Working on the inside...

Usually, as the winter months approach, I start thinking about how exactly I can spend my extended period indoors. I dream of catching up in school, getting some organizing done, maybe catching up on organizing photos and blogging. You know, all the things you are pretty confident you will have time for with outdoor temps dropping into the -30 degrees Celsius mark and lower. The kids and I had been in school for most of the year so far, trying to make up for the time we miss on furlough when we are not as easily able to do school work. Our furloughs are very short (about 5 months) and we just don't spend time with our noses in the books when there are family members to get to know and new friends to meet.

Then, it happened! The US dollar became very strong against the Russian ruble and before you knew it, we were getting almost twice the amount of rubles to dollars! After a long waiting period of not being able to even think about finishing the inside of our house because of the lack of finances to purchase the necessary drywall, paint, and numerous other supplies, we were able to start calculating exactly how many pieces we would need to finish the first floor. I couldn't believe it!

As you can see from these photos, we still had quite a bit of work to be done inside.

This is the foyer (that is the front door).

The kitchen needed the most expensive work as our current cabinets are falling apart and provide no where near the amount of space we need for our family. Plus the drywall needed to be completed on all but one wall.

The Kitchen

All of the first floor ceilings look like this pic below still and must be completed.

What will be our living room.
We have been using it as a school room since it has no furniture in it.

After several trips to the home store where we purchase most of our supplies, we ordered the drywall and it was delivered within a few days. I didn't even have to help unload it from the truck as I usually do, since there were three guys who arrived on the truck. I did have to help my husband carry it all inside though since it couldn't sit out in the cold weather. 

Between two stacks in the hallway between the foyer and living room and one stack between the kitchen and dining room, we were encouraged!

That was 35 sheets of drywall that were just screaming to be installed.

Just beautiful!

So, if any of you know my husband, you already know that he did not sit and think about what he was going to do with all this material!

We also were able to purchase drywall mud, tape, glue, paint for some rooms upstairs (finally!), base coat paint for downstairs (more will be needed later for upstairs), electrical boxes, wire, light switches, and the list goes on. What a blessing!

We went to work!

And, boom, it is almost March. Winter is almost over and our house is getting done. Here is a photo we took on our phones (so with the daytime light the color is not as rich) as we were painting the living room.

Here is the beautiful muted teal color that went on our dining room walls.

Tomorrow we must tackle the kitchen drywall as the area just around the window is the only part of the first floor that does not have drywall up! We have been busy!

The living room is completely painted. The dining room is now completely painted.

We look forward to posting more pics when the entire foyer is painted.

Then, we pray about the kitchen cabinets. We have picked them out and were about to order them but couldn't. The exchange rate is still good for us but, prices are going up now as a result. We were told this price increase would definitely affect the price of cabinets. Please pray we can order them soon!