Paint the House | Day 1

It's been a very long, but productive week.

We've had all of four or five showings since we put the house on the market back in April. To say that Ben and I have been a little stressed and anxious about it would be an understatement. Moving the kids and I up here to Oklahoma while he was deployed was a good decision, but it's left us trying to maintain three households, to varying degrees.

I've been hesitant to consider renting. Primarily, because I just wanted to be done with the house. But also, because I just didn't see how it would work - us trying to manage a rental property when who knew where we were going to end up next. Luckily for us, dinner with a friend {thank you, Heather!} opened my eyes to the potential ease of turning your home into a rental property thanks to a property manager. Ben was relieved, I think, when I told him I was ready to pursue renting.

I called our realtor and a property manager on Tuesday.

By Wednesday, he had someone interested in our home, site unseen, for the exact price we needed to cover our mortgage + the management fee.

Thursday, however, he called to say that we'd need to paint most of the rooms in our house - to make them neutral and easy to get back to their previous condition when either we re-lease or try again to sell after the potential tenants moved out.

Friday was spent contacting friends, buying supplies and preparing for a weekend filled with painting our house... for a second time.

Which means this morning, I left the kids with Mom and Daddy-Man, drove to Abilene, arrived at 11AM, purchased the rest of my supplies, and by 1PM was hard at work prepping holes, taping off and getting ready for friends to show up to help.

The Major and his wife and one of the Lt's from Ben's squadron came over for the majority of the day. By dinner time, we had the nursery mural, Noah's room, and the guest bathroom all nearly completed and even managed to start on the kitchen.

{Lt Plata, were you able to talk the Major into letting you use this as a bullet?!?}

After dinner, Brian and Breanna, from our Life Group, were able to come by and helped us get the kitchen all but finished up. It's SO weird to walk into the kitchen and not see green.

Thank you for all your help today, Dear Friends! I couldn't have done any of this without you!