Big Update!

Big update! (kind of)

The most exciting news is that our custom-made gate arrived! Now we can have lots of canine visitors :)

The fun started a couple of weeks ago, when Larry and Jesse dug through some concrete to get the post for the gate put in.
I stayed away from the drilling and raked the lawn instead. (have to admit, not my favorite part of home ownership, although it was quite the workout :) )And now I present to you....



THE GATE!
Thanks to Larry for making friends with our neighbor Joe who has a company Crown Fence & Wire Company. And of course, thanks to Joe (who does not read this blog and therefore will never see this) for making such a nice looking gate!Yesterday, we bought Halloween candy...I'm hoping for a few (nicely behaved) Trick-or-Treaters this year!

We Passed Inspection!

Yes, that's right, we passed our house inspection! This is so huge, I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. This inspection was necessary because we bought the house "as-is" and took responsibility for a couple of pages of repairs that had to be made within the first 90 days of taking ownership of the house. So now that we have passed inspection, everything else we do now in terms of renovating, can be done more on "our time."

We have also chosen a contractor and have decided to re-side the house with James Hardie fiber cement siding (http://www.jameshardie.com/). Still deciding on a color, any suggestions?

We will also be getting the gutters replaced and that weird back room torn off, also may tackle the kitchen at some point. The goal is to have this work all done by November-ish.

A productive weekend...

I can't even believe how productive this weekend was. (well in terms of home renovations it was.... I STILL haven't touched my homework). Betty and Larry came on Friday morning. When I got home from work/class, I walked into an empty (locked) house, with two gaping holes where windows used to be in the living room. However, by bedtime Friday night, we had two brand new beautiful windows!
On Saturday, my dad joined the party. This time, by the time I got home from work (I know, it really doesn't seem like I help much, does it?) there was another new window in and one more hole waiting for the final window! Also, my dad had a good deal of his plumbing project done!

Currently, as I'm writing this, we have new windows in the living room and a new window in the second bathroom. Just as exciting, we have an actual functional second bathroom! After some unexpected surprise leaks and other things, my dad got all of the plumbing working and now the toilet, bathtub and sink all work!

It's like we have our own nature reserve in our back yard!

Today I heard Sam making this "chattering" sound that I had never heard her make before. I saw her peering out the front storm door. When I looked out, I expected to see some squirrels or something, but boy was I surprised by what I saw!
A hawk! Just sitting on the fence that separates our yard from our neighbors'. We've been seeing this hawk flying around lately, but never this close, and never just sitting there, relaxing.In other news, we got our new furnace today! Get ready for some super exciting photos....

There must not be any other bird feeders in the neighborhood...

Our latest purchase? A bird feeder! Jesse got "the Squirrel Buster" off of Amazon.com and man, this thing is heavy duty! Once we finally found a hook tall and strong enough for it, we filled it up and set it outside the front window, the perfect spot for Sam's viewing.So far...no squirrel problems! It does seem as though word has gotten out though, as I type this, there is much less bird seed left than in the picture above and there are four birds on the feeder and one of them keeps chasing other birds away!

Contractors and Sales People

Happy Friday everyone! What a crazy couple of weeks it has been. I mentioned that we might be needing to purchase a new furnace in my last post, and indeed that is what we've decided to do. We have now met with four furnace sales people, we are just waiting on the last quote and then will be making a decision, unfortunately, I feel like winter will be here before we know it! I have to say, purchasing a furnace is not as exciting as the recent appliances we purchased :)

My mom and dad were here at the beginning of the week. They were moving my brother into his house for school in LaCrosse and then made the trip up here to spend a couple of days. On Monday, we had an inspector come look at the gas appliances that we just installed and of course, he found "issues" for us to fix before a re-inspection. So, while my mom and I went shopping (!!!) my dad took a trip to Menards and pretty much took care of everything the inspector told us we had to do, before we got back from the mall!

We probably have one more contractor coming to bid on our re-siding, etc project, but hope to get that project going soon!

Updated, finally!

Hello again!

Exciting news, our new range got delivered today!
Haven't used it yet...not sure what I'll make first!

In other news, we met with more contractors today. It's looking like the plan right now is to completely redo the siding of our house (anyone have preferences on what kind of siding you like?), replace the gutters and tear off the weird back room with the flat roof. We met with some contractors that seemed really great today, and of course have had some not-so-great ones (mainly the ones that just never showed up).

Since the last update, Jesse and Matt got the dryer all hooked up. Doing laundry has never been so fun! We also got the sump pump working and things like that.

On a not so fun note, it looks like we'll be purchasing a new furnace in the not so distant future. We had the current furnace serviced today and we think we'll be better off just getting a new, energy-efficient furnas before this winter.