Finally moved in

After three and a half months of silence, I'm finally back. The last few months have been crazy. We had a lot of complications with buying the house and were pretty sure at a few points that we weren't going to get it. We even ended up staying at a friend's place out in the country for a month, where we had a whole different set of adventures (and no internet access--part of the reason for no blogging). But as of two and a half weeks ago, we are finally moved in. We are very happy to finally be in and are enjoying being able to make decisions about what is done to the house. But we also feel overwhelmed. There is just so much that we would like to do to this place and we don't know how to do most of it! And of course time and money are limited as well.

Here are some of the exciting things we've done so far:
*changed the locks and the knobs/deadbolts
*installed a digital thermostat
*put up hooks in the bathroom for towels and in the living room for coats
*peeled some wallpaper of the walls
*cleaned a whole lot, inside and out
It's not really much so far, but we're taking it in little steps.



And here are some of the things we'd like to do in the near future:
*change the shower head to a nice one we already own
*install 2 windows on the eastern wall of the living room (right now the only light in there is from the north)
*paint kitchen cupboards, install new countertops and a new stove
*paint most rooms
*install new light fixtures in a variety of rooms
*do some electrical work
*transplant some rhodies and take down a holly tree (so Koda doesn't eat them and get sick--he's not at all smart about this)
*take down the unusual stump in the front yard (any takers?)

We need Mike's dad's help for a lot of these--the majority, probably--so a lot of these things will need to wait until he comes to visit. As you can see, we have a long road ahead of us . . . especially at the rate we're currently going.

The weather has been gorgeous and tonight we ate dinner outside on our patio. While there's lots we'd like to do to the patio as well, it was lovely just to eat outside. We are looking forward to many more dinners out on the patio.