9 days. We have been in our new home for 9 days and we haven't wasted anytime getting projects started. Its been quite a whirlwind. Exactly a month from our closing date was the first day we had even looked at any homes. I don't think that we planned to find one that day, but we did and our impulsive natures kicked in. 30 days later, we were closing on our very first home. The process went smoothly and I had great experience working with our lending agent and realtor.
We moved in Saturday, March 23rd with the help of Brian's family and we were basically unpacked by Sunday. The house is 3.4 miles from my work, so my commute is a breaze. For Brian, on the other hand, it added 25-30 minutes to his already long commute into Glendale. The area we live in is still a bit rural with a small attempt at being a town. The convenience we were so used to when living at our apartment having everything we ever needed within 2 miles, is gone gone gone. The closest Target/Walmart is a good 15 minutes away and the closest mall is closer to 25 minutes. Sacrifices. :) But we are beyond happy. I'm glad to be in a new area where we have an opportunity to plant our roots and really grow with the new community. Its close enough to family and familiarity that I'm not too panicked, but its been fun driving around to get the lay of the land.
As I mentioned before, we didn't waste anytime getting started on home projects. We have made numerous trips to Home Depot, which is also not conveniently located. But who new I could love HD so much?
So here is a list of all of the projects we have started, some of which are still pending completion.
-Ceiling fans. We have great looking ones in all of the rooms, however they are brown and that aint our style. So we purchased some Rustoleum spray paint in black and satin nickel to refinish them. Not a high priority project, so we haven't even taken the ceiling fans down yet.
-A/C check up. One bonus of being married to Brian is that we get free a/c inspections. He couldn't wait to get in the attic and inspect our unit and he took his time removing the blower motor and cleaning it until it was spotless. But he wasn't so enthusiastic after he tried to put it back in and couldn't. I came home to find my husband in the attic yelling and banging things out of frustration. Luckily we haven't needed to turn the a/c on yet, because it was unplugged for 4+ days.
-Dryer tube thingy. We bought brand new sheets for our brand new King bed and I wanted to wash them up for our first night in the house. We were lucky enough to have appliances that came with the home, although the washer and dryer are probably 10-15 years old. I put the sheets in the dryer, shut the laundry room door and went about my business. About ten minutes later, I walked back in to the laundry room, only to be hit with a wall of hot, moist air. Turns out the tube, exhaust thingy on the back of the dryer wasn't connected to the wall. That was another fun filled day of me holding a flash light, while listening to Brian yell and throw things because "This laundry room is such a poor design! Do they think midgets are the only people that plan to replace this tube?! I can't fit possibly fit behind the dryer and repair this without being a Cirq Du Solei acrobat! %#*@)%!" After making another trip to HD, the dryer tubey thingy was replaced.
-Paint walls. When we bought the house, one of the first things we talked about doing was repainting the walls. The walls are currently beige and some are brown, which again, aint our style. So this task went to the top of the to-do list. Mostly because its the least expensive home improvement project we have planned and because it will immediatly transform the look of our home. So this past Saturday, we headed over to HD, yet again to get the paint and supplies. We had already agreed on a light gray color from Behr called 'silver gray'. I decided to start in the kitchen. I figured it has less wall space than the living room, so it won't be as time consuming. Boy was I wrong. I took me 5 1/2 hours to paint the kitchen. I decided not to tape of the edges because 1. I couldn't get the stupid blue tape to stick to anything and 2. I'm the most impatient person known to man and I just wanted to get going. I quickly realized, although time consuming, painting the edges or 'cutting in' as the professionals call it, really wasn't too hard. Once I had finished the first coat and was covered in paint, Brian looks at the kitchen and brought to my attention the one thing I had been trying to ignore. The paint looked blue. BLUE! I wanted to cry. I don't know if ts because the warmer colors in the rest of the room were playing tricks on our eyes, but the gray looked light blue. Just to be sure, Brian convinced me to paint one of our living room walls. It still looks blue.
So yesterday, I headed back to HD to grab all the gray, beige and greige paint chips I could find so we could decide which color we were going to use that didn't look blue. I'm picking the paint up today. Wish me luck that the color turns out, otherwise I may just take a sledgehammer to the walls.
-Dog door. We are trying to train Griffyn to pee outside instead of on her puppy pads. So far its going pretty well, but we wanted to get a dog door installed asap, so she can go in and out whenever she wants. Lets just say that I'd rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick than relive that experience. More than once, Brian (bless is heart) cut the hole in the wrong spot. At first it was too low and the base board was in the way, so he adjusted it up a little bit, only to find out that there was an outlet receptical on the outside wall that was in the way. For 24 hours, we had this huge mess of a hole in our wall. The hole was too big for the dog door, so we had to patch it up a little bit with dry wall, which required another freaking trip to HD. We discovered that, surprisingly, we aren't dry wall repair experts. The amount of yelling and cursing the stupid dog door was beyond me. At least Griffyn knew what it was supposed to be. Before the door was installed, she would go in and out of the hole, getting pink insulation and dry wall dust all over her fur. Griffyn is skinny little 10 lber, so we got the smallest dog door. Well lets just say that we better keep her on a strick diet or she won't be able to fit through. Ugh.
After many stressful hours, I'm happy to report the dog door is installed. Griffyn loves going in and out every 5 seconds and I can't wait to patch up the stucco outside. Joy.
Its only been 9 days and even though I want to pull my hair out sometimes, I'm having the time of my life!
