| I am a proud new aunt of Kinsey Lee, born 2/13/07 at 10:06am, 8lbs 10.5oz, 20 inches long. She's awfully cute and sleeps like 16 hours a day. I can only hope to be so lucky when our time comes. |
| We got our coffee table & side table off of eBay. It's from Pottery Barn and we'd seen it and liked it, along with another one that was the front runner. But it was $700, and we really didn't want to pay $700 for a coffee table, especially when that would be more than we paid for the leather couch. So we looked around and found this set on eBay, got both for about $400, which would've been over $1000 for both pieces brand new. Plus, we decided that we wanted a lighter piece; dark floor, dark furniture, we needed something lighter. |
| We got two side chairs from the Costco Home store, and we got a rug as well. The morning the rugs went on sale we arrived right at 10am when they open to find a line of about 200 people waiting to get in. Mark stayed, and I went to work, and ultimately he got one. |
| Mark installed the hanging rod in the laundry room. It's quite high, just at the edge of my range of reach, but high enough that it doesn't cover up the countertop. Yeah! I love doing laundry in the new house! |
| Mark and the electrician installed the heated towel bar. Mmmmmm, warm towels, it feels so luxurious! |
| Grillzilla has finally made his way over to Cold Stream Ridge. Looks a little lonely on the patio, but will soon become the center of attention. |
| One issue we're having with the house is that we installed such large water pipes, and the tankless water heaters take a few seconds to get going is that it can take a very long time for the hot water to get to the faucet. In fact, it takes almost exactly two minutes to get hot water to my sink in the spa (I only know this because it takes as long as my Sonicare runs). Now, once the hot water gets there, it will stay hot, which is nice. It's not so much a problem as it is a waste of water. So, our plan is to get a recirculation pump. It helps to re-circulate the water through the pipes so that the hot water is throughout the pipe, and available at the taps. It will cause the water heaters to run a little more than without the pump, but it should save us 2 minutes worth of water going down the drain. |
| Our ultimate plan is to get a plasma-cut sign for our monument rock that says 'Cold Stream Ridge' and maybe has the address of the house on it, maybe our last name, and then light it from behind, but until then, we put some house numbers on the monument rock. |
| Mark continues to work at the condo, but that is going slowly. He's having a hard time motivating himself to go over there. Which I understand completely, cuz it's much more fun to work on the house than the condo. Saturday we got our helper and the four of us (Dad too, thanks!) moved alot more of the stuff from the condo to the house. We also cleaned out the garage and then proceeded to fill it up with the stuff from the condo. =\ |
| Finish To Do list 232 done out of 302. |
| We are mostly back to normal, after our draining week of sickness. |
| We now have our complete beds with adjustable bases and we LOVE them. The mattresses are wonderfully soft, yet really supportive and with the adjusting base, it just makes them all the better. We'll move our old king sized mattress down to the guest suite. Initially, I was reluctant to do this. Since Mark was waking up in a hole in the mattress every day, I didn't want to subject our guests to a cruddy mattress. We got the mattresses first (last Friday) and put them down on the twin box springs we had below the king mattress. We thought the mattresses were a bit softer than we remembered. So, on Monday, we tried the mattresses on the floor without the boxsprings. Bingo! Turns out the boxsprings were the problem. We discovered that the one on Mark's side was mostly broken, and providing very little support, and causing the hole he kept waking up in. It was just 'luck' that he got the bad one again when the bed was set up at the new house. At the condo, we were constantly flipping the mattress and Mark kept ending up in the hole. I was sleeping propped up on pillows, so we just assumed that that was why I wasn't having the problem, or at least why I wasn't bothered by it. So, the king mattress is actually still in pretty good shape, and I'm willing to let my guests stay on it. We're high-maintenance sleepers, so we want to provide a good sleeping experience for our guests. We were going to buy the adjustable beds anyway, but we wish we'd figured out this problem just a little bit sooner.... |
| We have also decided not to put window coverings on the windows in the master bedroom (or in any other room of the house for that matter). The window placement (on adjacent 90 degree corners), plus the tilt n' turn aspect of the windows, plus the nice moldings makes designing a window treatment very challenging. So we have a simple solution. Sleep masks! We both got them. And we really like them! Remember the 'high-maintenance sleeper' comment, it's so very, very true. |
| We will put some window coverings in the kid bedroom and guest suite for light control (and privacy for the kid bedroom). Otherwise, the windows will stay bare! We don't need any coverings in the spa because no one can see in. Even if you walk around naked. And this is in the winter, when all the leaves are off the trees. Our one close neighbor could see you if they happened to be looking sideways out their window at just the right moment and you were standing in the tub up leaning up against the window, but that's not part of our usual routine. |
| The house that was listed for 750K is 'subject to inspection' so someone is trying to buy it. I'll have to find out if it was a full-price offer. The 4-5 houses on the Nobel plot are each listing for 699K. Holy cow. They are seriously 10 feet from each other, if that. |
| We have finally purchased all the towels for the house. (great they have bath, but no hand towels; this place only has one of the two we need; these aren't the right color!!!!) |
| Given the recent sickness we went through, I've very glad for the 'sanitize' option on the washing machine. There we some things that needed sanitizing. And that's about all I'm saying on that topic. |
| Mark is back to renovating the condo this week. We bought new appliances for it, and will be replacing the carpet, painting, doing a pretty major overhaul. |
| Mom & Dad are flying in Saturday morning to get ready for the arrival of my first niece! They'll be here for a month. Dad will be staying with us, and we just going to put him to work at the condo. Remember it needs new carpet! |
| We have a woodpecker that is attracted to the house. He likes to peck on the stove exhaust vent. He tends to do this about 9 or 10am, so it's not awful. We got him off the vent pretty fast by turning it on, but now he's pecking on other vents, and we can't tell which ones, so we don't know what to turn on to get him to stop. =[ |
| Yeah, so, uh.... yeah. I had nine days off. Such plans, such high hopes for progress and accomplishment. Our Canada trip got cancelled as Gid (Hilde's husband) went to the hospital and she asked us not to come up - everything is OK with him, they're just monitoring him. Which is good, because we both came down with a cold on Tuesday (thanks nephews!, well, OK, you're cute, so you're forgiven) Mark got food poisoning Wednesday, ended up in the ER with a IV in his arm Thursday evening, Jean came down with similar symptoms on Friday and we pretty much haven't left the house except for the ER visit and Mark finally went to the store for some food today. I haven't even looked at my e-mail since Wednesday. <grossness disclaimer - don't read further if you, well..., you get it, just skip to the next bullet point> I'd never actually witnessed Mark throwing up until now, and vice-versa. And as his friends from his younger days can confirm, the man would win a medal for barfing. Volume of output.... depth of sound.... it was pretty impressive. In a gross and disgusting type of way. I'd laugh, except that would hurt. I can't imagine why I'm so freaking sore and tired, having done nothing but lay on the couch for several days. |
| We got the new mattresses, a coffee table and side table, but that's only because people brought them to the house. Love the mattresses. Mark slept great. |
| Saw raccoons in the trees in the ravine today, I didn't think raccoons did the whole 'tree' thing.... Hoping to see the deer again. |
| 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. |