Baby bird behind the YS office:
6 years ago
Friday, June 26, 2009
Thursday, June 25, 2009
I *heart* my family
DSC00906.JPG
Originally uploaded by LacyLu42.
This is my daddy, diligently fixing a big old chunk that was missing from the bottom of our French doors. I'm not sure he, or my mom, or my sister know how much of a gift they gave us coming to help us out at the house last weekend.
More to come! There were moose involved!
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
This Our House: Episode Four "Taming the Jungle"
Oh, so much yard work.
So. Much. Yard.
Work.
We managed to mow all six feet (six inches) of grass on the forty acres (one-third of an acre) of yard we have. Then we used our machete (clippers) to remove ten cords (a big pile) of dead wood from the trees and bushes.
Then we found a snake. No parentheses on that one. I was opening the composter that the previous owners left, trying to see if I could move it, and there's a sliding panel on the side, presumably so you can get to the good compost at the bottom.
Only when I slid it open, there was a snake.
I swore loudly and ran over to Brandon.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"You don't want to know," I said.
"Oh god. How big?"
Not that big really. Probably. I didn't see very much of it or very well. Brandon wouldn't go within ten feet of the composter without his weed whacker for defense. We didn't see it again.
But it could still be out there. Lurking.
Have some photos to distract you from that thought:
Pretty poppies in the flagstones.
Lavender in the herb garden.
Herb garden, all trimmed up, with the sage that plans to take over the world.
Our first roses.
Pretty Clematis, I think.
So, after mowing and clipping and pruning and yanking about a thousand thistles and other weeds (with about three thousand more to go), we called it a day in the yard when it started to get hot on Saturday and when it started to rain on Sunday. We moved into the house and we managed to FINISH the master bedroom. Thank goodness.
Look how happy he is to be done.
And, remember the weird closet of doom?
This is what it looks like now:
SOOOOOOOO much cleaner and better looking. WOO HOO!
So now, we're going to finish up the walk in closet (just needs a fresh coat of white) and move on to the small bedroom, which will be our office. And the first thing we need to tackle is...
...the dino wallpaper.
Stay tuned for the next episode, "Death of the Dinosaurs."
So. Much. Yard.
Work.
We managed to mow all six feet (six inches) of grass on the forty acres (one-third of an acre) of yard we have. Then we used our machete (clippers) to remove ten cords (a big pile) of dead wood from the trees and bushes.
Then we found a snake. No parentheses on that one. I was opening the composter that the previous owners left, trying to see if I could move it, and there's a sliding panel on the side, presumably so you can get to the good compost at the bottom.
Only when I slid it open, there was a snake.
I swore loudly and ran over to Brandon.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"You don't want to know," I said.
"Oh god. How big?"
Not that big really. Probably. I didn't see very much of it or very well. Brandon wouldn't go within ten feet of the composter without his weed whacker for defense. We didn't see it again.
But it could still be out there. Lurking.
Have some photos to distract you from that thought:
So, after mowing and clipping and pruning and yanking about a thousand thistles and other weeds (with about three thousand more to go), we called it a day in the yard when it started to get hot on Saturday and when it started to rain on Sunday. We moved into the house and we managed to FINISH the master bedroom. Thank goodness.
And, remember the weird closet of doom?
This is what it looks like now:
SOOOOOOOO much cleaner and better looking. WOO HOO!
So now, we're going to finish up the walk in closet (just needs a fresh coat of white) and move on to the small bedroom, which will be our office. And the first thing we need to tackle is...
...the dino wallpaper.
Stay tuned for the next episode, "Death of the Dinosaurs."
Saturday, June 06, 2009
This Our House, episode 3: Name That Plant!
Today is our first day of serious yard work. Brandon bought weed whacker and a reel lawn mower this week:
He mowed our postage-stamp-sized front lawn on Wednesday when he bought it. Today? We tackle the back 40.
Here are some plants I know we have:
This tree/very large bush:
According to the other photos we have, its leaves keep getting darker purple as the summer goes on. No idea what the berries do.
And we have an awful lot of this:
There are more, but I just realized they're on the computer at work. I'm sure I'll also find MORE things I can't identify today when we start working, but that's enough for now. Anyone know what these are? Anyone? Poppy? Mickey? I'm especially interested in the little pom-pom flowers because there are a TON of them planted (I assume) around the house.
Stay tuned for next time when I talk about (presumably) how hard yard work is and how foolish we were to want a big yard!
He mowed our postage-stamp-sized front lawn on Wednesday when he bought it. Today? We tackle the back 40.
