Unpacking and other woes

Well we finally have some rooms in the house looking pretty good. We've even managed to conquer a few projects on our ever growing list of things to do. It seems like every project we start leads quickly to another. The 2hr job to replace a leaky stop valve under the sink is now going on day 3. Nick pulled out the cabinet to get better access to valve only to find mold, which extended under the linoleum. So we pulled that up and got everything sufficiently bleached and dried and back in place to find that now that one leak was fixed another had occurred within the facet so now we have to replace the gaskets inside the faucet. We have gotten a lot done :

-repaired leaky shower control and faucet

-installed proper venting for the dryer and got washer/dryer hooked up

-cleaned up the yard some more

-unpacked tons of stuff

-finally figured out where all of our utilities come from



On a sadder note our kitty chaos has disapeared. He got out some time mon night. Neither of us actually saw him leave, but he is nowhere in the house, and we've seen no trace of him since. Hopefully he'll find his way home since I doubt that he'd let anyone catch him.

Moira serves up some fun

Moira's Big Girl Room

So I've been giving an obscene amount of thought to what theme I want to use for Moira's room. I was thinking butterflys and fairies, but Nick said no way. So them we decided on dragons/fantasy we already have a few things that fit this idea and it seemed to suit both our requirements. Well the only dragon bed sets I could find cost big bucks so the next plan was to make my own bed spread, but I couldn't find anything sufficiently girly until last night. The new plan is to buy a comfortor cover and add this to the top, and then go from there for curtains etc. I e-mailed the e-store to double check and they say it's 45" fabric so I guess you get two stripes in 45".

The other thing we've aquired for Moira is a nice chest of drawers and matching end table. I scored these for free off craigslist. They need a paint job (and we just happen to have lots of purple paint) and a piece of trim replaced, but they're solid pine and very sturdy.

STILL waiting

Well the house failed to close today, and because it's a holiday weekend it will not close until tues or wed next week. A couple of things came up at the end . . . first the guy who owns the place didn't show up to sign the paper work, then we discovered a lien on the house for $750 for a delinquent water bill. Last but not least the short sale company, which is owned by the listing agents husband made some sort of clerical error shorting the bank $900. The bank will have none of that since the home owner already shorted them 50k so they had to do a bunch of paper shuffling today. On the upside they haven't asked us for any more money and we should get about $400 back from the escrow company since we paid as if we were taking possession today. Our realtor has assured us that this is quite normal in short sales and that our is actually proceeding more easily then others he's worked on. After a little searching on the Internet our experience has been pretty painless compared to other stories online. It looks like it should be no problem to get everything squared away early next week, so the big move is still on for next weekend!

Surprise Adventure

My friend Aaron went to sheep herding with us last week and afterward we met a friend of his and took his plane for a quick trip. It felt and sounded a little like launching a volkswagon bug into the air, but it was pretty cool and I even got to fly for a bit. I've never been up in a small plane before and it was quite a different experience from large passenger planes.

The House!

Some of you may know that we've been involved in a very long and drawn out house closing process. Well we will finally be closing on the 9th! The house was just shy of foreclosure which makes all negotiations take twice as long since the sellers bank also had to be involved in everything, and apparently they make decisions by committee. If you're wondering if we need anything to help fill up our new home you'll find "the list" after all the pictures. If you're thinking gee I sure wish I had a home improvement project for the 10-11th you can come help with some of ours. If you're thinking man I'd do just about anything for some free pizza, you're in luck again because that's what you'll get if you help us move on the 17th.


The front

The back
you can just see the edge of the basket ball court (hopefully to be destroyed and replaced by a veggie garden at some point in the future) Moira is modeling the deck and gazebo. The house has two sliders situated about 4ft apart. I guess one just wasn't enough?

front door

living room. The fire place appears to have never had a fire in it. Unfortunatly the place has electric forced air heat so we hope to replace that with gas once we have more $$ and to supplement that with either a stove insert in the fireplace or adding an addtional wood stove in the large family room which you'll see in a bit.

The family room. While it doesn't look that big in the picture this room is quite large and will house all of Moira's toys.

The garage has been conveted into two rooms. Their mostly finished, but there's no heat in this part of the house.

The kitchen is in between the dining room and the family room. We've decided to put the dining room table in the dining area rather than the dining room because we don't think we'll ever use it if it's relegated to its own room. Of course that leaves us with a silly empty room right off the living room, but we'll figure something out.

Moira inspects the cabinets

THE LIST

If you see a good deal on craigslist or know anyone looking to get rid of any of the following let us know!

Need to have

help updating the breaker box (if you're interested I'll send you the inspetion report)

respirator

washer/dryer done, yeah for craigslist

lawn mower and weed eater

a few light fixtures

curtains for downstairs (I'm making these so Jo-annes coupons and gift cards or sewing help would rock)

mini blinds for upstairs

extension ladder

regular ladder

Nice to have . . .

100 yellow daffodils, and any other flower bulbs

book shelves x3

oak stereo cabinet with door (to keep little fingers away from the buttons)

wheel barrow