Three more days...

I’m counting down to moving day, if you hadn’t noticed.  I’m still wandering around the house finding things that I haven’t packed yet, remembering things in other rooms and areas of the house that I don’t frequent…like the attic and above the garage.  I don’t know how I will fit it all, but I have a feeling that the “Good Stuff Free” shed at the transfer station will be getting a truckload of new stuff relatively soon!

Time Warner Cable called me on Monday as a courtesy to make sure that my internet service was working properly (I had called them few weeks ago with an issue).  I told the guy that I was about to call them that day to set up a day/time to have my services moved to my new house and he set to work helping me with that. 

He started out by saying that he couldn’t guarantee that he would be able to have a tech in the area on Tuesday, July 6^th, but first he wanted to check to make sure that I could get service out there.  He then came back and told me that there were already services attached to my half of the duplex!  I asked if it was in the name of the previous owner and he said yes.   I explained the situation, that we had bought the house a month ago and that I was living on one side and renting out the other, that the previous owner no longer lived there and didn’t even own the place.  The guy at Time Warner said that I couldn’t move my services until the previous owner called to disconnect his and that I should call the old owners.  I don’t know the old owners!  The last I had talked with them was a month ago and I didn’t have a number.  So the Time Warner guy said he would call. 

Yesterday, he called to say that the old owner didn’t want to lose his email address and that’s why he hadn’t disconnected yet.  The owner would transfer the service when he moved into his new house.  I asked the Time Warner guy how he could do that since he didn’t own my house anymore, and what if the guy didn’t get into his new house for another month?  It was ridiculous of me to have to pay for services that I can’t use at a house I will no longer be living at and not be able to get them at the house I WILL be living at.  He said he’d work with the old owner to resolve the situation and call me back in a few days. 

After I hung up with him, I was so mad.  I had to bring my truck out to the garage to get it fixed and on my way out there, I started to get angrier and angrier about this situation!  It was bullshit that they couldn’t do anything until he canceled his services!  I was to the point that I was contemplating canceling my services with Time Warner if they couldn’t resolve it by Friday. The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that would only negatively impact me – that I would be the one without internet and cable, and I need internet to use my Vonage (which I still have another year of service in my contract).  I told myself that I had to let it go, because it wasn’t doing me any good to stew about it.

Within 5 minutes of letting it go, the guy from Time Warner called me (this was at 4:30 pm).  He said the situation was resolved, the old owner’s service would be disconnected as of Sunday and my service would be switched over on Tuesday, as I had requested!  Now I have to take back every bad thing I said about Time Warner in the last two days!

Closer and closer to home...

Busy weekend! Mum and I picked strawberries early on Saturday. The fields were all of 10 minutes from my house and were LOADED with beautiful berries! We got to pick our own row (rather than being told what row to pick in) and filled 13 quart boxes in about 45 minutes. And they were only $2.25 a quart!

Also, the raspberries at both the old and new houses are ripening, and soon enough the blackberries will be ready, too! I’ll be loaded down with jam this year!!

Saturday was my nephew’s graduation party. It was well attended with lots of food and a bonfire in the evening. I think everyone had a great time.

Sunday, I got the last of the metal shelving units scraped, painted and put in the basement. I can now start putting stuff downstairs on the shelves and out of the living room (where there are about 2 or 3 dozen boxes waiting to be lugged to the appropriate room and unpacked).

I spent my first night out there on Friday night. Even though the dog barked at every little unfamiliar sound for the first hour, it was quiet and peaceful the rest of the night. I think once she gets used to the place, sleeping out there will be great! This thought was reinforced when I spent Saturday night back in the old house and was woken up at midnight by people hollering to each other on either end of the street! The neighbors around the old house are getting more and more inconsiderate!

By this coming Saturday, I should be in the house with all of my belongings…and the weather is looking good for this!

Ch...ch...ch...changes

It’s official.  I have changed my address on every piece of identification necessary.  After having the same permanent address for my entire life, it is officially changed…and I haven’t even moved out to the house yet!  My mail, my driver’s license, my insurances, my bank, every credit card/magazine/catalogue (I think…need to double check those!)

It feels weird…the house still gives me anxiety, especially when I start thinking about how I’m going to afford everything.  Upon doing the bills this morning, I realized that my paycheck is nearly spent and I haven’t even bought groceries, pet food or gas…or gotten the light bill!  I still have to look into an oil dealer (having an oil fired hot water heater has its advantages and disadvantages, esp. when you need oil year round and can’t put it off until fall, like with the pellets for the stove!).

