We finally have internet!

We closed on the new house on the morning of the 23rd and immediately moved our trailer from Briar and Gus' driveway into our own driveway. Briar and the kids came out that afternoon and, while the kids went nuts exploring the house and property, Briar shot one of her videos tours.

We've been very busy ever since. The house doesn't have a lot of carpet (the master bedroom and a couple of closets upstairs) but one of the first things that we noticed was that the carpet wasn't quite as pristine as it appeared when the house was furnished. Our furniture hasn't arrived so what better time to replace carpet. New carpet will be installed tomorrow morning.

As long as we're replacing carpet, how about paint? The master bedroom paint looked to be about 9 years old so we decided to repaint before the carpet gets here, We're planning to continue the new color (kind of a coffee ice cream color) throughout the house. One wall, in the kitchen area, will have the grandfather clock and china cabinet so we're going to make sure that it gets painted before the furniture arrives.

Speaking of the furniture, it left Riverside, CA on 7/22. The driver called a couple of days ago and he expects to be here o 7/31 or 8/1.

My new lawn tractor arrived today. I'd include a picture but I kind of have it in pieces right now. I want to install a mulching kit so I've removed the blade housing. I haven't quite managed to remove the blades just yet. I'm expecting to encounter some difficulties. The holes on some of Sears blades have 5 points while others have 6 points. It wasn't clear which was right for this lawn tractor. Sears gave me the part number for a 5 point hole mulching kit (which I ordered). Looking at the parts list for the new tractor, it says that the blade has a 6 point hole. I guess that I'll see when I manage to get the blade off.

Sears is batting 1000. They sent me a note yesterday that the snow blower that I'd ordered was out of stock. They were encouraging me to call and cancel my order, I got a really good price on that snow blower and, since snow isn't eminent, I called and told them that I'd be happy to wait. I got an email today that thanked me for my patience and said that the snow blower would be ready for pickup on 8/5. That was the original date.

I was kind of busy today so I didn't get around to connecting our new laser printer / scanner / copier to the network. Once I do that, I'll be scanning some pictures that the prior owner provided of the renovation that took place back in 2005-2006. I'll be posting those pictures here.

Briar is trying to get the digital copies of those pictures. In the meantime, here's a few pictures that Briar scanned.

These stairs have been reinforced and refinished and are still a part of the house.

This room at the end of the attic is still there (the mess is gone).

This has to be the kitchen (this entire wing was demolished and rebuilt from the basement up).

Side view. Note that there are 3 chimneys (only 1 remains and the fireplace that supplies it was completely rebuilt). The wing at the right was demolished and now sports an unfinished second story (which we will be finishing shortly). The house now features a garage off the end of that wing.

-jc-