Progress and Child Labor

Our new rent house. It will be rented by August 1st - we have a lot of potential renters. We closed 'suddenly' on June 8, after waiting since January for a cloud on the title to clear. So the summer has been rather pre-occupied with this project - which means Mark has spent a lot of time working on it, amazing man that he is, forsaking pretty much all fun things for laboring in the hottest Oklahoma summer on record.  It is a smallish house with 3 bedrooms, about 1150 sf. Lacking other help, Mark has brought Isak to work on the house many times and been very pleased with his abilities and work ethic. Isak power-sprayed the exterior (getting it ready for a new paint job), helped sand the floors and painted tons on the interior and not complained once. (Elina is due to get her share in a few days). Mark paid Isak well enough that he was able to order the Mace Windu Jedi Starfighter lego set that he has wanted for a long time (wo unto to those who oppress the hireling in his wages, right?). Here are some pictures. Ignore the date on them - (Mark took these with his work camera and it needs adjusted.)

EXTERIOR BEFORE:

EXTERIOR AFTER:

It needs a little touch up, but 98% done.
This picture is contrasty and makes it look darker than it is.

LIVING ROOM BEFORE:

LIVING ROOM AFTER:

Window pane has been fixed now.

DINING AREA BEFORE:

DINING AREA AFTER:

HALLWAY BEFORE / AFTER:

one of the BEDROOMs BEFORE:

BEDROOM AFTER:

ANOTHER BEDROOM AND ENTRY:

 The post-construction cleaning crew.

 The post-construction mess- makers. :)
Actually, they played really well in the empty house for a long time.

 A very basic bathroom.

 And a very basic kitchen.

Mark divided the garage into a front and back. This is the back:
A utility room with space for some storage, like lawnmower and bikes.

And the front of the garage he turned into a room. Because of the cement floor we thought it would be cold in the winter with a wood surface. The day Mark went to install the carpet we tore out of our dining room we discovered that it was too small  after all (it had holes from our floor heat/air registers we had forgotten about, among other things). At least we could  use our pad. So Mark and Isak ran down to the Carpet Market, found another piece of carpet and an installer to boot! I did not stay long enough at the house to see the finished product. 

Monkeys!