Painting Party!

At least by calling it a painting party, I was able to trick people into coming. It was really my way of enlisting free (minus the price of pizza) help to get my basement's first coat of paint on, and boy was it effective! :)Eduardo striking a threatening pose. My camera heeded his warning and remains an unpainted photo-operat :)
Brent (The CONTROLLER) Jones putting some mean green on the living room wall. It was fun watching his daughter get involved which meant the occasional horse play... or was that Sandra? Mack striking a pose with a tray and brush. The aftermath of the pose was her proclaiming "paint everywhere, paint everywhere." I think she let the tray tip a little bit :(
Thank you Karen for letting Bryan come and play. He and Eduardo did a beautiful job in Leckie's room to be.
Wyatt brought the whole crew for moral support. It was appreciated and they showed a genuine interest the project.
Doug didn't really do much, but he was there... and without him, much of the pizza purchased for the "party" wouldn't have disappeared. :) (Just kidding! Doug helped a ton, and stayed late to help with clean up even, so at least 2 kudos to Doug)
Wyatt had told us all that he used to paint in a professional capacity... As soon as the paint and rollers came out however his story changed to "I actually never did paint." Truth be told, you wouldn't have known it.

A HUGE thanks to those who came and joined the fun this evening! I offer a very full "If you ever need anything" and left over pizza for lunch tomorrow as a thank you.

The Carpet installers are coming on Wednesday which will mark a huge milestone towards the house being done. It's only a bit of finish work that will need to be done once the carpet is down, and the house will be ready to move in to! SWEET!

Precious

I had to document something that happened before I forgot, and the people reading this will appreciate the inherent and tender beauty of the situation. So Ansley and I went to Karen and Bryan's tonight to hang out for a while. As part of the evening, Karen asked for a blessing from myself and Bryan. After we finished, Ansley insisted it was her turn. Before I knew it, she was sitting on the stool with her arms folded wanting us to "pray for her." I love my daughter more than ever for her beautiful spirit and thought to share this "awwwwwww" moment with the Grandma's and Aunts/Uncles/Cousins.

Cherries!

This is going to be a short post with a little update on the progress, and one happy discovery.

We finished hanging all the drywall last night that needs to be hung before the finishers can come do their thing (tape and texture). We do have a plumber coming sometime this week to run a couple lines for a new washer/dryer hookup in the upstairs. He was scheduled to come yesterday but had family come in to town and so I let him off the hook. Once he's done his thing, I can call the finishers to come and then it's time for paint. We painted my bedroom upstairs while kind of waiting, and we'll be laying tile here in a week or so. The carpet can go in once we've painted the basement and Ansley's room, so I think we're still at least a few weeks from being "done." But with a house, I understand, you're never really done, hence the quotation marks.

So the lawn was getting kind of high and it occurred to me that I am responsible for mowing it "so so short" as Ansley put it. The back corner of my lot had a tree with small cherries a couple weeks back that I noticed, but while mowing the lawn on Friday, I discovered that they're ripe and ready. Today after church Ansley and I went and picked about 5 pounds of red cherries. Some were perhaps less ripe, but still edible, so I'd rather have them than letting the birds have their way with MY fruit :)

I asked Ansley to pose with a cherry, and a rather adorable photo resulted.

House Progress Mo' 'gain

I have hung more drywall than I care to think about. I haven't taken pictures of the drywall as it's not so exciting to look at, but imagine that all the before pictures with the bottom two feet of the walls missing now have the drywall there. We are almost completely done hanging the drywall.

I was fortunate enough to be put in touch with a plumber who is willing to help me out on his own time. He works professionally for a company that would charge me over double what he is willing to do the work for. I feel really good about him and have a co-worker to thank for the reference. That being said, he finished all the broken/frozen pipes on Saturday and we're planning on having him back to run a drain for a washer/dryer I am putting upstairs in a couple weeks.

We decided to knock out part of a wall and put a bar-height counter top in for dining space in the basement kitchen. Below are some photos of the progress there. I'll talk a little about each picture too.

So we had to notch the counter top in order to get it in place. This was the creative solution for keeping it a solid counter. We'll be covering it, most likely with tile.

The View of the counter from when you walk in the basement.

The View from the fireplace.

I wanted to test it for strength... and I was tired.

Cameron sad that the only place to lay down in the joint was taken.

Oh yeah... so I have a great website to tell you all about in case you've never discovered dealnews.com. Dealnews is a website that will daily give a list of deals that their deal crawlers have come across. Some deals are better than others which is why these next few pictures were taken. I had purchased a rinky dink tile saw at the low end of the quality spectrum as far as tile saws are concerned. I knew I would be needing a tile saw to put in the tile floors that I intend to lay. A couple weeks later, I saw a deal on dealnews that gave me a mid-grade saw for the same price as the rinky dink saw I had purchased. Long story short, I didn't need to assemble the tile saw as soon as it had come, but I couldn't help myself. This is me taking a break from constructive construction to do some less-constructive construction :)

This be the latest on the house and its goings on. Happy Father's Day E'body :)

House Progress

I closed on my house on Thursday June 2nd. The closing was "the fastest I have ever participated in." I guess that was to make up for all the craziness along the way? In either case, I officially became a home owner at 9:42 A.M. as it somehow was recorded with the city the moment I was done signing my small stack of papers. Side note: Don't ever ask me about what it was like to buy a house... my experience was the exact opposite of typical.

So I thought I'd post a few pictures of some of the changes thus far. The changes will come slowly but surely as I'm doing the repairs with the help of Cameron for now. I am having some professional Carpet installers put down the carpet for me.

The first significant change is the door knobs/ dead bolts. You'll notice there is a key for them on my keychain. This means I no longer have to use a realtor's key box or break in through the back door to gain access! Woot!

