Where's Warhol?

Visited my mother last week, while taking a break from redoing her bathroom we went to NYC. We brunched out in New York city at a super duper good breakfast spot. Olympia Dukakis also thought so, but came dressed as Andrew Warhol.

Exploring

We went out and about exploring some local waterfalls. Here are some pics of the heavenly splendor that a .10 mile hike can yield.

More house updates!

So, we just got back home, after visiting with my mother in CT for a few weeks. We were initially going to tile her bathroom floor, but then embarked on a much larger project as she realized her avocado tub, sink and toilet had to go. (Picture of that in the next posting).

We weren't able to really get going on our home improvement projects before leaving for CT, because we didn't want to leave our house half roofed, etc..
But, Gregg did build a handsome cover for the crawl space and start to level out the back of the house - some previous owner or another probably turned a deck into a home addition, and didn't properly support the floor, so it is slightly sloped, and currently not necessarily ready for the weight of a new bathroom atop it.
I have been trying to juggle my job, unpacking and drawing the floor plans up for the house. I also put together some handsome adirondack chairs for our front porch. Next project - screen to block the sun in our eyes when we sit in the chairs!
Also, after much trolling on craigslist, we found a murphy bed for our guest room, and a super cheap whirlpool tub that we will install when we redo our master bath. sweet!!!!! its friggin' huge!

Our future master bathroom whirlpool

Gregg in the crawlspace figuring out how to level the floor of the back room.


Starting the floor leveling process

Putting together our handsome new adirondack chairs.

I love them!

New Appliances! And the start of a Veggie Garden!

We are beginning to start sorting everything out here - trying to figure out what needs to be done, and in what priority...After 4 or 5 days without them, our appliances finally arrived on Saturday! After 3 or 4 trips to the Lowe's and Home Depot, we finally have our Oven/Stove / Fridge and Dishwasher in their temporary locations. Our kitchen will be in limbo for the next couple months, as there are a few higher priority items on the legnthy to-do list. For some reason or another, the previous owner made the executive decision to paint every wall and ceiling in the house tan. BLEGH! and to put a HORRIBLE texture on everything. I wish they just woudln't have even bothered!)

(Our old, and oh-so-handsome range. Why ever did almond go out of style?)


(Gregg removing cabinetry to find a temporary home for our dishwasher until our kitchen is remodeled in a few months)

(My first dishwasher as an adult. YAY!!!!!)

(Our new appliances - a bit out of place in our current kitchen)

Gregg has finished planting the starts for our veggie garden. Now he is spending all his free time playing, watering and feeding his kids. He is such a doting father.

Getting settled, starting work on the lawn

It has been in the 80’s and sunny and hot, but I woke up to a cool rainy morning which turned to hail after a few hours, then ceased entirely.

I am going to walk to the grocery store to get bagels for breakfast – our fridge won’t be arriving until Saturday (the delayed arrival gave us $10 percent off our appliance suite).

Our hot water heater may be broken – which will be good because we bought the home warranty, so if it is, then we will get money for a new one – and then we can get the new energy saving on-demand kind we have been researching, which is more pricey, but saves money on energy, and saves space.

While we have more space then previously, we still have little room for storage, and washing machines, especially after we install our second bathroom soon.

We then bought a push-lawnmower off craigslist for $100 – when we picked it up, we found a pile of “junk” and extracted a circular saw and long folding table for temporary use in the shop. Not perfect, but in working condition. The saw just needeed a new $5 blade! Yay! (wait, I thought G already had one, I’ll have to ask if we have two now)

Gregg mowed our jungle of a backyard....



..and I derooted, weeded, deplanted the space which will soon be our vegetable garden (thanks for the peas, eggplant, tomato, squash and other plant starts donated by Farmer Colin).




Someone who once owner this house got very concrete happy and there are strange instance of poured concrete here and there which I hope to remove.

The water heater guy, Nate, if you will, comes today and I will know more about that. So far, everything going well.

Arrival Day

After about 13 hours on the road (broken up over two days) we arrived! I don't know how I used to not mind driving these long distances, it was SO boring!!!! Gregg, the NASCAR champ that he is, drove the whole way!




It was so exciting to head into our very own house for the first time!




Upon arrival, we found that our front yard had been mowed by our neighbors - nice, eh?!But our backyard was a jungle!




Very efficiently the gas, water and internet were turned on - and we were done moving in. Our neighbors seemed nice, from the brief introductions we made. It was astonishingly different to move into a residential neighborhood, populated by home owners, as opposed to a street of rental apartments.
It is a relatively quiet neighborhood for being on such a main street. It is definitely a working class area - which highly contrasts the moneyed neighborhood we just vacated in Seattle.

Moving on....

Moving day came and went - we have arrived here in our happy new home.
Here are some pics of our going away partay, and of saying goodbye to my brother.