you’d think after 7 years of renovating 347 Goodrich Ave in st. paul, that we’d have learned our lesson and not bought another fixer-upper.  ha ha.  we’ve done it again.  hazenstraat 18bv is lovely, but it’s a project.  3 floors of project.  5 rooms of project, counting the WC and  the bathroom, plus a roof and external windows needing attention.  a big project.  yikes.

we are officially the owners, as of last monday the 1st of september, at about 3pm.  our neighbors so far like us.  we like them.  apparently they really didn’t like the previous owners.  we have some theories of why not, because none of their reasons have been very clear.  anyway, they’ve been wonderfully friendly and helpful.  it’s great.

i took the week off work.  on monday, after getting the keys, we headed back to the house and WORKED.  matt installed lights and i removed nails and washed walls & ceiling on the 2nd floor (the living room), then plastered.  dick came over and helped sometime in the evening, when i’d gone back to the boat to pick up cleaning supplies.  jane came over and brought us all thai food.  we ate around 8, worked a bit longer, then left.

tuesday matt and i had a less productive day.  there were a million supplies we didn’t have, and we had to keep running out to get them.  back and forth to the boat, various stores, etc.  ugh. 

wednesday was productive again – and jane brought lunch, then thursday matt went back to work.  i worked at the house, but was pretty slow moving.  when matt came over, i went home to the boat and did laundry for the rest of the evening.  matt worked until 10pm or so.  yikes!

friday i was super productive.  worked and worked and worked.  finished up the 2nd floor (matt had done most of the floor on hands and knees the night before), then worked on the 3rd floor (bedroom & bathroom). 

saturday we had MOVING DAY #1.  i was amazed at how many of our friends turned up.  wow!  thanks!  it took us less than 3 hours to get a whole truckload of boxes and smaller furniture out of the boat and into the house.  then we drank beer and ate grocery store pizza on the roof terrace until dinner time.  we started to order pizza, then remembered that pizza places don’t open up until 4pm at the earliest.  damn it.  it was only about 2:30 when we needed it!

sunday we worked and worked.  the bedroom is now done, except for the floor and trim paint, which i haven’t purchased yet.  the bathroom has been cleaned something like 4 times, and still comes up dirty.  but it looks a lot better now.  matt did some demo work in the kitchen, and around 8pm another contractor came in to take a look.  then we went home and had a big dinner of prepared food from albert heijn.  🙂  too lazy to cook after all that!

back at work today, and got a call as soon as i got here from the downstairs neighbor.  with all the working, i had completely forgotten that she needed the key today for one of her own projects (plumbing) to get done.  oops.  fortunately, it turns out she can wait to get it until tomorrow, so i’ll drop it in her mail box this evening.

and now… i’m heading over to do that, and pick up the cleaning supplies, which will be needed back at the boat before i need them again at the house.

so that’s the house update!