Yeah, so I’m panicking a little. I know I need to relax and let the panic go; keep repeating that the money will be there when I need it…for everything: bills, oil, pellets, food, gas…everything.  As Florence Scovel Shinn wrote, "Demonstrations often come at the eleventh hour, because man then lets go, that is, stops reasoning, and Infinite Intelligence has a chance to work."

Sometimes Me & a Hammer are a Dangerous Combination

+= 

STRESS RELIEF!!!

I went to check on the house yesterday at lunch, because a major thunderstorm blew through on Sunday (while I was visiting my folks) and friends of mine had a huge tree in their yard uproot and fall!  I hadn’t been out there since Saturday and I wanted to make sure that nothing happened out at the house…and nothing did.  It didn’t even look like we had a storm there (which is all of 10 minutes from my friends). 

But while I was out there, I thought that I would open up the windows upstairs and leave them open to circulate some air, since I was coming back in the evening.  I was just about to leave when I heard the bedroom door slam shut (gust of wind made it happen) and when I got upstairs to reopen it, it was locked!  I don’t ever remember locking that door!  I’ve shut and opened it a hundred times and now all of a sudden it’s locked?  And there is no key for the damn thing!  I was cranky, but I had to get back to work and I figured that if a credit card didn’t do it, I could figure out a way to secure one of the big ladders from the old house on my vehicle and climb through one of the bedroom windows.

When I got back out there at 6:00, the door mangled a credit card and it was just hot and humid enough to make me oh so much crankier, as the sweat poured off me and I wasn’t going to run back in town just to load up a ladder and run back out there to try to climb through a window…so I grab a hammer and beat the knob off.

Strangely, I felt so much better after that!  I went down and ate dinner, then started scrubbing the metal shelves to prepare them for spray paint.  I even got one of them painted a very bright blue!  I guess I just needed to get my aggressions out and the door knob bore the brunt.  The bedroom needed a new handle anyway…as does the basement, but I refrain from beating the crap out of that one!

Kitchen Curtain Fabric

While I have been obsessing about the craft studio, before that I was obsessing about kitchen curtain fabric.  Originally, I wanted a fabric from Sandy Gervais' "Fall Back in Time" collection:

 but this line is three years old and I didn't find anyone who had mass quantities of it to make 2 sets of tier curtains, a full curtain and a valance.  I even had my aunt in Maryland looking for me!

Then I thought, "oooh, Julie Paschkis’ Folklorica fabric collection," but it doesn't come in cream and even though the black and brown backgrounds do make the other colors on the fabric pop, they are just too dark for that kitchen.

 

On Saturday, Mum and I went couch shopping and didn't find a thing, but stumbled upon this fabric that isn't even remotely similar to what I had in mind, yet it matches the kitchen really well!  I love it!  I bought the rest of the bolt (7 3/8 yards) and got it for $23!  Had I bought fabric from either of the other lines, I would have spend triple that!

I'm very happy with my purchase!  Now if I could only find a couch...

Crafting Studio

My painting is finished!  It took 2 weeks, but every wall and every ceiling has been painted.  I haven’t touched up any spots, but you know what?  I am so sick of painting that I don’t care if they never get touched up!

Now that the painting is done, my brain has shifted gears.  But it’s not thinking about packing, moving and unpacking.  It’s not thinking about how I will decorate the kitchen, living or bedroom.  Nor is it thinking about the ton of shelves and cubes that need painting, the curtains that need sewing, or the headboard art installation that needs to be created.  No no…my brain is obsessing about the craft studio…aka the sewing room (can’t really call it a sewing room because it’s so much more or will be when I’m through with it).  I’m thinking about how I will set it up to maximize the space and minimize the clutter.  I’m thinking about what else I should buy or make to add to the organization of it.

I’m a big fan of the Cloth Paper Scissors Studios magazine.  While I should subscribe to it, I tend to pick it up at the local craft store with a 40 or 50% coupon (I’m cheap, so sue me).  It greatly inspired me when I revamped my mother’s craft room last summer for her birthday (as seen here).  So I picked up the summer issue today and have been flicking through it to come up with ideas.  I have also been scouring the internet for inspiration.  My craft studio is only a small space, and I have a LOT of stuff, meaning that I will need lots of storage!  I have 3 of those fabric cubbies like in Mum’s quilt room, 2 stackable Closetmaid shelves, 2 bookcases, a desk and a sewing table that used to be the kitchen table.  I’m going from a former dining room in the middle of the downstairs of my old house (where my stuff was hidden away in an armoire, spilling out of an old built-in china cabinet and mounding on the dining room table) to this tiny bedroom with a slanted wall, so I have to make use of wall space…which will be tricky, seeing as a I want the flat wall as my quilt wall. 

I did get smart today and solved my ironing board issue, though.  I was thinking that I just won’t have the space to set up and leave an ironing board in the room.  And I didn’t want to have to lug my ironing board up two flights of stairs from the basement (where the washer and drier are) every time I wanted to iron fabric…so I bought an over the door, folding ironing board for $20 at Target.  It’s wide and folds flat when the door is open!

Lighting will be another issue in this room – there is no ceiling light.  It’s the only room in the house without a ceiling light!  To whoever built it, what were you thinking? “Smallest room in the house, only one window…nah, we don’t need a light in here!”  I know that one could be installed by piggybacking off the hall or my bedroom light, but that would require crawling through the tiniest hole in the ceiling of my closet to get into the tiniest attic/crawlspace on earth where wasps have made their home…I don’t think so!

I need to organize my thoughts and get them down on paper before I forget my ideas and inspirations that I have pirated from others.  Good thing to do while I’m just sitting here!

A Place to Create

My painting is finished! It took 2 weeks, but every wall and every ceiling in the house has been painted. I haven’t touched up any spots, but you know what? I am so sick of painting that I don’t care if they never get touched up!

Now that the painting is done, my brain has shifted gears. But it’s not thinking about packing, moving and unpacking. It’s not thinking about how I will decorate the kitchen, living or bedroom. Nor is it thinking about the ton of shelves and cubes that need painting, the curtains that need sewing, or the headboard art installation that needs to be created. No no…my brain is obsessing about the craft studio…aka the sewing room (can’t really call it a sewing room because it’s so much more or will be when I’m through with it). I’m thinking about how I will set it up to maximize the space and minimize the clutter. I’m thinking about what else I should buy or make to add to the organization of it.

I’m a big fan of the Cloth Paper Scissors Studios magazine. While I should subscribe to it, I tend to pick it up at the local craft store with a 40 or 50% coupon (I’m cheap, so sue me). It greatly inspired me when I revamped my mother’s craft room last summer for her birthday (as seen here). So I picked up the summer issue today and have been flicking through it to come up with ideas. I have also been scouring the internet for inspiration. My craft studio is only a small space, and I have a LOT of stuff, meaning that I will need lots of storage! I have 3 of those fabric cubbies like in Mum’s quilt room, 2 stackable Closetmaid shelves, 2 bookcases, a desk and a sewing table that used to be the kitchen table. I’m going from a former dining room in the middle of the downstairs of my old house (where my stuff was hidden away in an armoire, spilling out of an old built-in china cabinet and mounding on the dining room table) to this tiny bedroom with a slanted wall, so I have to make use of wall space…which will be tricky, seeing as I want the flat wall as my quilt wall.

This is the bedroom before, when the previous owners still lived there and it was their boys' room.

I did get smart today and solved my ironing board issue, though. I was thinking that I just won’t have the space to set up and leave an ironing board in the room. And I didn’t want to have to lug my ironing board up two flights of stairs from the basement (where the washer and drier are) every time I wanted to iron fabric…so I bought an over the door, folding ironing board for $20 at Target. It’s wide and folds flat when the door is open!

Lighting will be another issue in this room – there is no ceiling light. It’s the only room in the house without a ceiling light! To whoever built it, what were you thinking? “Smallest room in the house, only one window…nah, we don’t need a light in here!” I know that one could be installed by piggybacking off the hall or my bedroom light, but that would require crawling through the tiniest hole in the ceiling of my closet to get into the tiniest attic/crawlspace on earth where wasps have made their home…I don’t think so!

I need to organize my thoughts and get them down on paper before I forget my ideas and inspirations that I have pirated from others. Good thing to do while I’m just sitting here!

Tired...so very tired

So I had a plan today.  Last night was a very late night, what with Alex graduating and then dinner with the family.  When I woke up this morning, I figured that I would start my laundry, vacuum, run out to the new house and grab the lawn mower, get gas and mow the lawn at the old house.  Then I would go back out to the new house, spend 2 hours painting – 3 hours max – take a shower out there and come home to finish laundry.  I thought that maybe I could relax and enjoy a little bit of my Sunday, since I was sore and tired…only it didn’t go exactly like that.