Here are some plants I know we have:
- grass
- ginormous lilac bushes
- a Russian olive tree
- a Fuji apple tree
- two little aspen trees
- two big cottonwood trees
- many various irises
- tulips (no longer blooming)
- grape hyacinths (no longer blooming)
- many various rose bushes
- phlox
- mint
- sage
- rosemary
- lavender
- chives
- TONS of cat mint
- two columbines
- a clematis (I think)
- a couple of poppies
- a gooseberry bush
This tree/very large bush:
And we have an awful lot of this:
There are more, but I just realized they're on the computer at work. I'm sure I'll also find MORE things I can't identify today when we start working, but that's enough for now. Anyone know what these are? Anyone? Poppy? Mickey? I'm especially interested in the little pom-pom flowers because there are a TON of them planted (I assume) around the house.
Stay tuned for next time when I talk about (presumably) how hard yard work is and how foolish we were to want a big yard!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
This Our House, episode 2: Meet Stella
It's been a week today since we took posession of the house, and a lot has happened! We have (in no particular order):
We've been over there every single day doing something. Today, we're taking the night off. I'm getting my hair cut, and Brandon is going up to McGuckins to buy a lawn mower and a weed whacker before we get overrun by tall grass. Then we're going to take ourselves out to eat.
The master bedroom is coming along swimmingly. It's kind of an odd shape, so picture this: there is one long wall that runs the entire width of the front of the house and has four windows in it; that wall will be painted bright white. All the other walls will be "milk chocolate" brown with bright white trim and a white ceiling. (The carpet is a sort of blue grey, like the carpet at my parents' house.) We've got two of the brown walls done, and it looks really good!
Everyone told me to pick one room and make it perfect, so the master is that room. The downstairs doesn't need too much; we need to patch a hole or two and clean it really well, but that's doable. The other two bedrooms will be painted next, but I'm not sure if we'll get to them before we move in. The smaller of the two will be our office, and I want to paint it bright green, possibly with black and white pinstripes. We'll see how ambitious I am when we get there. Not sure on the color scheme for the guest room yet.
Last night we cleaned, and I don't know what it is, but something about the fact that it's other people's dirt and junk that we are cleaning really creeps me out. There are certain things I don't mind keeping — like a couple of shovels, a hose, some nice wood hangers that were left in the front closet — but other stuff just skeeves me out for no reason. The squeegee for the glass shower doors that they left is probably perfectly fine, but I think we're going to get a new one because it just gives me the heeby jeebies. Why? I have no idea.
I DO have plant photos from the back yard for playing "Name that plant!" but I can't upload them now. Next time!
On a final note, Brandon has decided that the house is like an abused puppy that we are rehabilitating. He has named her Stella.
- Changed the locks on the front, back, and garage doors
- Reprogrammed the garage door opener
- Went around and collected all the miscellaneous stuff that the people left that we didn't want (and threw it away!)
- Cleaned the two bathrooms to within an inch of their lives (my husband volunteered for this!)
- Vacuumed the rugs
- Swept the floors
- Swept out the garage
- Sorted through all the paint cans and other junk in the garage
- Took down all the ugly curtains we didn't like
- Washed the curtains we're going to keep
- Took all the nails out of the walls in the master bedroom (there were a LOT)
- Took down the ugly light fixture in the master bedroom
- Patched all the many holes in the walls in the master
- Re-caulked all four windows in the master
- Sanded all the trim and built-in shelves in the master
- Painted 3/4 of the trim and all the built in shelves
- Painted two big walls in the master
We've been over there every single day doing something. Today, we're taking the night off. I'm getting my hair cut, and Brandon is going up to McGuckins to buy a lawn mower and a weed whacker before we get overrun by tall grass. Then we're going to take ourselves out to eat.
The master bedroom is coming along swimmingly. It's kind of an odd shape, so picture this: there is one long wall that runs the entire width of the front of the house and has four windows in it; that wall will be painted bright white. All the other walls will be "milk chocolate" brown with bright white trim and a white ceiling. (The carpet is a sort of blue grey, like the carpet at my parents' house.) We've got two of the brown walls done, and it looks really good!
Everyone told me to pick one room and make it perfect, so the master is that room. The downstairs doesn't need too much; we need to patch a hole or two and clean it really well, but that's doable. The other two bedrooms will be painted next, but I'm not sure if we'll get to them before we move in. The smaller of the two will be our office, and I want to paint it bright green, possibly with black and white pinstripes. We'll see how ambitious I am when we get there. Not sure on the color scheme for the guest room yet.
