Sunday, April 7, 2013

Quirky


The strangest thing happened a week ago--we slept amidst a rain storm and the house did not shake and the roof did not sound as if it was being assailed by missiles. YUP, we are in our new to us forty year old brickalow! The RV has been relegated to storage at the KOA campground lot and they are consigning it for us as their location is much more central to metro Austin.




The first 7 days has pretty much been nothing but a paintathon. After paying (some things are worth having someone else do) a very fair rate to have half of our home's popcorn ceiling removed, we broke out 5 gallons of white paint to repaint the ceiling as well as cover up the dark wood of the 70s that adorned our base boards, shelves, door and window trim. Thirty hours later, our labor of love, Phase 1, is complete. Now time to splash on the COLOR!

While I have manned the paint brush, Teri spent the majority of the week being Mrs. Clean. Our previous owners were in their mid-80s and bless their hearts, but the only thing they may have kept clean were their Depends. The original kitchen hardware was still in place and Teri finally just gave up trying to de-gunk--off to Amazon's website and 2 days later courtesy of Prime and free shipping, all new knobs and pulls have been  installed. Yes, our first new friends have been the FedEx and UPS delivery drivers.

As we did with the RV, we will have a big reveal moment, or two. Not sure if we will wait til it's all complete or roll it out room by room. Stay tuned.

As to the home's character and quirkiness, I have had many "what were they thinking" moments as I explore our new address. Let's take a tour of  them.


Male visitors, please present your Urinal Marksmanship score card before entering our bathroom.



It's called being resourceful--watering your yard with your washing machine drain line. Honestly, the appliance dude who brought over our machine said "Best durn 'maters you will  ever have if you plant your garden right there". Gotta luv the small town folk. Yes, line burial is on the To Do list.


 Don't you love it when they remove 99% of the tree, but leave behind 1% that represents 99% of the weight. Somewhere on Pinterest I hope they have an idea of what to do with leftover tree trunks.

Spring is in the air bathroom. Hideous.


 and thus Building Codes were born...



Hey, when you get the discounted dishwasher, the whole thing tips forward when you pull it out. The owners put in new Corian style countertops, but did not resecure the 2 brackets that hold it in place. While I will show some rarely seen grace as you don't simply insert screws into solid surface counters, I don't know how they tolerated this huge inconvenience for as long as they did.



If someone has seen the PVC Jolly Green Giant, I do believe we have found his walker.

There you have it, our week in review--sleep, eat, paint. Time to get back to the brush.



10 comments:

  1. Oh the joys of popcorn ceilings...don't try to dust them or plan to keep the vaccum handy :O) Might hang on to the logs...a porch jackup?!!:) I nice tour...I miss those days!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Married to the queen of clean, there is always a vacc close..

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. The fun begins when you make it yours and enjoying the fruits of your sweat equity and a bank account not in free fall!

      Delete
  3. And to think this will be our life in three short weeks. Rob and I loved reading this. Happy trails!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And you have the added benefit of being married to a home inspector thus preventing perhaps discovering some of our surprises..

      Delete
  4. Hey, water is precious, just don't overdo the laundry soap. I'm still not ready for the challenges of a house, I like listening to the rain and being rocked to sleep. Waiting to see what else you do with the house.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amen on water. We have 27 ft section of gutter I will be readying today to go up to divert roof rain into 2 55 gal drums for rain collection/watering purposes.

      Delete
  5. I'm thinking porch seats for the logs :)!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am so envious. You have a REAL toilet. You had to show it, just to brag. LOL Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete