house update

So, the house. It's going well, we've made quite a bit of progress since last weekend. If all keeps going according to plan we'll be done and ready to move in in about 3 weeks. Here's our updated to-do list:

repair roof - done
pressure wash house - done
scrape popcorn texture off ceilings - done
spray new texture on ceilings and paint them - done
install new AC - done
remove old carpets - done
install new lights in living room and kitchen - done
drywall repairs - done
paint walls
install new carpet
install new wood floors
install new toilets
install new kitchen sink
repair banister

That's it! Unfortunately everything we have left to do is pretty cosmetic, so the house looks like a total disaster right now. We start painting walls tomorrow though, and lots of painting and flooring will go on this weekend. It's going to make a huge difference. We're ordered all the flooring, and I've picked out all the paint colors, I think; I probably have about 1/3 of all the paint color chips that Behr makes. We were at the house the other day and Alfred suggested a color for a room, and I whipped out the suggested color from my purse, right on cue. Don't worry, we'll go on a virtual tour once it's done.

The really fun thing I got to do this weekend was walk around in drywall stilts! The drywall guy left them behind when he left on Saturday, and I was all over those like white on rice. It took a few minutes to get used to walking in them, but I got pretty good at it. I used them for a couple of hours that afternoon, and then again for an hour or so on Sunday. Literally the second the drywall guy left on Sunday I had those puppies on. Seriously, they're great fun. I felt like a cross between Forrest Gump and the Terminator. If anyone needs a gift idea for me for my birthday or Christmas, keep these in mind. Either that or a massage. Which I could actually use right now, my back and shoulders are awfully sore from all this work on the house.

Quote of the day

Mike: Obviously I've been drinking, otherwise we probably wouldn't be talking right now.

Home Improvement Hints

Today's Lesson: Scraping Popcorn Texture Off Of Ceilings

For this, you'll need some ladders, medal scraper tools, and a water sprayer thingie (not like a little bottle, something bigger and more hardcore).

So you've just bought a house. Yay! Unfortunately, you and/or your freakishly-observant-of-ceilings spouse hates the popcorn texture that's on every ceiling in the house. Sounds like you'll be scraping that off! Luckily, if you follow these 3 easy steps, it will all be over in no time!

Step 1: Climb up your ladder and start scraping the plaster off the ceiling. Scrape until your arm starts to hurt and you realize that this really sucks, which will be about 3-5 minutes. In this time you have probably scraped about 1 square foot. Unfortunately you will have only scraped off about 1/2 off the amount of plaster you need to remove, because it needs to be down to the drywall only, and that's super hard.

Step 2: Spray a bunch of water all over the ceiling. Go walk around the house for 10 minutes or so, thinking about how maybe popcorn ceilings aren't so bad, and how to convince your crazy spouse of this fact. If you're not thinking that, then you are obviously the crazy spouse.

Step 3: Go back into the room you sprayed with water. Spray it a little more. Climb back up your ladder and start scraping again. Try not to leap for joy as the plaster now easily comes off in wet gooey splats, because you're pretty close to the ceiling and will probably hit your head.

Repeat this process over and over and over again (except you can skip step 1, that was just so you could fully appreciate how much easier it is to scrape the plaster off once its wet). You will love life for the first couple of rooms, maybe even go as fast as you can to show off how easy it is now that you know this new trick. You'll walk around the house on your plaster coated shoes, leaving white footprints all over your old navy blue carpet (assuming your old carpet is navy blue, and assuming you're getting rid of your existing carpet, which of course you are, because there's no way you'd do this on carpet you ever plan on living on). You'll vow to help eradicate popcorn ceilings everywhere, now that you're such an expert.

It will dawn on you soon that though this is easier, it's still not easy, and that you will most likely not be able to move your arms the next day. If you survive. Maybe if you're lucky some wonderful people will bring you a 2 liter bottle of Dr. Pepper and save your life moments before you expire of exhaustion.

To summarize, make sure you marry someone who is either extremely short and nearsighted, and/or not overly observant of or opinionated about ceiling textures. In other words, someone normal. That way you never have to bother doing this. But if given a choice between this and doing something like installing insulation, go for this. Trust me.

#3

It's official: we're home owners again! This has been in the works since the end of July. We actually got the call that the sellers had accepted our offer back when we were camping with my family earlier this summer, and we were originally supposed to close September 1. Of course there was an issue with the title, closing got pushed back, drama ensued. Then finally, this past Thursday, the bank calls and says the title's ready to go, we're closing Monday. Yay! The next day they call Alfred and say hey, you've been dicking around too long, close today or you lose the house! (Cause, you know, when they take 3 weeks to fix the title that's fine, but the 18 hours we've spent getting our loan in order from our lender is just unreasonable.) So at about 3:30 I left work, drove 45 minutes up to the bank to sign the paperwork, turned around and drove another 45 minutes back to work to close and lock up, then drove another 45 minutes back to approximately 1/2 mile from the bank we had closed at to meet friends for dinner. 90 mile round trip to travel approximately 3 blocks. But we have a new house!