Last night we cleaned, and I don't know what it is, but something about the fact that it's other people's dirt and junk that we are cleaning really creeps me out. There are certain things I don't mind keeping — like a couple of shovels, a hose, some nice wood hangers that were left in the front closet — but other stuff just skeeves me out for no reason. The squeegee for the glass shower doors that they left is probably perfectly fine, but I think we're going to get a new one because it just gives me the heeby jeebies. Why? I have no idea.
I DO have plant photos from the back yard for playing "Name that plant!" but I can't upload them now. Next time!
On a final note, Brandon has decided that the house is like an abused puppy that we are rehabilitating. He has named her Stella.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
This Our House, episode 1
More house stuff!
Our new sofa arrived! It is awesome. It is a grown up sofa. (The sofa we currently have feels more like a teenage IKEA sofa.) It looks pretty good in our red living room, don't you think?
Brandon moved all his plants over to the house. They seem to like the sunshine on the deck quite well.
This Columbine is a volunteer between the flagstones below the deck. Pretty!
This is the gargantuan lilac bush in the back yard. There's another that's just finishing flowering, but it is not nearly as gargantuan.
Some of the local fauna.
Yesterday Brandon changed the locks and reprogrammed the garage door opener. I think it gave him a feeling of power…
He also took down the pink crocheted curtains in the master bedroom. He didn't like them for some reason. Can't imagine why.
Here's where we enter... the closet zone.
That's the end of the master bedroom. You can see there's a closet down there, and what looks like space for another closet that was ripped out.
But if you turn left at that closet...
...you find this closet, which was actually once a pass-through to get to the bathroom (but the door has now been blocked off with a shelving unit in the bathroom).
Riddle me this, my friends: why did anyone think this room needed three distinct closet spaces? And does that look like a load-bearing shelf unit to you, or do you think we could rip the whole thing out?
I guess we should just be glad that those three (two? four?) closets don't look like THIS:
Yup. That's orange shag carpet. It's in the bottom of all the other closets. Which says to me that it was, at one point, in the entire rest of the upstairs of this house.
It was built in the '70s after all. That was probably the height of sophistication then.
By the way, that particular closet is in the fish room:
Brandon thinks that curtain has to go, too. He's so picky.
Stay tuned! Next time on this our house we play "Name that plant!"
Our new sofa arrived! It is awesome. It is a grown up sofa. (The sofa we currently have feels more like a teenage IKEA sofa.) It looks pretty good in our red living room, don't you think?Brandon moved all his plants over to the house. They seem to like the sunshine on the deck quite well.
This Columbine is a volunteer between the flagstones below the deck. Pretty!
This is the gargantuan lilac bush in the back yard. There's another that's just finishing flowering, but it is not nearly as gargantuan.
Some of the local fauna.
Yesterday Brandon changed the locks and reprogrammed the garage door opener. I think it gave him a feeling of power…
He also took down the pink crocheted curtains in the master bedroom. He didn't like them for some reason. Can't imagine why.
Here's where we enter... the closet zone.
That's the end of the master bedroom. You can see there's a closet down there, and what looks like space for another closet that was ripped out.
But if you turn left at that closet...
...you find this closet, which was actually once a pass-through to get to the bathroom (but the door has now been blocked off with a shelving unit in the bathroom).
Riddle me this, my friends: why did anyone think this room needed three distinct closet spaces? And does that look like a load-bearing shelf unit to you, or do you think we could rip the whole thing out?
I guess we should just be glad that those three (two? four?) closets don't look like THIS:
Yup. That's orange shag carpet. It's in the bottom of all the other closets. Which says to me that it was, at one point, in the entire rest of the upstairs of this house.
It was built in the '70s after all. That was probably the height of sophistication then.
By the way, that particular closet is in the fish room:
Brandon thinks that curtain has to go, too. He's so picky.
Stay tuned! Next time on this our house we play "Name that plant!"
Friday, May 29, 2009
Homeowners
Well, we are officially homeowners!
It happened Wednesday afternoon. The husband and I each took a half day off work and met at the house around 1:15. I was a little early and a little dismayed to find the previous owners still moving a ton of stuff out of our garage and into the neighbor's garage! We met our real estate agent and walked through the house, which wasn't clean, but wasn't in bad shape.
After we made sure they hadn't knocked down any walls or anything, we all drove downtown to the Land & Title company for the actual closing. The seller's agent? Was ridiculously smarmy. Poufy hair, beady eyes, a navy blazer with bright gold buttons everywhere and a hideously false smile. We were really glad this was the only time we had to deal with him! Brandon leaned over and whispered "Don't agree to buy a used car from him!"
