Our New Abode - Week Two, dated March 12, 2003

Renee and I took yesterday afternoon off and did a run into Bellevue. My brother (her father) bought a Harley Davidson motorcycle last year. I guess it's a big deal to Harley folks to have t-shirts from the various stores and cities. Boy, what a racket Harley has created, just in t-shirts alone. The one she found for him was 30 bucks! Jeez! Sure hope he likes it and if not, he'd better fake it quite well. ;-0 Afterwards we went to Bellevue Square - she had a blast there, with all the funky stores and multitudes of clothing stores. (Upscale shopping mall, for those that don't know.) Fortunately, I thought ahead and brought a book and the mall has lots of places to sit down while waiting for a shopaholic.

Speaking of my niece. She's been a huge help, every single day. She loves to paint and doesn't mind painting white. Although she wasn't too impressed with me wanting to cover up the bright yellow in the kitchen, nor was she impressed with my color choice (light lavender) for the bathroom. We definitely do not have the same choices in color, that's for sure. It's also been a help having her at the house with me every single day, from the mental aspect. Just knowing someone else is there helping out, has made a huge difference. There's so much to do, it's very overwhelming. But knowing she's helping me whittle down that list is a huge help. We're usually jumping from room to room, while waiting for paint to dry, so it's quite easy to get overwhelmed and frustrated.

Also found out we don't have the same food likes either. Yesterday she told me she wanted something other than "chinese" food, so we had salad, corn and a microwave meatloaf for dinner. And all we've had in that field is Thai one night and teriyaki another night. Plus, the leftovers. Gotta educate her food palate a bit more, but she's not here long enough for that. She's her father's daughter, more than she knows. Jeff doesn't like what he calls "yuppy food". The Marines and the Midwest killed his taste buds, I guess. HA!

Okay, onto the house update. Between getting out the ratty carpet, the wall cleaner and the cleaning crew, the place smelled and looked much better. You can still smell cat pee, so we really need to tackle that. Several parts of the floor are strongly scented and I need to get rid of that before my cats move in. However, it's not as bad as it was before. When I was chatting to the delivery fellow yesterday (for new appliances), we talked about the house. He mentioned that cats had lived here, so he could still smell it. Part of the reason is that I think they peed on the door to the kitchen (which is the main way into the house), so I really need to get that painted.

Sunday two of my hobby friends came over to paint. Amy and Cece were a HUGE help! Thanks again to you two. Between the 4 of us (Amy, Cece, Renee and myself) we got quite a bit painted. The hallway, stairs to the attic and one of the bedrooms got two coats of primer by the time they called it a day (and far later in the day than I had expected - yeah!). Remember, we're covering up dark wood paneling in most of the rooms, so it's taking quite a bit of paint to cover it up. A few of the rooms have light colored paneling, but it still needs two coats of primer. I've since applied Kilz primer/cover paint in those rooms, to cover up some of the stains. It's worked pretty well in covering, but some of those smoky stains (or whatever they are) still are coming through. They're mostly where the bookcases will be going, so I'm not as concerned about those. The window edges have been painted twice in those rooms, so those rooms are pretty much ready for the white wall paint.

Last night we bought a paint sprayer to try painting the ceiling with. The ceilings are very ratty and they might fall apart. But I want to cover them up with at least one layer of primer, just to cover up some of the smell. And the icky tan color. So, we'll see how that goes. I'm hoping we'll get the dining room area taken care of today, so at least one room will be ready for blinds and flooring.

The other day I went out and got 21 blinds for the various rooms. Just about every window in that place is a different size. I think there were 2 of one size and 3 of another and the rest were all different. Got the cheapo (relatively speaking, compared to many others out there) white vinyl blinds from Home Depot. They will trim down the width to size, so just about all (but 4) of them were trimmed. Once again I created a backlog of folks waiting till the gal was through with me. Oh well. (I seem to do that every time I get stuff from the hardware stores.)

We'll be getting some cheapo (relatively speaking, again) laminate wood flooring from Costco. Nice light color (birch color, I think). Hubby wants to put it down in every room, but the kitchen and bathroom. With me being allergic to dust mites, we really can't go with rugs. He'll be putting it down in each room as we're ready to go.

Also on Sunday another friend, Larry, came over. Larry was having a great time, as he has this very destructive streak in him. We put it to good use by having him remove all sorts of things in the house. Even something as simple as blinds (too icky for me to bother cleaning) and light switch covers kept him happy. -) He was really pleased when we had him remove the cupboard from above the frig (the new one is a bit taller than the old, so we needed the extra 2"). Didn't hesitate for a single second on that chore. HA!

It was also great having him come over, as he was able to bring many of his tools that we needed to get stuff done around there, but are all packed away since we didn't think that far in advance when packing. Plus, we didn't think the house would need as much work as it has. And Larry was able to leave most of them there, including a small step stool and short ladder, which have helped greatly in reaching those places I can't otherwise reach. Even though I'm tall, some areas are out of reach.

Yesterday the new frig and range were delivered. I went with black, which will eventually look great in the place, but right now look rather odd in a kitchen that has tons of painting stuff in it, as well as drawers out on the floor (in various stages of being painted), partly painted walls and cabinets and a ratty linoleum flooring. Speaking of which, be sure you clean behind your own frig from time to time. I know the old one wasn't cleaned out for MANY a year. You couldn't even see the pattern of the flooring beneath both of those appliances. Just about one of the grossest things I've come across (so far!) in that house. The cat peed carpet pretty much ties it, though. Let's just say that section of the floor is now cleaner than the rest of the flooring. Ick.

I'm looking forward to using my new range, one of these months. I was so sick and tired of those electrical coils that are always flopping up and won't stay level (least the ones I've come across are that way). So, we got one of those flat topped one - radiant heating I think they're called. Whatever they're called, it'll be great using them.

I got some stencils for the bathroom (hummingbird) and the kitchen (fern), so Renee'll have a great time working with those. Unfortunately, I forgot to get one of the paint colors she needs for the hummingbird, so she'll have to work on that another time. But there's always other stuff that needs working on, such as the kitchen. The cabinets are going to be a very light green, with darker green used for the fern stencil. The fern will be applied randomly, all over the cabinets. I haven't a clue how it'll look when it's all done, but it'll be fun to see something different. And if I don't like it, I can always paint over it, right? Yeah, right, as if I'm going to pick up a brush within the next 2 years, after we're all done with this.

So far nothing has been done in the computer and living rooms. I'm not sure how we're going to do the computer room as right now there's this gawd awful heavy computer table in there. Even though Larry and Dirk took out the drawers and top part, it's still very large and awkward. You can barely get around it. Oh well, that room will eventually get done.

Tomorrow Renee and I are headed down to downtown Seattle. She wants to see them fling fish at the Market, as her dad told her it was the thing to see in Seattle (or some such thing like that). I haven't been to Pike Place Market in a long time, so it'll be nice to see. And I hear there's an excellent market in there that sells over 200 different types of cheeses! I love cheese, so I think I'll be bringing some back with me.