The Krewe of Fairfield

In the spirit of Mardi Gras, this past week we have had a little parade of our own!  We had a steady 'krewe' of helpers--family and friends--some helping us with physical support and some giving their support otherwise!

All of the 'thank yous' in the world wouldn't do justice to let Phyllis Cooper (mom), Wanda Wyatt (mom), and Mary Baxter (Meme) how much they helped us this past weekend!  Collectively, we pulled approximately 800-1000 staples, nails, and tacks (and tack strips) from the floors and walls of the house, removed more wallpaper and carpet, and continued cleaning and sanitizing!  Thanks as well to Kyle Wyatt (ice cream man), Jason Eddy, Adam and Mandy Rogers, Amy Martin, Candace Payne, Ali Feaster, and various neighbors for stopping by to say "hello"--your support also means a lot to us! 

We discovered some new friends at Centenary Hardware (our new favorite place to go)--very convenient and very helpful workers.  Also, a special thank you to our friend Dustin Morris at AirRef, who is going to get us all set up with a HVAC system!

It was a super-productive week and we finally feel like we have conquered the 'demo mountain' and *hopefully* it will be smooth sailing (or skiing with this analogy I guess!) with some of the finishing touches.

We might be biased, but it is hard to believe why anyone would cover up these beautiful floors with carpet!  Now, what everyone likes to see...more pictures!

Dining room (we probably won't have to sand the floors!)

Living room, again, great floors under all of that carpet

Panoramic pic (living room and front foyer)

Dining room again

The 'Krewe' (this room was a pain to get wallpaper down!)

Before and after:  left is the hardwood underneath--right was the old linoleum tile

Our pile of demo junk (sorry Shreveport waste department!)

Upstairs landing after carpet removal

--B&K

Slowly, but surely

Here are some things that have been accomplished at the (new) Wyatt household thus far:

1.  The carpet has been removed from 3 of the 4 upstairs bedrooms and half of the living area downstairs.  Lesson learned here:  cut carpet  into 3-4 foot strips--this makes for easy roll up and 'chunking' out of the window into a truck (our preferred method!) OR carrying to the garbage can.

2.  The 3 indoor bathrooms have been cleaned/sanitized and are ready for use! 

3.  We began raking and bagging leaves (there is a HUGE pin oak in the front yard that left us lots of fun).  Just doing this helped the outside look A LOT better.  Any other landscaping project will be put on hold until we can make some progress on the inside of the house. *Thanks Mom for the help on this!*

4.  We are in the process of taking down wallpaper in all of the rooms.  So far, the kitchen *thanks Meme, Mom, Uncle Rob and Aunt Robin!*, 2 upstairs bedrooms, and the upstairs bathrooms have made this an easy task--praise the Lord!  But...we are going to have to get our steamer (and vinegar and water spray bottle *thanks Aunt Robin*) to take down some of the rooms.

5.  We have begun the task of cleaning out the garage and 2 sheds in the backyard as well.  It looks like we are going to have to break down and rent a dumpster/borrow a trailer for all of the stuff we are cleaning out!

So our next step in the process will be to have a few electricians come out and give us estimates on re-wiring our old knob-and-tube house.  Also, we will be needing a HVAC system (the house currently uses radiators and window units).  So bring on the fun of one of us having to spend our precious lunch hour meeting with different electrical and mechanical companies! 

On another note--We have struggled so far with deciding whether or not to hire some outside help (i.e. a handyman (or two), contractor, kitchen consultant, etc.).  There are so many projects and so little time!  The time factor--us having to be out of our current house probably within the next 2-3 months-- is a little daunting. The more we do, the more we feel confident that WE can do this ourselves.  :)  More to come...



Before upstairs bedroom (after we had removed the carpet)




After with the curtains and matching wallpaper down