spring fever!!

I have a serious case of spring fever. I know, it's too early, but I can't help myself. I think I'll go out in search of some nice spring flowers this morning.......

This weekend, we worked on our kennel.

I know, it's  missing some parts, but one thing at a time. Next weekend we'll finish up the parts and pieces and string the rest of the chain link. This was one of the small things our contractors left us to do when they bailed at the first of the year. It's almost done, and then we can open the doggie door and they can go out and bark at the mailman!!

Next up, we'd really like to start landscaping our acre of mud, but we're stuck. In the mud. Or, on the dirt. Seems our fine city requires that we bring in new dirt to top off our acre of mud. Not much, just 3/4" in the whole property, which works out to 60 yards, and it must be rototilled in to 4" deep. The problem? It has to be SPECIAL dirt, certified dirt, and the only place that currently makes it is about 40 miles away, AND they don't return their phone calls, so our poor bulldozer guy can't even find out if they're making it right now. Does the city care????? Not a bit. Rules are rules, you know.....

We can't do a THING, even though we'll be bringing in more dirt anyway, until this is done. We had to put up a sizeable bond and promise we'd do it, and they won't give us our final occupancy certificate for this house until we do.
Can I just say AAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!

bad news, good news

bad news - it's been way too cold to paint or garden
good news - the 10 day forcast says dry, sunny and warmer. We're calling the bulldozer  guy tomorrow to see if we can finish our dirt thing.

bad news - our contractor has given up. He was supposed to send us quotes on the kennel and we've had no contact at all.
good news - we'll save a bunch of money by just going to home depot and doing it ourselves. It's not that complicated and we've already bought posts and concrete,  just waiting for it to get warmer (see #1)

good news - the old house has been on the market for about a week. We've had 3 showings (no offers yet), and our agents are doing an open house today.

More good news - I won tickets to the NW flower show (twice!!!)
One with the doggies in the Subaru (that one got a $25 subaru gift card too)

and once with a caption contest that was all about votes. (thanks if you voted for me)
The caption contest qualifies me to be in another contest drawing for two MORE tickets and $250 to spend at the show. I don't need any more tickets, and would pass those on, the $, though.........

Bad news - my overwhelming case of spring fever is not being helped by all the gorgeous plant catalogs that are coming in the mail.

More bad news - we currently have an acre of frozen mud, and it's a LONG way from being anything that resembles landscaping. (see #1 about the bulldozer guy - we can't do ANYTHING until he's done)

Gotta end with good news - the dry weather that's coming is also supposed to be warmer. I'll be able to finish painting the columns, work on re-planting my peony trees, and DH will be put to work digging the post holes for the kennel.

Here's hoping we hear from bulldozer guy AND the real estate agents!!!!!

happy new year

I can't say we did too much this week. It's been a crazy weather week, rain, snow, sun, some more rain. Most of what we need to do now is outside, and it's just too cold and wet right now.

I did get the porch columns painted with a first coat. Don't look too close, they really need another go-round, but you get the idea.....

We have a few things still planned. I really wanted to do my craft closet today, but DH had to work. I guess it's OK, because we have one more furniture thing to do. We really need some end tables and a coffee table, and I fell in love with this set from bassett.  They're right up our alley in that they're in the mission style, and I think they'll fit right in. They're a new product at bassett, and they don't have them in stock yet. Our (very) hungry bassett sales gal has agreed to call me when they arrive and we'll probably be looking at them next weekend.


I REALLY want to bring my fountain over and get it set up. The problem is that it weighs about 600 lbs (really). and that's just the bottom of it. I think this cool dragonfly that my sister made me for christmas will look really great with it though. She's quite an artist.

 

The doggies are ready for the weather to get better too. They love to garden!

 

 

 

Hopefully, we'll win tickets to the flower show with that pic.

 

And,  last but not least.......the end of an era. We bought this house in 1989ish. When we bought it, it had ugly brown shag carpeting, orange indoor-outdoor in the dining room, ancient baseboard heaters ,and lovely, colorful, kid car wallpaper in the spare bedroom. Well, many years, and a lot of work later, it goes on the market monday morning. Let's hope for a reasonably quick and painless sale.

 

wrapping up the bits

This week was mostly spent wrapping up the bits of unfinished moving. We went over and scrubbed down the old house, did some yard work, moved the last of the yard art we wanted to keep and cleaned up the carport. It's all ready to go on the MLS after the first of the year. Let's hope it sells soon. My prediction will be march. Don't know why, just feel like that will be the right time. We'll see.

We did have a last visit from the contractor's workers. They finished up the sewer clean out, took back some cabinets odds and ends that were hanging around and primed the posts. Today, I'll treck off to the paint store to get some more of the trim paint so that I can finish painting them. Our "helper" guy told us that yesterday was his last day.

