Choco coffee carpet tiles
Since moving into our house permanently about two weeks ago we have spent a considerable amount of time cleaning it up and organizing as much as we could and it’s starting to take shape. There are still tons of things to do and fix and move and clean, but that will be an ongoing project for awhile, and that’s okay. I really enjoy making things nice and that will keep me quite busy. I think I’ve overworked poor Jules asking him to do things I can’t (reach high places, lift heavy things, etc) but I’ve been really excited. He’s convinced me to take it easy for awhile and try to enjoy the place even if it’s not “finished.” To get an idea of the sort of state the house is currently in (from the inside) I have taken some in-progress photos. I feel a bit embarrassed by the mess but at least we have an excuse!
Last night we put in some modular carpet tiles (purchased online from Flor) in the basement around the TV area and the office. They look even nicer than expected and remind me a lot of coffee and chocolate, which is a delicious combination indeed. The entertainment area is easily the most “together” place in the house so far since it’s the place where we spend most of our time. Rock Band is awesome now that we finally have something to absorb the sound and can play it comfortably at a higher volume!
It gets quite warm down there with little help from the furnace (all those computers and machines!) so we are able to keep the thermostat at 60° F with no problem. We are in the process of putting together a home bar hacked from Ikea and Home Depot parts. We put together two black/brown Effektiv cabinets side by side and plan on adding a raised (stained & varnished) oak plank on some 6″ pedestals as the bar surface. This was easily the cheapest option (~$350) within reason for us. Our other choices would have been to make it from scratch (which would involve either buying or renting power tools and likely messing it up,) hiring a carpenter to make one for us (which would be expensive,) or buying a pre-made one from a showroom or furniture store (which would be even more expensive.) I’ll post more photos of the bar once it’s further along.
Our Twilight Zone pinball machine was delivered last Friday. I haven’t spent too much time playing it yet but Jules has had some fun adjusting bits here and there to make it function better. Parts came out of alignment during shipment so there are some things that don’t work properly. Hopefully the dealer will be out soon to fix some of these things up. It’s a pretty awesome machine but I’m not very good at it! Practice will help.
Things are falling into place now for the rest of the house. The chimney guy should begin his work today so within two weeks we should have a straight chimney! We have an electrician coming out tomorrow to look at the ol’ Bulldog Pushmatic circuit breaker panel (recalled ages ago…whoops) and service entrance. Additionally we’ll be getting a new roof at the beginning of December (Harvest Brown fiberglass laminate w/ algae resistant coating…wooo!) All that’s really left after that (aside from very little money) will be plumbing, of which there is a lot. It looks like all of this will be done before we leave for the UK for the holidays, which is great. I definitely want to paint the interior somewhat soon though considering the color of the sunroom, bathroom, and our bedroom makes me feel a little ill. Not sure what the people who painted it were thinking but they were definitely in an early 90′s mindset.
Eventually, too, I would like to redo the exterior of the house but that will be in a few years probably. Sometime next year I would like to do the tub surround in the main bathroom as well. We had an agent from Home Depot come out and give us an overview of their acrylic tub covers and wall panels which go over the top of the existing fixtures and it seems like a really decent option for us. Neither of us are all that keen on redoing all that stuff on our own and this would certainly be cheaper than a complete remodel.
We’ve set up as many accounts as we could for the house (water/sewer/garbage/recycling/yard waste, electricity, gas, internet) so everything is up and running. I got our mortgage payments on a two-week cycle (twooooooo weeeeeeeeks) so half the payment will be automatically withdrawn every other Friday (which coincides with payday) and in doing so this will cut some of the interest off the total payment because there will be less of a balance to draw interest from each month. This is definitely a good thing! Once we get all our first bills I’ll be able to switch most if not all of them to auto-withdrawal so we’ll be able to relax on that front. We’ve installed water-saving showerheads and plan on putting in CFL bulbs wherever we can once we’ve taken an inventory of the house. (We have one light that won’t turn off and we need to figure that out at some point!)
So far it has been really great living in the house. We are starting to settle in, although we have a lot of garbage and recycling littered throughout the house since we can’t fit it in the bins out back. (Ikea furniture is the main culprit.) I raked up the front and side yards and came up with 3 times more leaves than the 64gallon yard waste container can handle. With Nat moving in this weekend I am guessing it will take us a few weeks to get all the waste materials gone from the house. The kitties are still quite nervous about everything and tend to hide a lot. I’m sure they will be fine soon. Jules and I have even been discussing getting a third cat sometime next year once everything has settled down. The upheaval has been a bit stressful for us (Jules especially, since he’s been headachy and sore) and we haven’t yet had a quiet weekend but hopefully this will be the last one that is quite this demanding. But yes, all in all it’s been great so far and I’m very happy with our choice to buy a home!
