I Didn’t Do it Alone

Kudos for Silvio

I wrote a post the other day touting all of my personal accomplishments over the last few months. The more I thought about that post the more I realized just how much I didn’t do to get the house in Georgia market ready. That being said, even though my hubby, Silvio, worked A LOT during the “get the house market ready” process he amazingly managed to do a crazy amount of things.

Often as I write for the blogs I am thinking about the moments or things that pertain to just me instead of taking the extra time to really look around and see what others are doing also. So this post is all about the incredible man I married and all of HIS accomplishments as we transitioned from Georgia suburbia to Alabama farm life.

A teeny bit of background, Silvio is my personal “handy man”. He is quite capable of a great many things. But the one beautiful thing that endears me to him the most is this; if he doesn’t know HOW to do something, he will figure it out. Either by reading it on the internet or watching a video on YouTube. You know, kind of like building a shipping container house from scratch, lol – He’s totally awesome like that!

Here are the things that he did over the last few months (and then some):

• Contacted Realtors
• Handled getting started with the Realtor we picked
• Pressure washed the front porch and stairs – twice
• Pressure washed the back patio and stairs – twice
• Pressure washed the driveway – twice
• Repaired and replaced some of the the back patio stairs
• Replaced all of the back patio deck boards and most of the railings
• Went to work and fly airplanes for three days
• Replaced the front stairs and some of the railing
• Replaced and rebuilt the front stairs risers
• Painted the front porch and stairs with textured deck paint
• Mowed grass and trimmed edging
• Found matching vinyl siding for the house
• Cut vinyl siding to fit
• Replaced vinyl siding in various places on the house
• Went to Home Depot (HD) and bought replacement fence slats and repaired the fence
• Also bought from HD two new gate systems and installed on the repaired fence
• Worked in the heat for two days with some help to repair said fence
• Went to work for three days
• Painted the outside shed
• Cut the overgrown brush in the backyard
• Cut tree branches he could reach
• Moved errant tree branches to the back of the yard
• Laid out part of the landscaping in the backyard
• Bought mulch, top soil, flowers, and grass seed from HD
• Threw down mulch
• Threw down grass seed
• Pulled weeds
• Went to work
• Packed some boxes in the house
• Carried boxes . . . LOTS OF BOXES
• Carried and moved all of the living room furniture
• Carried and moved all of the bedroom furniture
• Carried and moved any and all objects that his wife could not
• Loaded up the trailer with boxes and large items numerous times and took them to the land
• Ordered dump truck load of gravel and sand for parking area at land (instead of us parking in a mud pit every time it rained)
• Used Melvin (our tractor) to spread gravel and sand
• Unloaded the trailer and moved stuff into the extra shipping container or the house
• Went to work
• Bought new drywall mud
• Drywall repairs ALL over the house
  • mud
  • tape
  • mud
  • sand
  • repeat
• Bought drywall sheet at HD
• Replaced huge section of drywall in one bedroom
• Bought 25 gallons of ceiling paint
• Bought 20 gallons of house paint
• Bought new paint brushes, rollers, and speciality brushes
• Painted the entire house – walls, ceilings (12′ ceilings in living room and foyer), trim (had help)
• Repaired the SAME section of drywall due to an issue
• Went to work
• More drywall patching
• More repainting
• Installed water line for outside water hose attachment (we needed to hook up the trailer with water)
• Rented a 26′ U Haul truck
• Moved a full-size refrigerator
• Moved a medium-sized chest freezer
• Moved gun safe
• Moved all bed mattresses
• Moved everything else that wasn’t nailed down
• Drove U Haul truck to Alabama
• Unloaded U Haul truck that same night
• Moved and installed refrigerator in new house
• Wired an electrical outlet for the refrigerator
• Moved his family officially to Alabama into a 31′ travel trailer
• Returned U Haul truck the next morning back in Georgia
• Went to work
• Bought new appliances for the kitchen – dishwasher, gas stove, microwave, refrigerator
• Installed new dishwasher AND new stove
• Bought replacement door for kitchen pantry (I used mine for a growth chart, lol)
• Installed replacement pantry door
• Loaded trailer with trash and took a landfill run – dumped trash
• Bought tile for the kitchen and laundry room
• Cut tile
• Laid tile
• Had an issue with the tile
• Pulled up tile in kitchen
• Scrapped tile clean
• Relaid tile in kitchen
• Cut more tile
• Laid the rest of the tile
• Grouted tile
• Set up satellite internet for us in Alabama
• Wired my office with an outlet for new satellite internet modem
