davejenbarnes

David has been quite the handyman these days.  This house was a foreclosure and part of that meant that it came “as is” which meant we had a kitchen missing a drawer, a section of the fence outside down, a broken trash can (one of those big special ones from the city), no garage door opener, dirty walls.  In other words, we couldn’t ask for anything to be done before we agreed to buy it or to use as bargaining in getting a good price.  But we got a good price.  Really, I think this house is worth more than even the appraisal, but I’m not going to argue with them.

I was thinking this morning that it seemed like horrible timing — finding out we’re pregnant again on April 7, closing on April 9 (and paying waaaaay too much in closing costs, don’t even ask how much it was), moving in on May 10 and all the while David having band contests and 5th grade recruiting and festivals and high school duties and an extra-long-seeming school year because of the late start last year… but now, I think it was great timing.  I get to be tired and pregnant with the move already over.  The boys get to adjust to their new surroundings with Daddy home for the summer.  We get time to put little projects up around the house.  It’s been great.

The house came with all brass light fixtures (probably the cheapest ones the builder could get) inside and out and one by one they are all going away.  I have nothing against bright yellow shining brass — in Burger King — I just don’t like it inside my house.  It doesn’t fit my style, so out it goes.  We’ll probably save up all the fixtures and freecycle them as a set for someone who, say, might be redoing a rental house or something.

That beauty is a 60″er from Lowe’s and is now cooling us off in the livingroom.   We, of course, opted for the darker side of the blades.  I love that it came with a remote control which we have mounted to the wall by our bedroom where I always thought a light switch should go.  For the ceiling fan in the boys’ room, we got the $18 special at the grocery store.  Hey!  It works, though!

In our kitchen, to use some wasted space (why there isn’t a cabinet above the fridge space beats me — the fridges that would be taller are also too wide for the alloted space… ) we went to IKEA and picked up a very basic pot rack.  David loves it.  I love it but I think he loves it more.

We’ve also added some 2″ faux wood blinds to the front room and replaced a sconce in the hallway.  These are all little things but they sure help to make this place feel more like “ours.”

James uses the phrase, “this day” instead of “today.”  He also knows what Lowe’s is and always asks us when he sees either a Lowe’s store or a Lowe’s rental truck, “Are we going to Lowe’s this day?”

Today, we went.  He was happy to ride in their blue race car carts and help us pick out a ceiling fan and hooks and lightbulbs and various other things you can get at Lowe’s.  But he’s taking a nap now, so we’re busy putting up new blinds in the front room, building that [beautiful] 60″ ceiling fan and all the other various little projects we now have the supplies to complete.  David is loving getting use out of his new drill and I’m loving making this place really ours.  Part of me is contemplating taking all of the fans and lights with us when we sell it but I know most of those are supposed to convey with the house…

I know, I know, we just bought the place.  I’m not supposed to already be thinking of when we move out.  I just can’t help but think eventually we will relocate, maybe someplace bigger, maybe to a new city, maybe not for 20 years, but someday we might and we’ve spent so much time and so much energy into replacing all the stuff.  We could very easily keep the little brass light fixtures and put them up again when we move out.  Really.  We could.  They work perfectly well.

Wundermap is simply awesome. It’s my new favorite way to check the weather.

As you can see, we just had some rain pass over us. We’re in the vicinity of the word “Leander” and I’m amazed that it’s in the mid-70’s outside where it’s still the mid 90’s just down the road a bit in Cedar Park.

This looks like a pretty heavy storm but it wasn’t much and didn’t last long. The thing about rain here is that it usually — not always but usually — lasts only about 5 minutes then it’s sunny again. It seems that is the case again today, though it is taking a bit longer than normal for the sun to poke through.

I never paid much attention to how often or how heavily it rained before we bought a house. Now David and I jump for joy at the free water God lets fall from the sky which lands in our yard. Hearing James talk about the “happy grass” and “happy trees” makes a passing shower even more enjoyable. We’re thankful for the rain, especially since it’s so rare here.

We have started emptying the boys’ bath water into buckets at night and then pouring the “greywater” on the mulch around the base of the trees and we are amazed at how about 5 gallons per night per tree is resulting in new growth all over both trees. I say trees, but they’re really scrawny little sticks in the ground compared to other places. I don’t feel bad at all about any environmental ramifications of doing this because we have stopped using bubble bath and bar soap on the boys in their baths and the liquid baby soap is so scant that it doesn’t even cause bubbles in the water. The trees also get sprinkler water and the occasional sprayer washdown (James got that from his Thomas videos, trains get washdowns) so we’re not concerned about killing them. I don’t know that it is saving much on our water bill at this point, but that’s not our goal. We just don’t want the trees to die and they looked very close to death when we moved in a month ago.

The lawn is not a lawn… it’s a dry patch of dirt with about 15 blades of grass. Not really 15. Actually we have about 3 patches of St. Augustine that are hanging on despite the state of the rest of the yard. It’s kind of embarrassing to post a picture of our sad little yard. Hopefully this will serve as a “before” picture and the yard will look great the next time I decide to post a picture on the blog. These aren’t getting any bath water. We do put the sprinkler on and that’s the water the lawn gets.

My mom and dad came down yesterday afternoon and surprised us with a new garage door opener (and a drill for David) for Father’s Day. David and my dad got to spend the rest of the day installing it in the garage (which was a virgin garage, never having had a garage door opener installed in it before). It now opens at the push of a button. It has already been SO NICE going out to the cars via the garage.

Here are some pictures of our Master bedroom. I don’t think I want my bedroom displayed for all to see right now (the bed is unmade, there are no curtains up) so I am taking detail pics of things in the bedroom.

This is a lovely mirror that I scored at Pier 1 Imports for $20 (originally $60) which is hanging between the two windows. It was the perfect complement to the IKEA bed we bought last year.

This is detail of my first oil painting from 2003 which is the inspiration for a new color palate for the bedroom. I intended the green on the walls to go with the red/gold/tan/creme/green fabric I had used for the pillow shams, but the painting goes so dramatically with the wall color that it is powerful enough to completely overhaul my color scheme.

Plus, the new color scheme allows me to tuck away my cobalt glass in the bedroom without being completely tacky.