Clare and Rob went down to the house for a weekend in April, and met Dave and Ellen there. Our main goal for that weekend was to make some assessments of the state of the house, and decide on our plan of attack. From that weekend, we decided to try to finish the upstairs before we move in, then work on the downstairs a little at a time after we had moved in. We picked out some new carpet while we were there, and then decided that we should paint before the carpet arrived. Dave decided to quit his job at the end of April and go down to Spencer for two weeks in May to do some work on the house. Harold had volunteered to help paint, so Rob decided to take him up on his offer, and they scheduled May 2nd-7th for painting in Spencer.
Uncharacteristically, Harold showed up nearly 30 minutes late to the house. We packed up the car full of painting supplies, a small refrigerator, some utility shelves, a microwave, and a few other odds and ends, then set out for Spencer around 10:30. We ate in the car, and the driving was pretty good, though it did rain a little bit. We pulled up to the Spencer house around 4:30 p.m., making the trip in the approximaely six hours, as predicted. As we approached the house, Rob heard the sound of sanding.
Sure enough, Dave was busy sanding down spackle upstairs. First Harold was given a brief tour of the house, then it was decided that we would sand and spackle for another few hours. During this time Rob tried to convince Dave and Harold to yootle over what to have for dinner, but unfortunately Harold was not very cooperative. We ended up going to the grocery store for a few odds and ends. Harold got a microwave meal for dinner, and Dave and Rob had left-over Indian food which Clare had made before she left for Europe. We also got some beer, and enjoyed our dinner and had some nice conversation. Harold was absolutely astounded at what bad shape the house was in. Rob tried to get him to focus on the present, not on the past. We got to bed around 11:00 p.m. Originally, Rob thought that he and Harold could share a bedroom, but once he started snoring, that idea quickly faded. Rob moved his sleeping bag and pad upstairs, which he apparently did not notice until the next morning.
For more pictures, see the before shots and the during shots.