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.

Excited about Appliances

The new washer is all hooked up!! The Sears delivery people were awesome, and came right at the beginning of the 2-hour window they gave us for delivery! After an emergency trip to Menards (one of the faucet hook-ups was leaking) Jesse got the washer all set and I did my first load of wash! Very exciting.
Jesse and Matt will be hooking up the gas dryer tomorrow!!
Jesse surprised me after appliance shopping yesterday by buying us some new fish! Unfortunately, we started with 13 and are now down to 8. Apparently, our Angelfish has decided that the new fish taste pretty good. sad.

Anyways, super excited that our mandatory to-do list is almost all checked off! If I can get a long lunch tomorrow, I will be making a trip to get some permits to finish the work. Then we'll need to get the stuff re-inspected and hopefully not have to worry about that anymore!

Updates

We bought a washer, dryer and stove today!! We ended up deciding (after a loooong decision process) on front loading GEs and a Kenmore gas range, with FIVE burners and a continuous grate, there are all sorts of fancy features I'm sure I'll never use, but the thought of maybe using them is really exciting!

Tim, Sara and the boys came to visit yesterday and left this morning, it was so nice having them around, it was so sad to see them go! We went to happy hour at Rosen's and then while the guys did some work (thanks for all of the help Tim!!) Sara, Blake and I went to Ikea. I was well-behaved and only made a few purchases, but more importantly I got some good ideas for the future!

Today after spending way too much time at the MOA, we bought some new fish, I went for a nice evening run and then we also installed the smoke/carbon monoxide detectors and Jesse fixed the leaking bathroom faucet.

The range won't be delivered until August 17th (the day after my birthday!!!!) but the washer and dryer are coming TOMORROW!! I think I'm way too excited to do laundry :) pictures to come soon.

All moved in....for the most part.

We live in a house now!! We spent our first night in the house Sunday night, after a long and productive day that we would not have gotten through (and it would have probably taken us all week) without Larry, Betty, Earl, Joyce, Brady and Shane (and Lester). There were many trips up and down the apartment building's three flights of stairs and some bee stings, but we made it through! So thank you thank you thank you to those of you who helped us move!


Since Sunday, we've just been settling in slowly. Patti, Tony and Mandy, John and Katrina have all been over to see the house in the last couple of days, it's been so fun to give tours! Also, I went for a run in the neighborhood last night and I decided that I absolutely love living here. I felt totally safe and it's so nice and quiet here.
Jesse had Monday and today off of work and has been unpacking and moving the last things over to the house. He even mowed part of the lawn today! Also, perhaps most importantly, thanks to Jesse, we now have a kitchen faucet!Today, we got our cable, internet and land line all set up. Now I can blog again!
For those of you wondering, Sam is adapting quite well!! Surprisingly, she made herself at home almost right away. As you can see, she finally tried out her housewarming gift from Larry and Betty and seems to like it!We went appliance shopping tonight and will hopefully have a new range, washer and dryer in the near future! But for now, microwaveable meals and Parkway Pizza are working just fine :)

Finally, we are looking forward to the visit from the Prosen's later this week! Happy Birthday Blake and Happy (early) Anniversary Tim and Sara!

Long time, no post!

Major recap of what has been going on:

My my, it has been a busy past week! My mom came up to the cities on Monday and stayed through Thursday morning to help out with some house stuff, and boy did she (with help from Kathy) get a lot done! Between the two of them, the bathroom is almost spotless, the fridge is sparkling clean, the yard and front of the house (see above picture) looks awesome, and practically the whole house is super clean (down to the last windowsill).On Monday evening, Amie came to visit and brought us this lovely housewarming gift! Then my mom, Jesse, Amie and I had a great meal at the Highland Grill. It was so good to see her and before we knew it, we had spent two hours catching up!

On Tuesday night (so many visitors, yay!) Kathy and Jack were over and brought us our very first flowers for the garden!! I'm so excited, they do look a little lonely all by themselves though. More good food was had that night at Pepitos!Finally, guess who got their first housewarming gift last weekend? Yes, Sam (our cat) got her very own perch to look out the window on from her grandma and grandpa Nelson! On that note, I'll leave you all with a baby picture of Sam. **BIG move is tomorrow!!!!

hyedithepainter??

You may be wondering "what's the occasion for having two posts in one day?" Well no real occasion, but we did have a very productive day. Larry and Betty are here (and have slept in our house before we have!) and as of 11:07 pm the dead crab apple tree is history, the dangerous step leading up to our walk is almost fixed, TWO closet organizers were installed, a bedroom was painted, our shower works and the two messed up light switches are fully functional now. Today was amazing and for sure would not have happened without them.

You also may have noticed that the title of this post is "hyedithepainter." Well, that may be an overstatement, but I definitely got a personal painting lesson today from the one and only Carol The Painter! We painted the master bedroom in less than half the time it took Jesse and I to paint the guest bedroom. I learned all sorts of tips and tricks of the trade :) I may start my own business (haha).

Jesse and Larry working hard!
Dad! The stud finder works great! Closet #1...we call this the "practice closet"

Lester is tired from all of the work!

Good-bye Raspberry Bushes!

Yesterday, Jesse went to work on getting rid of some of the raspberry bushes that were overtaking the entire front of our house.

BeforeAfter
Today we are going to paint the master bedroom, get the closet organizer up in the guest bedroom (which looks impossibly difficult to assemble), get the shower in working order, cut down that dead crab apple tree and clear out the rest of the raspberry bushes (after we eat some of them :) )

Random Picture Dump

It's been a super busy week for me so far so Jesse has been spending more time at the house this week. However, I did listen to the home run derby on the radio Monday while I painted! Also that night, Jen B. and Ang stopped by for a tour! Anyways, since there hasn't been too much to document so far this week (for me anyways) here are a few random pictures I've taken along the way!

Our shelf of tools!

Larry and his professional taping

Taking down the "For Sale" sign!

Changing the locks.

I actually like this!I'll leave you with a picture of Jesse and the only thing in our fridge right now.