I don't think I've mentioned it before, but way back in July (just about the time things hit the skids building-wise), we found out that our contractors had decided to finish our house and close shop. We were pretty disappointed to have to find it out from one of the subs. and quite honestly a bit panicked at the time. They did manage to hold things together (mostly) for the rest of the job, but in retrospect,  it explains a LOT. Like, why no one worked AT ALL pretty much the whole month of august.......
We appreciate that they hung in there and finished our job, and we totally understand that things could have been much worse. They did send us a HUGE bill for labor, an item that was not only NOT in the budget, but not discussed at all, and we had no choice but to pay it.

They've left a few bits undone, and we've told them that we will finish them. We don't want any more surpirses bill-wise, and there's no need to drag this out. We'll be doing our own painting of the columns, kennel, and there's still that little issue of the dirt work the city requires.

Don't get me wrong, we LOVE. LOVE, LOVE our new house, and I don't think we would have done it any diffenently. We're just thankful for the bank breathing down their necks and pushing them a bit. It is a small town, and they do have a reputation to uphold, they're not dishonest, just overwhelmed.

So.....as things progress, I'll still be here on this blog. It's just going to turn into more of a gardening and landscaping thing, as we (hopefully) make progress on our acre of mud!

settlling in.......

This week was mostly spent finishing up the details of moving, hanging pictures and the like. The boys came and worked on the columns, but it's still too cold to paint them. (thinking I'm going to end up doing that this summer). They still have to dog kennel to do, and then we're officially done with the contractor, and none too soon. They've been great, but things have started to fall apart at the end and we'd just as soon be done. The electricians came and changed out the service panel on the old house, and also rewired the power to the shop and brought the rest of the sound system. We now have dolby surround sound that would blow your butt off the couch, thankyouverymuch. The plumber was here to put in the garbage disposal switch, and also fix a little leak a the old place. Our mail started getting forwarded, but our garbage can got forgotten.......

It snowed here this week too, unusual, and just really messy for a day or 2. Good excuse to finish up some inside stuff......

Things we're loving about this house.....
the laundry/mud room. It's serving it's purpose of being the mud collector and critter hang out place. Yesterday, we went over to the old house and cleaned up in the yard for a while. It was really nice to just throw the dirty clothes in the wash on the way by.

We're also loving our under cabinet lighting.....

lighted walk in closets

and the one thing I would TOTALLY do again.....
heated towel bar!!!!

We still have a lot of work to do on both houses. The old one goes on the market after the holidays. We're having a hard time trying to figure out who would buy it. Our problem? We keep comparing it to the new house........Not EVEN close. We just need to do our cleanup chores and let the realestate gals do their job.


This week, Merry Christmas. We're not anticipating much getting done, and we really need a break from contractors anyway. We'll be working on the porches, the old house, and setting the hot tub back  up.

ok, I have a good excuse

we were up to our eyeballs in moving. When we finally got the go-ahead, it became all moving, all the time. I'm happy to say, we're about 99% done now. There's still a few bits and bobs a the old house, and we have the yard stuff to move, but, as of last saturday, we were sleeping in our new house.

As you an see, the doggies have made themselves QUITE at home...... On sunday, we finished moving the pilates equipment and set up our computer and office.....

I had to take advantage of the new bath tub. (it's awesome), on sunday night, because we were both beat!

This weekend, we'll finish up a few things on the new house.... hang some pictures.....

put up the mailbox, drain the hot tub so that it can be moved next week, move the rest of the crap...... All in all, though, it's pretty well done and comfy!

The old house goes on the market on thursday. Fingers crossed!!

that's a lotta deck!

well, there was some really good progress this week, but still not the final occupancy inspection. Monday brought the electrician to finish the floor outlets and a few odds and ends. He was supposed to be meeting the electrical inspector for their final, but we're not really sure if that happened or not. I left for about 20 minutes and when I came back, everyone was gone. The permit is not signed off, so we just can't be sure. The plumber was here monday too. He told us he'd be finished on monday, and then tuesday, and then wed or thurs, and finally, promised to come back on friday and finish. He spent all day monday messing with the heating system. This carried into tuesday. On wed, he finally installed 2 toilets. Thursday was spent finishing the last toilet, installing the pedestal sinks in the master, and the bathtub. It's really beautiful. He never made it friday to finish the laundry sink, fridge ice maker, caulking, and some other misc. plumbing stuff. Hopefully monday. The final inspection was SUPPOSED to be monday, then tuesday, then wed.....then they had to inspect the deck, and the inspector told them they couldn't have their final until the deck is completely done. Now it's supposed to be THIS monday, but they have a quite a bit to finish still, so ......maybe by friday. We've been told we can move in, but that's pretty difficult with critters and all, since contractors are still coming and going, the deck is not done, and we have no window coverings. We're waiting for the window blinds at least. They're here, hopefully to be installed this week. We're keeping ourselves busy by moving all the OTHER crap. You know, the stuff you don't use that often, but you just HAVE to own.... There's still a million little details, like, wrapping the porch posts and painting them, having the window screens delivered, building the dog kennel......none of those will hold up the inspection, but they'll all take time. Fingers crossed for the big move next weekend.'