I did everything that I planned – I finished painting the bedroom, the sewing room and the living room, save for peeling off the painters tape.  At about 2:30, I decided to call it quits and headed to the bathroom to shower when my parents showed up.  They wanted to mow the rest of the lawn (there is a LOT to mow), Dad needed my help building shelves in my shed, fixing the basement stairs and then he changed out my door handles (so I have new locks, which makes me feel better  – I didn’t like not knowing who might have had extra keys to my house!). 

By the time we finished and left my house, it was 6:30.  I ended up showering at the old house while Mum & Dad went to pick up dinner.  They left at 8:00 and only now have I gotten the chance to sit down, relax and enjoy my Sunday.  Too bad I’m exhausted and can only think about crawling into bed!

I’m thankful that I’m closer to being finished and that I only have to finish the stairs and upper hall.  There are a few touch ups, but I’m so tired of painting that I don’t care anymore!  I’ll hang pictures and put furniture in front of those spots!  I just want to move, but it’s looking more and more like July 3^rd. 20 more days…I just can’t wait!

Nice Try

So taking the night off didn't actually happen.  I got an email from Mel saying that she and the girls were going to come visit at the new house last night.  And when they left at 7:30, I figured, "Well, I'm already here.  I might as well finish the second coat of guacamole on the last bedroom wall and give the other a 3 coat...and fix the corners."


Tonight I'm definitely taking the night off!

View From My Deck

It was so nice when I left the house last night after continuing to paint. Sunset and the sky in general is just beautiful out there!  I took a wander around my yard and found pretty little spots here and there.

I'm growing more comfortable with every day that I go out to paint at the new house.  I'm getting used to the sounds, though whenever my tenants move, it sounds like they're in my part of the house and I think someone is there.  Thankfully Sadie is my personal alarm and if she doesn't bark like a maniac, I don't really have to worry.

I'm taking tonight off.  7 full days of painting and 3 days of painting after working 8 to 5 has caught up with me.  I shut my alarm off this morning while still asleep and woke up after 6:00, only because one of the cats knocked something over.

I'll be happy when the painting is done and I can move in.  No more of this back and forth stuff!

And the Painting Continues...

After 7 days of (almost) nonstop painting, I'm still not finished...but I am nearing the end.  The kitchen is done, as you can see below.  It went from cream to cinnamon stick and apricot. I know they don't sound like they go, but they do!

Kitchen

Hallway (cinnamon on one side and apricot on the other)

The bathroom is also complete, with the exception of a few touch ups on the ceiling and around the window. Those are minor and can be done at any time.  If you click on the picture, you can expand the view to really get a good look at it.

Bathroom - window and sink view

The rest of the house is in process.  The bedroom has one coat of each of the green (when this photo was taken), but last night I was able to add a second coat of the light green and then ran out midway through the second wall.  So it's back to Home Depot I go today.

Bedroom (before was taken when the previous owners still lived there and we were doing the home inspection - my mother is in the corner and the guy is our real estate agent)

The sewing room now has two coats of light and dark purple, but I haven't taken a picture of it yet and the living room just looks like crap right now, despite 3 coats of yellow paint. It's streaky and there are shadows.  It looks like I've only just base coated it; I should have used primer.  I'm going to tint the primer yellow for the hallway and see if that works (it's the same color as the living room was).  I'm thinking that I'll have to prime over the 3 coats in the living room (which makes those previous 3 coats a waste of time, energy and neck & shoulder pain) and then add another 2 of the yellow to get the living room to stop looking like crap.  I will be so sick of painting by the time this is done!  And I still have shelving units to paint, as well as a headboard, a corner hutch and bench seat.  Ugh, it seems never ending! And I'm back at work during the day, with only 2 hours to paint each night.  When you're doing it by yourself, two hours just doesn't end up being a lot of time. Oh well, it'll get done.

painting and running, running and painting

I’m exhausted!

I’m going to need a vacation from this vacation!  My feet hurt from standing all day, my back hurts from contorting into those hard to paint places and I’m fuzzy from not sleeping well.  I keep waking up in the middle of the night, thinking of everything that I need to get done before Sunday, not to mention cleaning my other house (where I’m currently living paint-free) and doing laundry before I go back to work on Monday.

I ran around so much yesterday that I’m surprised I’m not dizzy.  Mum & I set up the account at the bank for the tenants’ rent to go in and the mortgage to come out of, we returned my set of pans to Kohl’s, returned the eterge to Target (storage unit that goes above the toilet), bought new Calphalon at Bed, Bath & Beyond, went to another bank for Mum to fix a check that they issued her, then off to Family Dollar for curtain rods (as there are none in my house) and finally to the post office to officially change the address and the lock on the mail box at the end of the road. 