This one is 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2 stories, attached garage, and a pool! Lots of nice big closets (this is the first time since Alfred and I have lived together that we'll both be able to keep our clothes in the closet in our bedroom!), attic space over the garage, tons of storage, it's great. It's on a big property too, nice big fenced in backyard, plus a shed and pool house (well, what we call a pool house anyway, really it's a little storage type room next to the pool). It also comes complete with some new pets. The pool hasn't been cleaned in probably a year or two, possibly more, so it's basically a nature preserve now. We've seen at least 2 frogs and at least 2 turtles. I think there are more turtles, but I only ever saw 2 at a time today. Here's a good picture of one of the turtles.

In this picture you can actually see 1 of the frogs and 2 turtles. The circle on the left is the frog.

This house is bigger than either house we've lived in so far, much larger than where we are now, which is going to be so nice. I can't wait to actually unpack all of our boxes! At least 1/4 of our stuff is still sitting in boxes in our house now, which makes it easier for this move I guess. This new house does require a bit of work, of course, but we actually did a bunch of work this weekend already. Our to-do list as of right now:

pass electrical inspection - done
repair roof
pressure wash house - done
scrape popcorn texture off ceilings - 99% done (except for one chunk over the stairs I couldn't reach with the ladder)
install new AC
remove old carpets
install new carpet
install new wood floors
paint
install new toilets
install new kitchen sink
install new lights in living room and kitchen

Whew! I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff that Alfred will remind me of as soon as he reads this. The goal is to be in mid-October. Then we sell the house we're in now ASAP. And live in one place for more than 6 months. It's going to be a busy few weeks.

ginnie!

We went for one last hurrah this summer over Labor Day weekend: Ginnie Springs! It's another park where you go tubing down a river/spring, but this park is privately owned (as opposed to Ichetucknee, where we've gone before) and so drinking is more or less allowed. So we drank. The first trip down the river started out all sorts of innocent and fun loving.

There were 9 of us total. We had 2 floats, one that fit 8 people and then 1 that was basically an inflated armchair. I'm not sure that Mercedes touched the water all day; she could definitely have gotten away staying completely dry, that's for sure. The big float was fun to do back somersaults off of into the water, though. As the beer and camel back of margaritas started to kick in, things got pretty energetic.



We had a nice big lunch after our first trip down the river, complete with more beer. We played around on land for awhile (pretty sure there was a photo shoot on the beach volleyball court conducted by yours truly with Eric and Susan's camera) then headed back to the water. The second trip was pretty fun too, but by the third time we were all pretty wiped out.

I slept the entire way down. Seriously, someone woke me up and I thought I was supposed to move over on the raft to let other people on, but we were at the end. Whoops. Alfred and I actually did make it out to dinner with some other friends that night, but we were so spent we headed home early and crashed. We really had fun though, definitely a great way to spend the last big weekend of summer.

Quote of the day

Eric: Taste the rainbow. It's mostly yellow.

Coolest truck ever

the swim

Last Friday we spent most of the day cleaning our old house for our new tenants. That's right, our old tenants broke their lease and moved out 6 months early. Punks. Luckily we were able to find someone else to move in, and we had 2 days in between tenants to clean everything and get it ready for the new people. Also luckily, those 2 days happened to be my days off for the week. Yay for me! They did a pretty good job cleaning the house actually, so it wasn't so bad, except for the guest cottage. The girl who lived out there sort of trashed the place, including smashing one of the windows. Jerk.

That night we went out to dinner with a whole gang: Ilya, Mercedes, Kevin, and Gara, with Phil, Lucy, and Ellie joining us after the meal to say hi. We feasted on barbecue and attempted to listen to some bluegrass from the band playing there, but they weren't very loud and we couldn't really hear it. The food made up for it, though. After dinner we went back to Lucy and Phil's house for some drinks and water sports. Their new house is right on the water, so they have a paddle boat. We attempted to fit all 6 of us on it (Ilya and Mercedes had to go home so they weren't there) and very nearly sank. As you can see by the picture to the right, even 4 people almost sank it. This was all leading up to Kevin swimming in this less-than-sanitary water to earn $31 from Phil. Which he did, with flying colors. He may have almost died, but he made it, and earned Phil's money fair and square.

In other news, I am happy to report that I have spent most of my last 2 days off of work gearing up for the return of The Vampire Diaries next week. I believe I've mentioned my love of this show before. The second season starts a week from tomorrow, so I'm re-watching season 1 in preparation. I've gone through 15 episodes so far, 7 more to go. I can't wait for it to come back, it's seriously the show I'm most looking forward to. Mock me if you will, I'm not ashamed. I just feel sorry for those of you not watching it.