• Loaded trailer with trash and took a landfill run – dumped trash, so much stuff
• Took apart workout equipment
• Loaded workout equipment on trailer and took to Alabama
• Unloaded workout equipment at land and moved it into the house
• Put workout equipment back together in the house
• Went to work
• Stayed overnight at the GA house by himself
• Installed trim (baseboards) in various places in the house
• Painted baseboards
• Trim nailed all stair railing spindles in the house
• Bought access door at HD
• Created and installed access door panel in master bedroom
• Ordered new carpet for install
• Loaded trailer with trash and took a landfill run – dumped trash, again
• Removed doors to full-size refrigerator/freezer
• Moved full-size refrigerator out of GA house to the 10×7 trailer and to the AL house
• Moved washer and dryer to AL house
• Bought 2×4’s at HD
• Built access door in office
• Tiled the downstairs hallway
• Contacted exterminator for termite inspection
• Re-tiled a small section of the downstairs hallway
• Ran water line to my laundry room in Alabama
• Bought and installed washer connections for me
• Hooked up my washer
• Ran electrical wiring to the laundry room and hooked up my dryer
• Rented hard wood floor sanding machine
• Fought with sanding machine for hours before HD employee told him it was the wrong machine
• Went and got a different machine to sand floors – still didn’t work well
• Hand sanded all of the hard wood floors himself – by hand and with a small belt sander
• Swept hard wood floors
• Mopped hard wood floors
• Covered the hard wood floors with polyurethane
• Was told the polyurethane was the wrong kind for the floor
• Bought different polyurethane at HD
• Re-sanded hard wood floors in numerous places
• Re-swept hard wood floors
• Re-mopped hard wood floors
• Covered the hard wood floors with more polyurethane
• Sanded the interior stair treads and foyer entrance floor
• Covered them with polyurethane (my word it looks AH-mazing!)
• Went to work
• Didn’t completely lose his mind when his wife said she didn’t get everything cleaned for pictures
• Cleaned garage
• Installed outside light kits by backyard door and by side garage door
• Install light kits in garage for better lighting
• Loaded trailer with trash and took a landfill run – dumped trash, yep, again
• Loaded trailer and moved stuff to storage unit
• Loaded trailer with trash and took a landfill run – dumped trash, again and LAST TIME
• Cleaned the entire garage out
• Removed the cabinetry from the garage walls and moved them to the storage unit
• Cleaned the garage walls and ceiling
• Painted the entire garage
• Went to work
• Ate lunch and sometimes dinner at fast food places for well over a month (closer to 6 weeks) with very little complaining and grumping
• Drove BACK and FORTH from GA and AL (and then from AL to GA) for weeks to work on the house
• Officially Listed Our Georgia House on the Market
• Bought a new pin for the bush hog wheel
• Bush hogged a small piece of grass for the dogs to go potty
• Wired my new office with two more electrical outlets
• Went to work
• Ran electrical wire to the bathroom in the house for lights
• Ran electrical wire for outlets in Isaiah’s room in the house
• Ran electrical wire for outlets to my laundry room and hung a fluorescent light
• Re-wired the plug for the generator when we lost power during a big storm
• Went to work
• Talked me through the well water pump not working during loss of power
• Now drives 1.5 hours to get to Atlanta airport for work
• Bought flood light kit for outside house in AL
• Ran electrical wiring for flood lights
• Bought kit for water machine on refrigerator
• Ran water line to refrigerator
• Installed water line for indoor water on refrigerator
• Handled every single thing having to do with the Realtor

Whew . . . I’m whipped and I didn’t do nearly this much work!

Ultimately this proved that THIS is why I married him – because he goes over and above and always works hard for his family. He handled himself pretty well in the last week or so when his wife was losing her mind with all of the craziness going on. There was only a few times he snapped back at her but realistically he was in control most of the time. Silvio hardly complained about having to work on the house or grumble about having to take the drive one. more. time.

And because of all of these things he accomplished and all of the time and effort that went into the GA house, we are pleased to say that we are now under contract for our full asking price! God is so very good to those that listen to Him and try to be wise in all things. Even in the house selling process.

This post is just a small kudos to this incredible man that God has blessed me with. Silvio seriously makes me proud to be his wife. So, if you see him around in the next few weeks, take a minute to let him know that he did an outstanding job.

Chat soon y’all!

In His Grace,

Callie