Home Improvements

When we moved out to Nevada we knew that there were going to be some upgrades we were going to have to do pretty soon. Our couch was old and uncomfortable. Our kitchen table was small and only had 3 chairs. The fridge was not energy efficient at all. And our TV was small. But X was only at the house for a couple months before she left back for school, and I figured that everything still WORKED, so I could manage using it all still at least until she got back. Fast forward 9 months. X came back and was able to give her input on what kind of new furniture we could get, and now we’re ready to show it off!

This is our new dining room set. We specifically bought a counter-height table so we would be able to get extra chairs to put along the island bar. All eight chairs will fit around the table if we have enough company, and it makes for a perfect game-playing table for the game nights we've hosted at our house :)

This is our new living room furniture. We actually ended up (unknowingly) buying the same sofa & love seat that X's dad had in his old apartment. We were sure surprised when Carolyn walked in our house shortly after we had bought everything and said "These are our couches!". They are definitely MUCH more comfortable than the old blue couch. I would've love to say RIP blue couch and burned it out in the desert, but some guy offered to buy them for $80. Why not, right?

One of the benefits of being a GE employee is the ability to purchase GE appliances at the "employee" rate. The top is a french-door refrigerator, and the bottom is a pull-out freezer drawer. Its way more energy efficient than our old one (we were shocked at the savings on our new electric bill), and we also enjoy finally being able to use a water/ice dispenser.

We finally splurged and got a new TV! We held out for so long since we couldn't afford a new one as students, and we wanted to wait and see if the latest technology would come down in price. We decided to get a 3D TV, but we got one that uses the same kind of glasses as the theaters, instead of the $200/pair kind. Now we don't have to worry about having the neighbors and kids over to watch a movie! This also "forced" us to upgrade to a blu-ray player, and I decided that we would also get a 7.1 Surround Sound Home Theater system too while we were at it. I LOVE these new additions most of all :)

X has also done a lot of decorating in the house too. I'm grateful that she's able to do that, cause it isn't really my thing. She really seems to enjoy it though, so I'm glad she's found a new hobby to keep her happy. She has a real knack for buying cool creative things and pairing them together, and she has also made some neat things from ideas she found on Pinterest. Since it isn't really my thing, I'm not really up to posting about it. So I'm calling X out to post about all your new décor either here or on your own blog :)

Day by day our house feels cozier as we add new improvements!

Home Sweet Home

Wow. I really waited too long on this one! At first I thought if I delayed writing about our house, people would be incentivized to come out and visit us to see if for themselves! And then we wanted to make all sorts of improvements so we waited and waited, and then 2 years later I decided I just need to get this done so we have some kind of record that we do indeed have a house!

This is Carson Valley - Can you see Lake Tahoe in the background?

So that is the area we live. Some people have told us it is a little bit country. We think it is a lotta bit country! People are VERY laid back out here and I still don’t think we are used to that. We do enjoy all the open space and outdoor activities available out here though. We can’t remember what rush-hour traffic is, and the starry nights are AMAZING. And the best part is that it feels like home for us.

Moving Day!

Have to add felt pads to the bottom of EVERYTHING to keep the hardwood floor looking nice

All the packing paper from the movers – unfortunately there isn’t a recycling program out here, but I like to use this paper as tinder for the wood-burning stove

Here's that fireplace. It keeps us roasty-toasty in the winters, and also helps reduce our gas bill!

The kitchen was remodeled in 2008. We’ve had to re-organize the kitchen twice now to make all our stuff fit and easier to access, but we both love how it looks.

The “Green Room”, as we call it, has become our office/craft room. There is enough room on the floor for a queen-sized blow-up mattress, and we’ve hosted several friends and family here.

The “Blue Room” is our guest bedroom. It also features a Crayola-colored ceiling fan for our guests' enjoyment.

Guest bathroom

The master bedroom is where it is all at! So far we've actually kept it pretty plain. We don't even have a TV! But X is working on new decorating ideas every day.

The master bathroom has slate floors – pretty nice, but FREEZING on January mornings in bare feet! Walk-in closet is in here – a little different – but at least our clothes get steam-cleaned on a daily basis!

The Laundry/Mud room with utility sink. Also acting as extra emergency storage.

We don’t have any A/C, but the house came with a window-mounted swamp cooler. We were a little nervous about this fact when we moved in, but the summers are so mild here that we haven’t had any problems! In fact, most days we just keep the blinds closed and turn on the ceiling fans and that has kept us cool enough!

And that’s it! Sorry it took so long to get this out there! Check back soon for a post on some of the improvements we’ve made since X returned.

Our New House

BIRD-House that is! We've had this plain, old, log/post sitting out in our front yard ever since we moved in and we've been looking for something to put on it. We were pretty sure we wanted to do a birdhouse of some kind, but none of the ones we found had the right "look" that we were after. But on our bike ride yesterday after a work picnic/carnival, we spotted a bunch of birdhouses for sale and found the perfect one. Here's the final installed product!

