Fireside Chat

You're welcome history lovers ;)

We took this picture before our goods were delivered from storage. We had our stuff from the hotel, borrowed air mattress & linens, and two newly purchased plastic patio chairs.

We have quite a bit of cut wood on the property so we decided to have a nice relaxing fire one evening as we had very little else we could do (no tv or internet).

Snow!

You can just make out the snow on the mountains in the far distance. We haven't had any snow at our house, but we did have some sleet a few days ago. It probably won't be long before our evening temperatures are below freezing, but the temperatures rise 20-30 points during the day. It will take a while before any sort of snow could stick around the house for long.

Our house

Andy's birthday picture

Renovation Projects

At this point I figure I need to occupy myself and make a plan for what we will be doing to our house once we close. Previously, I've looked for images of rooms and furniture for inspiration. Now, I'm looking for diy projects to educate myself about what we can do ourselves...expertise and time required to complete each... I have found a blog that is AWESOME (is an exclamation point really needed after all caps...probably not but I am really tempted to put one).

Remodelaholic features projects, crafts, and recipes of big and small sizes. The author and contributing writers are so good about provided detailed information and pictures for all of the steps of a project. The blog also has buttons that link to other's projects. What a plethora of ideas! As I know very little about diy beyond what we've done (crown molding, installing laminate floors, baseboards), I appreciate all of the steps and tips. Before Andy & I got married, I'd never even painted a wall. I've learned a lot with our first house but am going to have to learn a whole lot more with this house. Here are some of my favorite projects:

Make your own curtain rods out of conduit pipe

5 year kitchen remodel - that's a really long time, but they did amazing work

Doilies as wall art

Make a garden out of a pallet - I'm thinking herb garden

Make children's bookshelves out of a pallet

Hanging pots and pans inside of a cabinet - can't wait to do since our kitchen doesn't have the big drawers that are so popular today

Remodelaholic also has had multiple posts on re-doing stairs and adding molding/millwork ( board and batten, crown molding, baseboards, archways, pillars/columns, built in bookcases) that I found very informative.

The author also gave a tip that I think will really help us figure out what we want to do in each room. She recommends taking a picture of all of the walls and printing those out on paper. Then use colored pencils to draw in what you are considering adding or moving. This is beautifully demonstrated here.

If any of you have any diy blogs that you really like, please pass them on to me.

EARTHQUAKE

I feel like I have been initiated into California life now because I experience my first earthquake last week. Andy didn't feel anything at work though. It wasn't very strong; I just noticed the bed shaking a little bit. I thought that the dog was leaned up against the bed as he scratched.

Trying to buy a house

So after waiting a month for all of the utilities to be hooked up, we've had all our inspections and appraisal done. There are a few repairs that we have to make (because the bank selling the foreclosed property won't do ANYTHING) before our loan can be funded. So that is happening in the next week. We'll do the other repairs once we close on the house. Our bank has told us that the closing date is September 26, but we are working with them to try to make it happen a little sooner. I think that we wrote our offer on the house on July 15...how crazy!

We would love to be able to move in a beautifully refinished house but have decided that will not be the case. Paying for just under two months of our time and the hotel and the unknown cost of the repairs to our house after the cost of purchasing the home means that our bank account won't be thrilled. So, we've decided to be patient for most of the renovations we would like to do to the house. We'll replace the carpet in the bedrooms before we have our good delivered, but the other flooring will have to wait a little while.

We will be very excited to be able to move in to our house whenever that comes to pass! The house will stay a diamond in the rough for a while but will eventually start to shine.

Gifts for new moms

I've always enjoyed posts on this blog, but this post, Ways to Bless a New Mom, spoke to me since we will soon have a new nephew. We haven't lived close by many family or friends when they have had a baby so we haven't been able to these things for the mothers in our lives. But I have talked to several women who have had a baby. I've heard of wonderful ways they have been helped by other women...food deliveries, childcare, grocery shopping, pick-ups and drop-offs, laundry...

One of the best ideas I've heard was experience by my sister. The family moved to a new city and joined a new church shortly before the baby's birth. When they returned home from the hospital, the ladies of the church had a schedule so that someone dropped off food every other day for several weeks. There was always enough food with each delivery for dinner and leftovers for lunch or another dinner. I thought this was an amazing ministry for the ladies of the church to provide. My sister was able to get to know ladies in the church as well as have meals and fewer groceries to buy.

The author of the blog post, says her wonderful friends would also clean a bathroom before leaving her house. I never thought about how hard it might be get that done...finding the time or energy...and who cares about the dirty bathroom when the baby is crying... I also imagine that it is hard physically to reach all of the different places in a bathroom when recovering from labor. I'm definitely adding this one to my list of things to do for new moms. Sorry Cici that we can't do any of these things for you when Hudson comes home.

our house

The house that we are trying to purchase is on 3 acres in the mountains. It is a farmhouse style house that needs cosmetic updates everywhere. There are some architectural changes that we think we would like to make at some point in the future mostly so that we could have a balcony off the second story (all four bedrooms are located upstairs). This is a picture from one of the bedroom windows, but all of the bedroom windows have a similar view.The views from downstairs are not quite this good, but you can see the arena and horse stalls. Just behind the house (still on the property) is a large hill that has an even more spectacular view. Ideally, we'd like to put some sort of patio up there so that we could enjoy the view.

Buying a house

We put in an offer on a house a little over a month ago. Since then, we have waited for all of the utilities to be hooked up and turned on. Normally that process doesn't take very long, but the bank that owns this foreclosed property is dragging their feet. In an effort to speed things along, Andy has had the water turned on in our name. Although we haven't actually turned the valve to allow the water to flow into the house because when Andy, our agent, and the water technician showed up to the house, they couldn't get into the house. The bank had the locks changed, but the locksmith didn't leave a new key in the real estate lock box. Our agent let the listing agent know that this issue needed to be fixed ASAP. So, the technician left us the tool to switch the water on to the house whenever we want. Unfortunately, we can't do much about the propane. Andy spoke with the propane company a while back. The company was waiting for the bank to return a work order for the property. Finally, the listing agent met the propane worker at the house and couldn't get into the house. Apparently, the lock issue had not been resolved yet. So, another appointment was made with the gas company. Unfortunately, at the appointment, no one showed from the gas company. Who knows when they will get together. It is so frustrating that we can't do a home inspection or assessment until then. Once we are able to get the inspections and assessment done, we can proceed with the purchase; hopefully, that can move more quickly. Since our relocation benefits have ended, we are now on the hook for staying at the hotel and storage of our goods. There goes Andy's paycheck each week :(

I continue to look for new properties in case something goes wrong with the inspections. Unfortunately, I haven't seen much that has been interesting in our price range.