My dear friends Roger and Jes have been house hunting for quite some time now. Roger has looked at over 60 homes in person and over 300 online. Blech. I thought seeing 20 homes in person was a lot, especially since I narrowed down my search daily and constantly checked the updated listings.
There are so many things to consider when purchasing a new home, for me price and location were the two most important factors followed by big living room, nice kitchen and no demons or poltergeists. A haunted house just isn’t as much fun as it use to be when we were kids.
Last weekend I had a huge house-warming party. I had around 70 people show up and at one point the house was full with the couches, chairs and floors overflowing.
So many friends showed up and feasted on my Chipotle Peach Glazed Pork Loin, Spinach Chicken Alfredo Lasgna and my Traditional Fresh Basil Italian Sausage Lasagna. We had karaoke in the living room and Dance Dance Revolution setup with a projector in my bedroom so people could have a dance off. My sister who runs a karaoke business www.americanpridekaraoke.com setup her extensive DJ and Karaoke equipment and my best friend Joe brought down his PlayStation 2 and it really helped make the party a big success.
So now my entire house is painted expect for the bedrooms and bathrooms, my lawn is mowed and looking good. I put up new Faux Wood white 2 inch blinds in the living room and they look amazing and I got this new green rug that has a huge red rooster on it that really works with all my living room decor. I’ll try to shoot some pictures of it soon so I can show it to you.
My sister and her son are also living with me now and I am delighted to have them! It’s nice getting to see Aiden and having someone to eat dinner with and help with house-hold chores rocks too! So things are still very busy in my life right now.
I’ve got more to talk about, but that will come soon and needs to be separated into a different post.
Later taters!
On Saturday I had a house painting party. That is where you tell you friends to come over and help paint and add the word “Party” on it instead of “help” and it sounds more fun.
Joe, Cody, Amy, Dumas and Melinda came and assisted me and man they worked their butts off. We didn’t stop until around 9:30 and everyone was there before 10AM. I kept thinking, “Man, these guys are killing themselves.” Mostly because I was already dead myself.
The ceiling in the living room, kitchen, breakfast nook, formal dining and hallway have all been scraped. No more popcorn. However, what is left behind isn’t bad, it’s just not exactly pristine either and so I may end up spending one weekend retexturing the living room ceiling, but for now it looks much better than the popcorn.
So about the nightmare…
I picked out these bold colors for the living room, Honey Gold, Turqoise blue, Deep Red, Mountain Trail Green. The blue was going to be an accent wall. The formal dining room was and is still the green and then the living room was going to be mostly yellow. On the little cards it looked so fun and cool, on the walls it looked like Panchos had exploded on them. It was too much.
Dumas was at the house on Sunday too helping me paint, he left and I immediately raced to Home Depot and bought primer and paint to fix the walls. I took the green card because the dining room color was the only color I liked. Then I found this khaki colored with a hint of green that sort of went well with the other green and painted the entire living room that color. It too was darker than I expected it to be once it was on the walls, but when I got up this morning and looked at it, I loved it.
This mistake ended up costing me about 175.00 and a lot of time, however, it was a lesson learned and sometimes you just can’t put a price on valuable knowledge. If someone had told me not to do these colors, I would not have listened. I needed to do it and then find out for myself that I didn’t like it.
Mud Volleyball – It is something you must do at least once in your life. My cousin Chanc invited me to come up and play in Oklahoma last Saturday and we had a blast.
My cousin Chanc and I – that is my game face?
This is my new Pottery Barn sectional that I bought yesterday at the Pottery Barn Outlet in San Marcos. $3517 was the sticker price and then I saw a sign that said “All upholstered furniture 70% off”. What? I did the math on my phone and that made the price $1055. Could that be true? I did the math again because I thought maybe I didn’t know how to calculate fractions… again, the price was only $1055. Fortunately, I had gone to Schlitterbhan with the Miller’s and we came in two trucks and it took some work but we got it loaded in the trucks and made it all the way back, 200+ miles, to Plano. This is a dream couch, exactly what I wanted and I never thought I would get it at this price. It is in mint condition, it’s brand new and there isn’t a scratch on it. The only defect I could find is that one of the pillows is stuffed with something that looks a little bit wrinkled. I can easily fix that and that might just be from the fact that it was seriously squished while moving it home.
I had to move all my existing living room furniture into the formal dining room. It makes a really nice sitting area. I have to admit, I do love that painting over the couch like that.
And finally a wide angle shot of the living room and the sitting area. The Pottery Barn couch is huge. I can pull my legs up on that middle section on the couch where it bends and fit comfortably. And speaking of comfort, this couch is very comfortable without looking slouchy or having pillows like the other couch that constantly have to be re-arranged and fluffed up for comfort.
The new house is totally KICK A. I’ve never made a smarter purchase in my life and I can’t imagine having a house at this price, in this location, that I could have liked more. On Sunday I was finally settled in my house for the most part and I played Ultimate Frisbee on the Saturday and worked the rest of the day so there was no time to mow my way overgrown lawn. For those of you who don’t live in Texas you may not know that it has been raining – Noah’s Ark Type Rain – for the last month and so not only has the grass been growing, but the yards have hardly been dry enough to mow when the rain has briefly paused. I met my new neighbor, (The house on my right is for sale and vacant) and I told Jenni, “I promise I will get this yard mowed soon!” and she was so nice, she said, “Don’t worry about it, we’ve only been here 6 weeks and we just got ours done.” She was very sweet and I’ve never met a Jenni that I didn’t like and so I was delighted to meet her and that she and her husband Paul were my new neighbors.
So Sunday I went to Lowe’s and bought a new lawnmower and weadeater. I bought some lightbulbs and some oil too and dropped $510 dollars in one pop. It felt good because I had the money and because I was buying a mower for me, for my house, for the very first time. Then I went home, put the mower together and spent a delightful hour + mowing my lawn. I was so giddy I was practically skipping like a school girl on her way to the ice cream truck. Lollipop, Lollipop, oh, lolly, lolly pop.
Then I put my weedeater together, which was so much easier than I had anticipated, and finished up the yard. I looked at the yard all done with my two huge shade trees out front, my wonderful backyard with the 12 foot fence for privacy and my blooming Crepe Myrtle trees with their lavender colored blooms, and I was so filled with pride and joy that I almost twirled around like a princess in a new dress.
The only sour part about the entire move in was that the water in the master bathroom toilet just kept running and running. Not only was the noise annoying, but mentally I could hear money, quite literally, going down the drain. So I called my Home Insurance company, Old Republic, and they sent someone out the same day. Then the guy told me that they shouldn’t have covered the problems because they were pre-existing, but that I had one of the best insurance agencies and so they did cover the cost and BAM, problem solved. I now have no immediate problems with the house that have to be resolved. I have food in my refrigerator and cupboard. I’ve been eating breakfast and dinner at home the last few days – something I haven’t done in over a year – and I’m just freakin’ delighted that having the house has exceeded my expectations. FAR EXCEEDED my expectations.
Oh, and as a bonus – this is quite possibly the quietest place I have ever lived in my life! I never hear anything. No kids, no cars, nothing. On occasion I see people, but for the most part people seem to keep to themselves. It’s awesome. No people stomping over my head, no loud bass in the parking lot, it’s almost a ghost town it’s so quiet.
I’ve been really blessed throughout this whole process and God continues to bless me everyday. Thank You God – and thanks to all of you for your support.
Pictures coming soon!
Eddo