Fulfilling Our Patriotic Duty

Since it is Labor Day weekend, we did what every good American should do: make a major home appliance purchase at Home Depot and labor a lot. At least that's what the Home Depot commercials tell you to do.

Seriously though, we have certainly labored a lot this weekend. As you can see from the pictures I posted earlier, we've gotten a lot of painting done. We've also got the carpet ripped up in all the place where we will be putting new flooring. I did the majority of the painting and Andrew did the majority of the floor work. I don't envy his job, but I don't think he envies mine either. I fired him from painting because I was not satisfied with the job he did, but I don't think he was too upset about it.

We have been lucky to be able to borrow a lot of equipment from friends. Yesterday morning we went to my friend from work Jay's house to shop through his garage of tools. He was nice enough to follow us over to the house with his truck to transport everything. Once we got started ripping up carpet we quickly realized we needed a shop vac. I hated to bug Jay again so I called another friend from work Ryan who lives about a mile from the new house. He had a shop vac that he said we could borrow and within 5 minutes I was over there with it loaded up in the trunk. It's nice having friends who live nearby and are so helpful.

We got a lot of work done yesterday morning and called it a day around 2. I had a wedding shower to go to for my friend Catherine who was in town. I hadn't seen her in about a year and a half and there were some other friends there that I don't get to see too often, so it was fun. Here is a pic of all of us ACU girls at the shower.

Andrew wasn't too upset that I took off, since he had DVRed Virginia Tech's first game of the season and was anxious to go home and watch it. After the shower I had to hightail it downtown to meet up with Andrew and others for my cousin Chip's birthday dinner. We ate at Fogo de Chao, which is a meat lover's dream. It is a Brazilian steakhouse where they bring around every kind of meat you could imagine on long swords. It's definitely a fun time, but not cheap!!

Today we went to church in the morning and then on the way home stopped at Home Depot to order our refrigerator. We had picked out an LG side by side model in the "stainless look" finish (which really means titanium) but unfortunately they didn't have it in stock. The guy recommended we check online or at another store (ie. Lowes) but we were kind of disappointed since we had spent a while researching them and really wanted to order it that day without going on a wild goose chase. We were walking out of the store when we remembered we needed to pick up more paintbrushes. We turned around and walked over to the paint section when the sales guy from the appliances came and found us. He said that same model was available in stainless (even better!) and they had plenty in stock in the warehouse! He said it was $100 more expensive but he would knock $50 off of that for us! Score! So we went back over and happily ordered it. For the holiday weekend they had a %10 off sale going on, plus free delivery with a mail in rebate, so all in all we ended up paying less for the stainless model than we would have for the stainless look. Thanks Home Depot for making it a great Labor Day!

Here are some more pictures of our work! Andrew ripped up the carpet in the formal living/ dining room and in the master bathroom. There is also a "before" photo of the master bath for you to compare. I am putting a second coat of paint on the living room walls. The place looks kind of crazy right now, but it will all be worth it when it's done!