Too cool. We ordered the standard size ($) although the space was for a commercial fridge ($). Rory will build some additional shelving above the fridge to fill in the space. I'm thinking cook book storage?
We also got in the Dishwasher, Microwave, Sink and Faucet, and they threw in a free garbage disposal too. I have never had a kitchen with a dishwasher or disposal and can't wait for the convenience of it, I cook so much I am sure it will save us time and we'll be spoiled immediately. Those we'll wait to install ourselves as the counters are still in the works. Rory headed out to pick up the concrete materials just now and will start on the molds in the next few days.
We should be getting in the Range/Oven in about a month, it was a special order as the counters are not standard depth (24", ours are 30"). The commercial range was the only kind that fit properly, and we ordered it in Cobalt Blue and Stainless. Can't wait!

The buffet is in!

We moved our first piece of furniture into the new house, the buffet. It is very tall and just barely fit in the dinning room where it should be, (with some altering). I think it will look really nice with a dinning room table next to it. We just need to get/build one of those! Can't wait to move in the rest of our stuff, but we need carpet, appliances, tile, and counter tops first.

Making progress

We finished painting the entire interior of the house a few days ago. It originally was all the same bright white in a flat finish, it was a bit banged up, and bland. It looks a million times better now. The ceilings are a nice warm white, the main part of the home including the kitchen, living room, dinning room, and hall are a great yellow, and the bedrooms are a pale green. It was a ton of work but it looks great. Rory installed new baseboard in the bedrooms, and it's ready for carpet.
Rory and a friend moved the appliances out of the kitchen. Then we demoed the kitchen counters, what a mess! Now we wait for the new appliances and Rory will start working on the counters. Then we can start moving in!