HILLCREST MANOR - 3

Not much going on lately. 

Just waiting, waiting, waiting.....

I had the inspection on Monday afternoon. Tami (realtor) sent it on to the seller's agent requesting everything in the first two categories be fixed. Now, I'm just waiting to hear back and see what they will fix or won't fix. I hate waiting!

Here's a copy of the Summary page showing just section #1 of the inspection report:

HILLCREST MANOR - 2

Well, the inspection went pretty good. There are a few things that I would prefer be fixed before I move in, but not enough to cause me to withdraw my offer!

Okay, okay....on to the pictures!

KITCHEN

Loving all the upates here! I do have to get used to the bottom freezer. It seems much smaller than your normal freezer though. But, I guess that's what separate freezers are for!

Love how it looks into the dining area. I think they added on the living room and dining area. Looks great don't it?

This is the pantry!! Absolutely love it! It's cereal-box deep. Perfect!! I hate how pantries nowadays are arm-length deep. It makes no sense to me. This makes perfect sense!

That weird contact paper will be getting removed one way or another. I haven't yet decided if I want to sand and stain the wood in there, paint it, or apply a better looking contact paper.

It all depends on what I see under that contact paper and that's always a scary thought! You have to wonder, "What were they trying to hide?"

LIVING ROOM

 Loving the built-ins here! The cabinets on the bottom have pull-outs! Top cabinets are perfect for my good china and the lower is great storage for movies and video game stuff!

 I love these original windows! The shades are too cool! They should stay....

 WOW! Not a lot of ceiling fans have such a cool light cover! This is cool!

I really like the transition from the kitchen to the dining area to the living room! Very good flow! Now, hoping my 6-seater table fits in there!

BATHROOM

The tub is awesome!!! It's short, well it's lower

than your normal bathtub. Also, it has a slanted back end. When I laid in it, I could stretch my legs straight out!!!

Have you ever seen a hexagon style sink??
Me either! I think it's so awesome!

What is this, you ask??  I'l tell you.... It's a LAUNDRY CHUTE!!!  How flipping awesome!!

 This is in the hallway before you reach the bathroom. It's built into the wall! It's the linen closet! Again, the contact paper has got to go! And again, I don't know if I will stain, paint, or recontact paper it. Can't wait to see what I find!

OUTSIDE

This is the outdoor patio above the garage enclosed with screens. It needs some work with the tile floor. Seems like they just slapped some glue on top of the drywall of the top of the garage and stuck the tile down. I also need to create some drainage finctions.

 This is what the patio looks over. It's the end of the driveway. The middle of those white thingies is a basketball hoop. So, the one I got Nathan for his birthday can be sold on Craig's List now for a little extra house fixing money.

 Fire pit!!!  It's nestled in a little patch of decorated land and a little bench to boot!

 At the bottom, you see the retaining wall for the fire pit. The rest is the rest of the back yard.

 Our nice new deck overlooking the backyard.

 Pretty? I like it.

 Looking down off the deck. To the right is the fire pit.

 How cute is this?? These are just simply some cut tree stumps. They can easily be moved to anywhere in the yard! Like the fire pit, maybe?

 They did some really nice landscaping all the way around! I like that it's practically effortless to keep up.

INDOORS

This, I think, was the original living room. Now, it's the formal living room (AKA a huge foyer). I want that wall decor!

 This will be Nathan's room. Look at those doors! Yes, that's a light blue. Yes, I'm painting. Two walls will be basketball orange and made to look kind of like a basketball. Navy blue curtains will be hung on these walls. The other two walls will be navy blue.

 This will be my room. I was going to paint, but I think I'm going to leave it as is for a while and see if it works for me.

BASEMENT

This is the entry to the basement. There's two huge shelves overhead. The door(s) open double!

 Basement "rec-room". Simple yet functional!

 This is what was the original garage. Now, it's a workshop or storage. I'm thinking this would be a perfect place to do home repairs!  And a wonderful SAFE ROOM! It still has the original garage door!

 The opening is the original garage door. The rest you see is the two-car garage. HUGE space and perfect for Nathan to ride his bike in in the winter.

 Basement showers look like this, right?? Well, I plan to build up a wall between the shower part and the toilet and then tile. I'd like to put up a wall of some kind for privacy when going potty. I will also need to move the vanity somewhere.

So, that's the quick version! I don't know how many more pix I will have until I sign the papers and the house is officially mine to make payments on.

Lots of plans for when that happens. Stay tuned to follow along!

Hillcrest Manor - part 1

Okay, so the other house fell through after the inspection took place. Way too much work!

Instead I found THIS one and I am NOT retracting my offer!!!

More pictures and more info to come later. I just ran out of time today.

I'm so excited!!!

4 - Green Acre (6-3-12)

Today? Hmmmm....  Well.... 