We signed a huge stack of papers, and then the title guy had to go email some to our mortgage company. They had already wired the money, but they wouldn't release it until they saw all the paperwork was in order. So we sat there for 45 minutes, making awkward small talk with the previous owner until we got the all clear. The title man came in, shook our hands, and said "Congratulations! You're owners!"
The drive back took way too long, and we decided to stop and drop off our rent check on the way. We didn't realize until we slipped it into the slot that it was our last rent payment ever! It's all mortgage from here on out.
Then we went to the house. We parked in the driveway. The keys worked. We went inside. We hugged and I got a little teary. It was really real.
We have a house!
It happened Wednesday afternoon. The husband and I each took a half day off work and met at the house around 1:15. I was a little early and a little dismayed to find the previous owners still moving a ton of stuff out of our garage and into the neighbor's garage! We met our real estate agent and walked through the house, which wasn't clean, but wasn't in bad shape.
After we made sure they hadn't knocked down any walls or anything, we all drove downtown to the Land & Title company for the actual closing. The seller's agent? Was ridiculously smarmy. Poufy hair, beady eyes, a navy blazer with bright gold buttons everywhere and a hideously false smile. We were really glad this was the only time we had to deal with him! Brandon leaned over and whispered "Don't agree to buy a used car from him!"
We signed a huge stack of papers, and then the title guy had to go email some to our mortgage company. They had already wired the money, but they wouldn't release it until they saw all the paperwork was in order. So we sat there for 45 minutes, making awkward small talk with the previous owner until we got the all clear. The title man came in, shook our hands, and said "Congratulations! You're owners!"
The drive back took way too long, and we decided to stop and drop off our rent check on the way. We didn't realize until we slipped it into the slot that it was our last rent payment ever! It's all mortgage from here on out.
Then we went to the house. We parked in the driveway. The keys worked. We went inside. We hugged and I got a little teary. It was really real.
We have a house!
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Seth and the Dimple
Seth and the Red Balloon
Originally uploaded by LacyLu42.
This little boy right here? He's totally stolen my heart.
Sorry Brandon.
You could just get lost in that dimple, couldn't you?
Monday, April 27, 2009
TBR Tallboy
Woo hoo!
Bookshelves of Doom is accepting orders for the first issue of the TBR Tallboy!
And if you look closely, that is my name right there on the cover, it is.
I might be excited about this.
Go ye and buy one if you want to! They're only $5!
Bookshelves of Doom is accepting orders for the first issue of the TBR Tallboy!
And if you look closely, that is my name right there on the cover, it is.
I might be excited about this.
Go ye and buy one if you want to! They're only $5!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
House Update!
If you haven't heard, it's official: we got the house! We're extremely excited and shocked all of the sudden by the SOONness of everything. We close on May 27th, but we'll probably take our time moving in, as our lease is not up until the end of June. We're probably going to paint a few rooms and we're looking at maybe having new carpet put in upstairs before we move in as well.
The house is a cute three bedroom, one and a half bath two-story number with a giant back yard and a two-car garage. It is painted salmon pink on the outside (ha!) but we looked past that to the greatness within. Just about everything in the house has been redone, with newish hardwood floors downstairs, a brand new kitchen, new bathroom, etc. It's in Westminster, which is a little south and west of Broomfield (north and west of Denver. It will be a slightly longer commute for me, but a significantly shorter commute for Brandon, so that's a good compromise.
We are SO EXCITED! Yesterday we signed the loan application and hired an inspector, so the ball is really rolling now! We'll try to keep you updated as much as possible, and I think Brandon has some photos saved, so I'll try to post some of those soon, too.
HAPPY HOUSE!
The house is a cute three bedroom, one and a half bath two-story number with a giant back yard and a two-car garage. It is painted salmon pink on the outside (ha!) but we looked past that to the greatness within. Just about everything in the house has been redone, with newish hardwood floors downstairs, a brand new kitchen, new bathroom, etc. It's in Westminster, which is a little south and west of Broomfield (north and west of Denver. It will be a slightly longer commute for me, but a significantly shorter commute for Brandon, so that's a good compromise.
We are SO EXCITED! Yesterday we signed the loan application and hired an inspector, so the ball is really rolling now! We'll try to keep you updated as much as possible, and I think Brandon has some photos saved, so I'll try to post some of those soon, too.
HAPPY HOUSE!
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