We didn’t start painting at the house yesterday until about 1:00, but the kitchen is nearly finished.  I just need to tape off the ceiling and do the upper part of the walls.  The bathroom has a first coat of both colors and Nicky stopped up to chat while I painted.  She’s coming up today to help.  I’m hoping to finish the kitchen, second coat the bathroom, and wash the walls and ceiling in the living room before she gets there so we can start on the

AND the well is fixed!  My brother had to replace all of the wire because there were breaks in the old one that had corroded.  So we have water once again!  Also, he got a job…actually, he got his old job back.  Just before the recession hit 2 years ago, he was laid off from his job as a commercial plumber and had been unemployed ever since.  As of yesterday, his old boss said he had his job back with the same pay and benefits!  Everything is coming up Millhouse for him!

And now I’m off to take a shower and bring Jess to school, as she missed the bus and my sister has already left for work.

"Water Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Spare" or "There's a Hole in the Bucket, Dear Liza Dear Liza"

Oh the joys of home ownership!  As I was painting the ceiling in the kitchen, my tenant came over to ask if I had water.  I checked the kitchen sink and sure enough, no water.  I tried calling my folks (cell phones not turned on); I tried my brother, the plumber (went to voicemail), so I run in town and thankfully, my parents are there, my brother calls to say that he’s on his way out and in the mean time, I am scrambling my butt down to the store for the biggest jugs of water I can buy while praying that it’s something simple that doesn’t require a ton of money to fix. 

 My brother announces, after he’s looked at the breaker box, the water filter and everything else inside the house, that it might be the pump IN the well.  So he, his friend Ricky, my dad and our tenant pull out the pump from the well (by the way, my well is about 200 feet deep and that pump sits down at the bottom…good to know).  Its pump – after 24 years, it just decided to die 4 days after we buy the place. Ugh!

Thankfully my brother can fix it for under $400 and by this afternoon, my tenants will have running water again!  And I am thankful that the pump decided to go now, in June, rather than in freezing cold February…in a snow storm…with 40 mph winds!  I’d rather it had not gone at all, but at least now I can rest assured that my well has a brand spanky new pump!

On the paint front, the basement is done and the kitchen is taped off.  I did do stain block paint on the ceiling, but I have a feeling that when I go out there this morning that it will be streaky and will need a real ceiling paint.

Sadie did get to go out for the first time.  She wandered all over, checked out upstairs and the basement, wandered around the yard and we went for a walk on the snowmobile trail (which is really nice!).  She was a little antsy, but I got her a marrow bone and she eventually settled down and gnawed on that for a while. 

Mum and I will be back at the painting today, hopefully getting some color on the walls!

Painting Painting Painting

I feel better.  I went to the house yesterday and the trash was gone, the keys were there and I met the tenants.  They are very nice people.  He’s in the Reserves and will be shipping out in a year for a year stint in Afghanistan; she’s a stay at home mom to 2 adorable little boys. I feel better about the neighbors now.

Mum & I wire brushed the basement walls and will start painting today.  Dad secured my water pipe (as it was loose and wobbling all over the place).  I washed down the walls in the kitchen and cleaned out the fridge.   I picked up all the little things that you need right away that you don’t realize you need until you’re out there, like the cordless drill, paper towels and toilet paper, hand soap, a radio, a trash can and trash bags, ceiling paint and KILZ, the paint stirrer that attaches to the drill.  I made about 3 trips back in town for forgotten items.

There are a million things I’d like to do right away, like wash the windows, but those can be done some weekend AFTER the place is painted; that needs to get done first!  I had to clean out the fridge because it disgusted me.  And knowing that my fridge is clean makes me feel better about putting my food in there.  I cleaned the bathroom first thing…before anything else, because that grossed me out too.

My deck gets the best direct sunlight from about 11:00 am till the sun sets – it’s wonderful!  It’ll be nice to have the patio table with the umbrella set up out there…granted it’s supposed to rain all day today, so it won’t be so nice today out on the deck.  Oh well, good day to paint the basement…and maybe the bathroom. 

Since I slept so terrible the night before last, I didn’t get half of what I had hoped to finished last night.  By 6:30, I was toast and stumbling tired.  I came home, walked the dog, ate dinner and crashed out at 8:00.  But I woke up at 5:45 this morning, feeling good!  Today, I will get a lot more done and stay later.  If I can get a good 12 hours out there, I’m sure I can put a good dent in my to-do list!