The next change is a gaping hole where the wood-burning stove used to be in the basement. This is the change that I am probably the proudest of, given the circumstances. Myself and my lovely yet scrawny brother Cameron muscled the 500-some odd pound beast from its place. This was in the basement and it is now on the car port. We are awesome!

We then cut a couple holes in the wall where doors are going to be. One doorway leads from the bathroom to the adjacent bedroom. The studs are still there for the moment, but will be removed shortly. The other hole is going to be an access door to the utility closet under the stairs.

I anticipate beginning drywall in the next couple of days or so. I went and estimated the amount I would need and will be picking that up tomorrow most likely. Projects projects projects :)

So Long Nielsens

Amanda and I made great friends with Eric and Jessica Nielsen in Hawaii. We just so happened to be in proximity of each other here in Utah as they came to live with Jessica's mom to help her acclimate to Utah (she moved from Hawaii). As close as we lived, they were always gracious in helping me with Ansley care, and on short notice some times.

Eric is returning to school to get a Master's degree, and so we bid them a fond farewell and wish all the best in the upcoming craziness that is certainly set to ensue.

(I am kneeling on the couch for this photo, so no the Nielsens and my lamp aren't freakishly tall.)

Ansley's a big girl

Ansley turned three on Sunday, but as we had a holiday with Memorial day, I decided to have her party on Monday instead. Coached by Uncle Cameron, Ansley woke me up this morning by handing me her pacifiers and telling me she's a big girl now. We had negotiated that on her third birthday she would be done with pacifiers. So we had a birthday party that was moved inside because of weather. Thanks to help from Aunts and Uncles, we were able to get decorations up in the church where the party was moved to. Insert collage:

The getting ready

Almost there

Party in full swing with presents!

The theme for the party was decided weeks ago when I gave Ansley some options. She was adamant about Dora the Explorer. Yesterday she told me she wanted Cinderella. Ultimately it was too late baby girl. I spent all evening figuring out Ansley's cake. I'm pretty proud of the end result.

Amish Bread

I made some and this is what it looked like.

I shaved my beard the following morning and distributed the fruits of my efforts (and Cameron's) to the co-workers who considered themselves friends. I addressed the office in an e-mail as friends and invited my friends to come have some Amish Friendship bread. Turns out I'm not as popular as I thought 'cause it took all day for the bread to disappear.

Reality checks can hurt.

Pictures with "My Dolly's"

Ansley asked me to take a picture of her with her dolly's. She then gave me a very cheesy smile followed by another cheesy smile.

Cheesy Smile 1

Cheesy Smile 2

Uncle Cameron was feeling left out and insisted on taking a similar picture. (For those with a weak stomach towards poor plays on words, avert your eyes now)

Too late..

Home Ownership: Because renting is a drag.

So I have had several negative experiences with the management of my apartment. March marked the final straw in negative experiences. I made the decision that I was no longer going to live in Country Springs. As this was processing, I decided to also considered the possibility of home ownership. Before I knew it, I had been pre-approved for a loan and I was in contact with an extremely proactive Realtor. The next week we had an appointment to go look at homes. The sixth and final home we saw was the one I liked above all. Prepare for a

LOT of pictures :)

The house from the Street

A VERY yellow kitchen upstairs.

The family room upstairs.

The on-suite bath to the master bedroom upstairs.

The Master Bedroom upstairs.

The yellow room to become both pink and Ansley's.

So now we've seen the upstairs of the house. I show you the upstairs first and insert this intermission because of the fun happenings that occurred downstairs.

I put an offer on the house and found out a week later that the offer was accepted. AWESOME! What next Kristi? (My Realtor)

"Well Levin, we need to send in your earnest money. The next step will be to have that home inspection done that we talked about. Once you feel good about the house (the inspection comes back clean) we'll finalize the loan details and set a date for closing."

We contact the home inspection company in order to set up a time and a date. We had it scheduled for Wednesday May 4th. He advises us to have the utilities cut on so that he can do a thorough inspection of the property. We call the utilities companies and request the utilities be cut on on May 3rd so that they would for sure be on when the inspector came on the 4th. After calling both the gas and the water/electric companies, we received word that we weren't allowed to turn the water on. I knew that the house was missing a hot water heater, and so I thought nothing of it as they could have likely been concerned that without a water heater in place, the results of turning the water on could be bad. So we called up the water/electric company and asked them to cancel the request to turn on the water... Can ya guess where this is going? Someone didn't notice the note on the original order, and the water was cut on Tuesday May 3rd. Wednesday May 4th rolls around and my inspector finds the basement flooding in grand form. Turns out the missing water heater wasn't the only concern with turning on the water. The house had been winterized significantly late, and the integrity of the pipes was compromised in two places such that they burst when the water was turned on.

Introducing, the basement of the house :)

(Utah Disaster Kleenup has removed the carpets and 2 feet of drywall around the whole basement in an attempt to deter mold from growing.)

A smaller bedroom downstairs. (a.k.a. the original scene of the crime with pipes bursting etc...)

What will be the master bedroom with on-suite bathroom.

The Downstairs Family room.

There will be a full kitchen in this space.

I sure am glad that I love a good project. This is going to take a bit of time to finish up on an after-work basis. The positive side of things is that there were changes in flooring and paint colors that I was going to be making anyway. This way, the utilities company is going to assume liability for these damages and as I'll be making most of the repairs myself, this is going to give me the extra money necessary to furnish the kitchen downstairs and make some upgrades along the way.

Ansley is excited about "our new house!" She keeps talking about wanting to paint her room to be pink and purple. I'm not sure exactly what shades we'll be going with, but there may be a hint of princess pink and purple in my little princess's room.

As progress happens with the house I'll be posting the "after shots" along the way.