 | I swear, I have to pinch myself every morning. I can't believe that we live here. I get up in the morning and look out the window at the trees. |
| Sooo, the tax assessor showed up last Friday and Mark gave the most 'nah,
it's not that great' tour that he's ever given. The assessor was
either an idiot or was blowing smoke. Assessor: "yeah the finishes here aren't as nice as the houses up on the corner" Mark: [!!!!!! These houses aren't even done yet!!!!! Do you know how long I spent on these moldings??? Are you f-ing blind???????????] "Yeah, you're right." He never saw the extra storage space which is perfect because extra square footage = higher taxes, and he never went upstairs to see the spa. Hope for a low assessment! |
| I absolutely love my washer and dryer. The dryer actually dries the clothes before the washer is done with it's next load. And I don't sit and watch the washer too much.... |
| My sewing guild met here on Saturday for our re-scheduled meeting/potluck and it was wonderful. It was nice to have folks that appreciate the details and have heard all about it, but hadn't seen it yet. I'm a proud parent of a 3-yr-old. |
| We ordered our new mattresses on Sunday. Yes, we are officially old. We are getting dual adjustable beds. I sleep propped up to help my stomach, and Mark found how comfortable the slight incline is, so we bit the bullet and bough two twin XL adjustable beds. With cool latex mattresses - no not memory foam, it's even better if you ask me. Lasts for years, vents heat away from you, and is resistant to those nasties that build up in your bedding over time. |
| There are very few things that we'd change in the house. Just minor details really, nothing where we said 'oh s**t' we didn't think of that. We thought about sight-lines, we thought about almost all the details. Nothing that isn't working the way we wanted it to. I wouldn't mind being able to change the driveway, but it is what it is. |
| We've been outfitting the house with household stuff; towels, tables, misc. other small stuff, but we were pretty well outfitted to begin with. We did have a hard time finding towels for the slate blue kid bath, we kept finding the perfect color, that had been discontinued. But we ended up with a shade that I think works. I didn't talk about this too much at work this last week because one of my co-workers was dealing with putting their 5-mo-old into daycare when they really didn't want to and another was dealing with a 14-yr-old daughter that was going down a seriously wrong path (keep up the parenting DY). So, I just kinda kept my mouth shut about the problems we were having finding the right towels. |
| The finish work continues at the house. Mark does a couple of things
every day, but the Finish To Do list is still long, and gets longer every
day. Finish To Do List: 215 done out of 299. |
| We've decided to get a clear glass for the cabinets in the kitchen, rather than continue the reeded glass that is on the front of the house. We've discovered that our dishes are not bad to look at (all white or clear), and that we keep things pretty neat and tidy. I NEVER would've thought that I would be on board with clear glass cabinets. Plus, shows off the nice beadboard inside the cabinets. Although, I think the glass may take some getting used to as right now we mostly just reach in through the open panel of the door to get what we want. |
| We started working on the condo this week. It's really hard to get motivated to do it, but it's holding a large amount of profit, and we need it. The condo was a great place, it's just no as great of a place as the house. The condo has alot going for it, so it should do well. |
| Cooper the cat is adjusting to his new life at the house. We're keeping him downstairs and set up the maple leaf room as his room. He's got his heated kitty bed, food, water, litter box, scratching post looking out the glass double-doors, and toys to play with. He'd pretty old, and has gotten pretty skinny as of late, but he's still hanging in there. He's pretty happy. He's got kidney disease, and the vets told me nearly two years ago that he probably only had a few months left, so all things considered, he'd doing pretty well. |
| We decided that we could bear to put curtains over our moldings in the master bedroom. (That and we couldn't figure out a good way to do it with the corner windows + the tilt n' turn aspect of them.) So, we got sleep masks! We are quite the high-maintenance sleepers! |
| Haven't written much lately as the PC is on the floor in the kid bedroom and it's kinda tough to sit on the floor and type alot. We do have a new PC under construction at Ben's house, and that new PC will go on the kitchen office desk so that will make it a little easier. |
| We're going up to Canada for a few days this weekend and will bring Mark's mum and one of his aunts back down to see the house. And to help with the great unpacking and arranging of all the stuff. Right now the china cabinet has about 8 wine glasses in it. We have to go through all of our stuff and figure out what goes where. It may take a while. Stuff from the condo, stuff from Mark's house, wedding presents, it's alot. |
| I count my blessings every day; Mark, a great family, a beautiful home, a good job, a good life. I realize that my life is better than probably 98% of the people on the planet so I try to remember that when I get upset or frustrated, about, say, towels. |
We got to go to the open house for the nearby house that is listed for
$745,000. Very nice house, but if that is a 3/4 of a million house, ours
is easily over a million. It's on a 12,000 sq. feet lot, the house is 3000
sq. feet. OK, so we're picky about finish details, but here are our
complaints:
Bad recessed lights. The lights fixtures were very
large, and the bulbs didn't fill them, so you could see into the lighting
fixture itself.
Other ceiling mounted light fixtures on crooked.
Bad paint job, you could see the roller/spray marks.
Decent kitchen, but basic cabinets, nothing fancy, no
pull-outs or anything, & no hardware.
Nice granite countertops.
Basic white wire shelving in the closets, nothing fancy,
nothing custom.
Very basic moldings.
Cheap windows, with the thin plastic strips to make them look
like 'divided lights.'
It's got three smallish bedrooms right in a row to make it a
4 bedroom home.
Medium-smalish tub in the master bath.
Very little storage.
The front porch made of unprotected cedar, will be brutal in
a couple of years. Although the porch was nice.
Sandwiched in between two other homes, one decent, one kinda
run down.
The room with the best view (and it was a very nice view) was
the open 'bonus area' - a complete waste of the best aspect of the property.
The good news was there was no brass in the entire house, except
for the deadbolt, right on the front door, next to the nice satin nickel
hardware. nice.
| Yes, we moved in. Two days before Christmas. We hosted Christmas and had a great time. |
| I have to pinch myself everyday because I don't really quite believe that it's really ours. |
| Absolutely love the steam shower & tub. |
| Stuff that's been installed since I last wrote: My desk The central vacuum The cool, old door that slides over the media center The rest of the light fixtures The front columns & brickwork The washer & dryer [I love being able to do laundry whenever I damn well choose!] Front door Siding under the front entry China cabinet Cabinet drawer pulls & knobs (very important!) Exterior security lights |
| We've been working on installing the closet for several days now. It'll be great, when it's done. |
| Sorry for the gap in updates, the PC with the website on it is still at the condo and I'm not there (here) very often lately. Hmm, wonder why...? |
| Once we get internet set up at the house, I'll post pictures from the last few weeks. |
| Someone at work asked me if we would've done it if we would've known it was going to take three years. Probably not. But I don't think we'll ever regret having done it. |