There's a tiny little broom leaned up against the door

Sitting atop the log/post

Preparing for X's Return

I had a lot of work to do before X got home last week. I had secretly turned the house into my own personal bachelor pad (I had lots to hide up in the attic and down in the crawlspace), and there was lots of yard- and house-work I wanted to take care of prior to her return so she wouldn't have much to worry about. Here's what I've been working on the last few months to spruce the place up a bit:

Weeding

Oh the joys of owning your own home! Part of our yard is just rocks, so I was sure that was going to be weed-free; oh how wrong I was!

Our weedy side-driveway

We had LOTS of these in the grass

Even since X has been home there has still been a lot to do for the both of us! Maybe we need to get busy on that having kids thing... Luckily I heard about this stuff called Casoron, which is an herbicide that prevents seeds from germinating. So I've applied a bunch of that this year and will do more next year before anything starts to grow and hopefully we'll see a dramatic reduction in weeds.

Sandbox and Grass Seed

The previous owners had a large sandbox with a huge playhouse build into it, but they dug it out and took it with them when they left! But they didn't dig out all the toys, garbage, and other crap that was left behind in the sand. So I had to dig out all the junk left behind and make it look nice again. I also tried my best to grade the sand also since it was really shallow in some places, but really deep back by the fence. The playhouse also had a slide that went right into the grass so there was a big dirt spot where the kids would slide into the grass, so I seeded in that spot and a few others. The grass is already filling in nicely!

You can see the missing grass in this picture, and also the dark line on the fence where the sand used to be

Sprinklers & Broken Pipes

This year when I turned on the water in the backyard, I was confused when suddenly ALL of the sprinklers turned on simultaneously. Turns out all of the sprinkler valves in the backyard were bad and I had to replace them all! We also have a pair of those old-timey water pumps in our backyard, and one of those had burst during the winter so I had to dig that out and cap off the pipe. Unfortunately for me that one was tied directly to the water main (so who knows how long that was leaking?) and there was no way to turn off the water completely unless I shut off the water to the house. No fun.

After digging the hole

Looking down into the abyss

Finished result

X is back home now and I am glad I have a lot of these big projects out of the way so I can enjoy the free time with her! :)

Floor Repair

Our house has nice hardwood floors in all the rooms except the bedrooms and bathrooms, but unfortunately the movers didn't understand the concept of moving pads and left some nice scratches in the floor when they moved us in last year.

Imagine this, but ALL OVER

Luckily we were able to get the moving company to fully cover the cost of repairs (after 10 months of hard work and many, MANY follow-up calls). Apparently the guys who put the floor in originally didn't really know what they were doing and neglected to let the wood acclimate to the dryness here, and so there were gaps EVERYWHERE where the boards had shrunk (see below for examples). We've been really worried about spilling any kind of liquid down there and ruining the boards from underneath, but luckily for us the floor repair guy said those gaps would have to be filled in order to do the repair, so we were able to kill two birds with one stone! I knew there was going to be a period of time when we couldn't walk on the floors while it was drying, so I made sure to get it all done before X came home. Here's a picture journal of the entire process:

DAY 0 - "Before" Pictures

Here's what the floors looked like before - we also decided to do it right and take off the baseboards so that we could get right up against the wall

Here's a good example of a gap in the boards

Some of the gaps were almost 1/4" big!

We kept the fridge plugged in and kept it in the front entryway so I could get food without walking on the floors

All of our stuff got crammed into the bedrooms

I didn't really get to cook at all during this process - good thing I like cereal!

DAY 1 - Initial Sanding

The first pass from the sander - the natural floor color was lighter than I expected!

Finished sanding

DAY 2 - Hand-Troweling the Filler

After the first round of filler - when I showed X this picture she freaked out cause she thought our floors were ruined :)

The sander - it was so heavy he had to wear a weight lifting belt to make sure he didn't hurt his back!

DAY 3 - Sealer

After sanding the filler away - the wood has so much character - the floor guy didn't know what it was for sure, but guessed it is a mix of light and dark Brazilian Teak

The sealer brought a lot of color back to the wood - luckily it dried in a few hours so I could walk on it right after work

DAY 4 - First Coat of "Glossy" Finish

The finish needs a slightly rough surface to adhere to, so they had to "scratch" the surface before applying the first coat of finish

The applicator - aptly described as looking like a "sheep's bottom"

Applying the first coat

VERY glossy! Fortunately only the last coat influences how the floor ends up looking so he used the glossy (stronger) finishes for the other coats

Look at the difference between the glossy finish and the satin sealer!

