whistle while you work

We have an endless list of things to get done in the house and that is what keeps us busy these days.  

The biggest project is painting the whole house.  It is slow going considering it seems to be taking two coats of primer to get good coverage over the dark existing paint.  I'm hoping it will only take one coat of color but we'll have to wait and see since we haven't even gotten to that part.  I'm hoping to write a blog post in a couple weeks that says we're done painting but at the rate we're going it may be Christmas before it all gets done.

Derek's favorite new toy in the house is this beauty....

The existing water heater was rusty and leaking and needed to be replaced so we installed a tankless water heater.  The size difference is amazing - I love not having the big old cylinder water heater.  We are excited about not running out of hot water (which has already happened once while the old heater was still in) and we are anxious to see if it effects our gas bill much since it is not constantly heating up water.

The other new home gadget we are loving is this...
a keyless garage door entry.  No more keys going missing because they have been "misplaced" by Megan.  No more stress when I realize that I am still 15 minutes from home and my girls are being dropped off after an activity and have no way to get into the house.  No more calling Derek at work to ask him to come home because I've locked myself out of the house.  No worries when we are half way to Utah and we think we left the iron on but our neighbors have no way to get into our house to check.  

Beyond painting and new home gadgets we still have unpacking to do (some of it can't be done until painting is done)  We need to replace some light fixtures and see if we can't get overhead lights in the kids rooms.  There are no lights in 4 of the 5 bedrooms and it makes me crazy.  The kids are relying on little desk lamps that don't really provide much light.  We'd like to replace the carpet but have to see what the cost for that would be - we're hoping  it can be worked into our budget but if not we'll be on hold with it.

I better stop the blogging and get back to painting.  The updates here may be sporadic as we try to get everything done.  I have been taking pictures of the process and plan to post pictures here if I can ever find the camera cord needed to download pictures - oh the joys have living in boxes!