Mother's Day weekend wrap up.

For Mother's Day Finn and Patrick gave me chocolate covered strawberries and a garden cart.  The cart has a built in seat and actually came in very handy while painting trim.  I could sit on it and wheel myself along the wall which just proves how lazy I am.  I'm sure it will be used quite a bit when we complete the Great Shrub Removal of 2012 later this summer.

Garden cart.

We got quite a bit accomplished this weekend.  Dad worked on trim every night last week and our new heat pump was installed on Friday.  Let's recap the type of a/c Patrick and I have lived with since 2005.

Hague Towers 2005-2007 - I lived in the Hague in Norfolk when I met Patrick.  My apartment was on the 12th floor of the apartment building with great views of downtown.  The building had central air and heat, but for whatever reason only one could be turned on for the entire building at a time.  Apparently the City of Norfolk dictated when heat and air could be switched over at each season.  Hague Towers was inhabited mostly by the elderly and residents at Eastern VA Medical School.  Long about mid-May, the elderly would be begin to riot (which meant they congregated downstairs around the front desk) and demand that the a/c be turned on.  When your 90 year old neighbor is too hot to sleep, you know it's pretty hot in your apartment.  When the a/c was turned on I could finally close my windows and sleep without the noise of tractor trailers bouncing down Brambleton Ave from the Midtown Tunnel all night long.  Then I met Patrick who lived across the Elizabeth River in Portsmouth in brand new apartments with wonderful central air that could be turned on at the whim of the dweller.  Good thing I made that first trip through the Downtown Tunnel after skeptically saying "You live in Portsmouth?  Are you sure it's safe?".
Marina Shores apartments 2007-2008 - The unit froze frequently and I would have to chip ice off it with a screwdriver.  I'm not sure this is in the maintenance manual.
23rd Street 2008-2009 - No central air.  We had window units in every window which were strategically plugged in so not to trip the circuit breaker.  It took me an entire day to figure out how to plug in everything that needed to be plugged in without the power going out.
Williamsburg rental house 2009-2012 - We felt like we hit the jackpot when we moved in and had central a/c again.  We quickly realized the house had little, if any, insulation and no matter what you set the temperature to the upstairs would always be 10+ degrees warmer.  When I was pregnant during the summer of 2010 the a/c went out multiple times and we had to stay in a hotel in order to me to sleep.  We learned pretty fast that the owners were going to continue to put band-aids on a worn out unit rather than replace, so we just prayed it wouldn't break again before we moved out.

But now we have a brand new Trane heat pump and air handler and it works so well!

Back to house projects.  Saturday's big project was to take out one of the sliding glass doors in the family room and put up a wall and window.  Dad and I ordered the window on Friday night when we bought out Home Depot and it should be in hopefully later this week.  Dad and Patrick handled the wall while I finished painting trim.

Before

"Norm" and "Mini Norm" working on the wall.

Part of a wall!

Ta da!

Primed and painted by yours truly.  Now we just need a window!

My big contribution to the wall/window project, other than painting the finished wall, was to walk by and say "Good job!".

We put up light reducing blinds and blackout curtains in Finn's room because His Highness cannot sleep in anything but ideal conditions.  This is a nice change from the aluminum foil over his windows in our rental house.

Finn's room.

I finished up the trim in the rooms that Dad didn't do last week.

Master bedroom with painted trim.  It will look so much better once we replace the windows.

We also managed to get most of the kitchen painted!  I'd hoped to finish this before we move in, but wasn't sure if there would be time.  The ceiling is Behr Bicycle Yellow and the walls are Behr White.  We need to edge the ceiling and trim once it's dry.

The walls look beige in this terrible photo, but they are white.

All in all it was a good, productive weekend.  We hit DEFCON 2 on Saturday when one of us realized their watch battery died and it was not 1pm, but 5pm.  We recovered and managed to get everything done, but Saturday was a 14 hour day.  Putting up the wall was probably the biggest project we have to do in the house, so I'm glad that's done!  It really finishes off the room.

Upcoming this week which is our big move:

Monday - Cleaning up for the carpet installation.
Tuesday - Packers arrive in Williamsburg/Carpet installation in Va Beach
Wednesday - Packers finish up in Williamsburg/Carpet installation finished in Va Beach
Thursday - Truck is loaded in Williamsburg/Cleaning Va Beach house before our stuff arrives
Friday - Movers deliver our household goods!

Next weekend will be spent unpacking and organizing and then my Navy fantasy world of a predicable schedule comes to an end and it's back to sea duty.  I already have weeks of underways on my calendar, but I have plenty to do like paint kitchen cabinets and new doors.

In case you wondered where Finn was during all of this, he was hanging with his grandmother again.  He sat through an hour long church service on Sunday and most of an hour of adult Sunday school.  This is the child who spends the better part of a 30 minute library storytime rolling around on the floor, trying to talk to the other children who are sitting quietly, or trying to escape from the room.  Amazing!