DAY 5 - Second Coat

After the second coat had dried - each coat took 24 hours to dry so I had to go out the back bedroom door and around the house to go anywhere!

DAY 6 - Final Coat

We had them do a satin finish for the final coat since the floor was so dark - that will help keep it from showing dirt as much, and overall it looks much nicer!

The finished floor - It looks so great we couldn't have hoped for better!

It took a couple days for the final coat to completely cure before we could move any of the furniture back out, but we got everything put back before X came home, so all in all it was a huge success! The floors look GREAT! And it is so nice to have a completely smooth, flat floor now and no concerns about spilling foods and liquids into any cracks. Now all we have to do is put up some new baseboards (X insisted I wait so she could help with that part), and it'll feel like a brand new house!

Our Inviting House

This is the view our friends and neighbors got as they approached our door this winter:

Watch your head!

Not very inviting, is it? At least we had our little "Welcome" sign to make people feel more comfortable as they reached our ice cave. Luckily we didn't have anyone slip on the ice that formed from all the dripping. We're definitely going to have to put some gutters up this year!

Unpleasant Neighbors

Throughout the summer we worked pretty hard on our yard to try to keep it looking nice. We even cleared away the spider webs that we found, but we noticed that some of them kept showing up again a few days after we cleared them. We never saw any spiders out during the day, so one night we went out with the flashlight to see if we could spot any culprits. We found out that apparently the rocks used for our landscaping are a favorite vacation spot for black widows!

Think your spiders are bad?

After an extensive search of our front and back yard we found and killed 10 black widows. All of them were huge and terrible! We are hoping to find some way to keep them from showing up again next year. Let us know if you have any suggestions.

Closing Time

We have finished signing all of the documents to close on our house! Our loan will be funded on Tuesday or Wednesday this week, and we'll be able to move in by Friday at the latest! We ended up getting a really good rate on our loan (better than the one our lender tried to get us to pay to lock-in a few months ago), and we'll close in time for the $8,000 tax credit. We have our fingers crossed that the sellers will be out of there by Wednesday, but either way we know that we'll be in our house by Friday. It will be such a relief to get out of our motel and suitcases and into our home! There are a few things we already know we want to fix-up in the house, but we just have to decide what we want to work on first! We'll be sure to post pictures and keep everyone updated on our home as we get all settled in.

We Have a House!

We got our offer accepted! We've already completed all the necessary inspections (house, roof, and pest), and now we're just working things out with the lender to have everything ready to close and move-in around the middle of June! There a couple small problems discovered in the inspections (some missing window screens, the ridge cap on the roof in need of repair, and some door problems), but the seller has agreed to take care of everything. Also, the appraisal report indicated that the house is worth more than what we offered, so we were happy to hear that we are getting a good deal and that we'll have some instant equity in the home. Everything else has been smooth sailing since the offer was accepted, and it has been very interesting to see how the whole home-buying process works. The only things left to do are to figure out our home insurance, and to hope that everything goes well with the underwriters.

Here are some pictures and info about the house (you can click on the images to make them larger):

This is our house. Unfortunately it faces north (something I PROMISED myself I would never buy), so we won't get any sun benefit to melt the snow in the winter, but with an average annual snowfall of only 22" (the annual snowfall in Salt Lake City is around 60") and an average of 265 days of sunshine per year, I don't think we'll run into any problems. :)

Here are some pictures of the back yard. It looks like we have a play house (we aren't sure if it is staying or not), and we have a dog run also on the east side of the house. Getting a dog/puppy is one of the first things we are looking forward to doing in our new home!

Here is a basic overview of the living and dining room areas. It feels really open with the arched ceilings, and the entire house has hardwood floors except for the bedrooms (carpet) and bathrooms (slate/tile).

The kitchen is newly remodeled with granite countertops and solid wood cabinets. The stove and microwave are a little old, but GE gives their employees a great discount on all their appliances, so we definitely have some options once these one need to be replaced. The kitchen also has a custom-paneled, double-drawer dishwasher (seen in the last 2 pictures), which will make it nice to run small or separate loads!

The living room has a wood-burning stove and corner stone hearth. That will keep us plenty warm in the winter!

The master bedroom's colors match our bedroom set perfectly (our accent color is the same shade of green). We also have a set of french doors leading out to the patio. The master bathroom has slate flooring and the master closet to the right. I think the faucet in the bathroom is kinda cool...

The other two bedrooms are a bit smaller, but we don't need something really big at this point.

The laundry room doubles as a mud room out to the garage. There is also a sink in the laundry room. The 2-car garage is fully finished and has plenty of storage space. Now all I need is a work bench!

This is a basic layout of the house. Overall 1,670 square feet on a 1/5th acre lot.

The house is about 15 minutes away from GE and about 40 minutes away from where X will be doing her internship over the summer. We are so excited to move in and make it our home.