Not much went on in preparing for the "Big Move."  I was actually able to sleep until about 8:00 am.  That was really nice.  I got up, showered, had Nathan take a bath, worked on some transcription, then went to see if the curbside doors were still available (free through craig's list), on to Big Lots in Avon to cancel my price hold on a couch that will end up being way too small for the ginormous living room we're going to have, and finally home.

I tried typing my Spanish interview while Nathan played outside on the cheap-o Slip-n-Slide, but man oh man, this one's hard for so many reasons. I wanted to be outside with Nathan, but couldn't because I need to finish this thing. With 20 minutes left to type up....I stopped.

So a quick On-Demand movie, dinner, then bed!!

3 - Green Acre (6-2-12)

Today was fun. Actually, more like gross! After we got up, we went to "Little Work" (that's what Nathan calls it). The Surgery Center is where I used to work FT. Anyway, we were there from about 8:15 am until around 2:30 pm. We stopped by McDonald's on the way home and then Dollar General. Nathan decided he wanted to buy a bow and arrow (the ones with the suction cups on the end) for $2.14 of his own money. It turned out to be a great buy!!

We get home and while he's playing with his new purchase outside, I'm inside vaccuuming his room and little hallway. While he's still outside with that thing, I move on to carpet. I plan to rent a GOOD carpet cleaner later, but I want to clean up as much as I can now so the carpet will be nice and clean when I leave. After all, I really want my deposit back! Once I'm done with his room, though, he decides he's done playing outside, strips down to his undies, and proceeds to "fall" on the wet carpet...a lot! What a goober!

Okay, so I'm about to share some pictures that I'm REALLY embarassed to show. A sampling of what NOT cleaning your carpets regularly can end up like. This is what can happen to your carpet when you have two dogs and a child. Of course, only spot cleaning them every 3 months or so doesn't help either.

These are in the little entry way.

This one is right in front of the garage door, where we normally come in.

This one is by the front door, where aparently, the dogs like to pee!

And these still aren't clean clean, either. It's a good start though, I think.

Take a little advice....Invest in a GOOD carpet cleaner with scrubbing brushes. You will be glad you did and after the first use, you will want to clean them all the time!

This just made me gag!

BUY YOURSELF A REALLY GOOD CARPET CLEANER AND

USE IT!!!

We decided to take a break and watch a couple episodes of "The Universe" which was very interesting. After that, we went to see "Men In Black 3" at the movie theater which was a good movie. We both actually cried towards the end. Back home and he's in bed and I soon will be.

Tomorrow is another day!

2 - Green Acre (6-1-12)

I just thought of something really cool!  When I was single, no kids or anything, I would buy myself something for Christmas, Valentine's Day, and my Birthday! Usually something like a computer, emerald ring, etc.  I haven't done that in a long while.  I guess this time around I'm buying myself a house for my 37th Birthday!!  Woo-Hoo!!!

Okay, so what did I do today?  Since Nathan got pink eye in the other eye (insert eye roll), I was home again. I slept until around 9am.  Got up and started working on some transcription work.  I finished my 23 minute interview and then did a little exercising with Nathan. That was a lot of fun, but I realized just how out of shape I am! We left the house for a bit to pick up lunch at McDonald's. On the way, we passed a house with "trash" on the curb. I now have a nice micro-seude recliner/rocker!! YAY!! So after we picked up lunch we headed for some boxes. Just a little dumpster diving! I thought Kroger would have some great boxes again, but all they had was one measly little milk crate. I took it. There was a dumpster for cardboard recycling full of broken down boxes and another dumpster full of liquor boxes! Mother load baby!!!  This would make three full trunkfulls of broken down boxes!

I packed up the little bits left in Nathan's room and put them in the garage. Then on to the really fun stuff! I cleaned the walls of his closet and bedroom. I couldn't get behind his dresser just yet, but I did get the baseboard cleaned up as well as the window sill. Then I moved on to the entry way walls, trim, and baseboards.  What was even more fun? The garage door! NOT!

So, is it totally perfect? No, of course not. The only thing I want to do when I leave this place, is vaccuum and clean the carpet.  Maybe a little spot cleaning on the walls and stuff, but not much. If I do a little at a time (in the next 4 weeks), it should make it much easier later. I hope.

Anyway, taking a little ice cream break. I'm hot and sweaty - even though it's a bit chilly outside!

*******

After my awesome ice-cream break, I ended up taking a nap. Boy was I ever T-I-R-E-D!
I actually ended up doing a little touch up painting in Nathan and my bathrooms. Scraped off a little oopsie paint from before and wha-la! A perty nice bathroom! I still have to go back and clean the floors, but I'll do that later. There were a couple holes that need some fixing though. Paint can't even cover it up. Yeah, they're that big! So I gotta get me a little container of spackle so I can fix it. The paint for the bathrooms isn't a paint that my landlord has. It's mine. So, I need to fix it and spot paint. Shouldn't be too hard. I've done it before.

After that was all said and done.....DONE!!