House Part One: Tearing out Carpet & Painting

It's ours!  Wahoo!
 
The joys of buying a foreclosure include previous homeowners/tenants who could care less about the house now that it isn't theirs...

Jeff nor I remember the carpet being in too bad a shape when we first looked at the house back at the beginning of July, but after they moved out and we walked through it, we knew that getting new carpet was no longer a choice. It was a need.

Also notice the broken door and latch in the previous picture.  The previous homeowners also took all the light bulbs out of the can lights in the kitchen, all the batteries out of the smoke detectors, turned the switch to the on position for the garbage disposal so it would run continually when the power was turned back on, took the oven/range so the bank had to buy us a new one (oh bummer, not...) and broke off a key in the dead bolt.

But for being kicked out of their house and foreclosed on when they almost sold it as a short sale, they really didn't do too much damage.  There wasn't trash everywhere or huge holes punched/kicked in the walls, spray paint, permanent marker drawings, etc.  We've heard the horror stories, so we consider ourselves fairly lucky!

So, part one of getting our house ready included tearing out the disgusting smelling carpet...

And painting!  

We got our keys Wednesday, and starting that night we've spent every evening since and all day Saturday at the house painting as much as we could.  We've had so much help from friends and family trying to get the painting done, thank you all!  

Our carpet is being installed by Jeff's friend from high school, and he was planning to start installing Saturday.  But for some reason the carpet place was closed for Labor Day on Saturday (isn't Labor Day on Monday?  Just checking...) So he couldn't pick up our carpet.  But that turned out to be a good thing for us, because we still aren't done painting!  We should be able to get it all finished up tomorrow though, and it'll be all ready for carpet starting on Tuesday.  

So by the end of the week, we should be out of our apartment and have all our stuff into our HOUSE!  Wish us luck...

Coming up next: Completed painting and carpet installation!

P.S. It's in Springville... Guess I failed to mention that... :)