An Anniversary

A year ago this last Friday we closed on our house! Time flies...hard to believe it's been a year already. It's been a pretty good year overall--nothing major happening with the house. A few minor repairs (leaky toilet, backed-up sewer drain, brokedown dishwasher and furnace) and few renovations (paint, new carpet). My next project is the bathroom...stripping wallpaper and replacing it with paint. I've started and am about halfway done stripping. Just need to find the time to get back in there! This spring/summer I've also been testing out my green thumb. Our perennials from last year (hostas and lillies) came up beautifully even though they didn't get planted until late summer. I visited a flower farm and picked up a few more things to plant.

Some perennials that I hope will flower later this summer, and some annuals that I've planted and hope to keep alive through the summer. I'll experiment a little more each year, I'm sure. Anyways, we're happy with our little house and look forward a at least a couple more years here. :)

Curtains, finally!

Jason's mom, Jan, gave me an e-Bay gift certificate for Christmas. I thought I would use it for a new purse, or possibly another pair of shoes, but after thinking long and hard I began my search for curtains-something I've been wanting since we moved in. And it wasn't easy. You see, we have this lovely (or not) wallpaper that is fruity, and purpley. I like fruit, and I like purple, but not on my dining room walls, although the paid color we chose for part of the dining room is called "grapey". Oh well...the wallpaper isn't quite hideous, and it will be replaced eventually, but for the meantime we have to manage with what we have, right? After mulling through many, many, many listings, I happened upon these. They were the right size and they looked to be a little darker than the paint, which is good, right? (I watch a lot of HGTV, I know these things.) The only thing I wasn't sure of is the type of fabric...it's almost a satin type of fabric. I didn't read the label, so I'm not exactly sure, but it feels like satin PJs, which immediately made me think they should be bedroom curtains. Well anyways, as soon as I got home after work I threw the curtains up on the rod...and they're not too bad! I actually really like them! What do you think? Oh, and I paid a grand total of $14.74 for them, which included shipping. A pretty good deal for 4 curtain panels...yay for me!

Grrrrrr!

Or maybe I should say BRRRRR.....! When we bought our house in June we asked for the seller to pay for a 1-year home warranty. He wasn't happy about it (as with a lot of things), but he did. I think it cost him around $400.00. Luckily we took that step--we'll be using it twice, at least. The home warranty covers a lot: appliances, hot water heater, furnace, roof, major mechanical/electrical, etc. It's really a good safety net, I think, for first time homeowners who really don't know what they're getting into. :o) Anyways, shortly after we moved in we discovered the dishwasher that was "included" doesn't work. I've been washing the dishes by hand (I know, boo hoo). I really don't mind it. Sometimes I find it relaxing, actually. Seriously. So we've kind of put that off. The first night it got really cold (around 30 degrees) was a while back, and we turned on the furnace. Then we didn't need it for a while. When we did need it again it only worked sometimes. When we would turn the thermostat, we could hear it fire up, but nothing was moving. Well now it doesn't fire up. And it's cold. The service people come tomorrow morning. Only problem is that with this home warranty program we're only supposed to pay a $100 deductible per claim. Okay, that's not a problem. The problem comes in when the home warranty company doesn't have an "approved" service company in our area for furances. Are you kidding me? Northern Wisconsin and they don't have a service company for furnaces. Their alternative is for us to find a service company (we called the guys on the label on the furnace), pay them out of our pocket, and get reimbursed "within 4 weeks". Great. What are you to do then? We have to get the furnace fixed--we just pray that it's reasonable. Funds are quite tight right now with Jason having been off work for a little over two months. Good news is he has a fantastic job that he will be starting on the 29th. Unfortunately that doesn't help us tomorrow when the furnace repair person will want a check on the spot. We really hope it's not anything major and won't put us in a big ol' bind. :o)

New DOOR!!

I'm so excited!! Yesterday my brother and his family came down. Crit "helped" us put in a new door. Well, he put in a new door for us. We weren't much help! You know how the box that the door comes in has "easy installation instructions" on the side? Yeah, not so much. I really liked our old door; I believe it was the original door for this house. It was neat, even though it was old and beat up. We had two concerns with the old door: 1) efficiency for when we start up the furnace and 2) security. The deadbolt on the door did work, but really wasn't much use when the knob on the thing was pretty much pasted together. We're happy with the way the new door turned out--Crit did an excellent job!

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