New Years Resolve - post more blog!

Thanks to a prompt from Kim, James and I will also be getting the blog up to date, at least. There have been a lot of changes so it'll probably just be a lot of pictures to begin with. Bear with us and we'll get the whole story up soon. After all, it has only been, well, 4 months, since our last blog. Ugggh!

FIRE!!!

There was a fire in a carriage house across the alley from us the other day. The building looks like a complete loss, but the firefighters did a great job making sure it didn't spread into the neighbors garage or any other buildings.

Derby day was spent on the porch

We got some use out of the front porch on Derby Day.

Frankie didn't get any mint julep, my hand was just out of frame and got there first.

Thanks to Jeff for the pictures.

Anybody want a dog?

Charlie decided to do a little redecorating when we were out.



This is the dining room. We hadn't planned on replacing this carpet. We actually kind of liked it. He shredded the edge, so now it goes on the long, long list of things that need to be done.

It's still winter

We had a little snow...

Painting

I guess we didn't get our fill of painting getting the condo ready to sell, so we bought a bunch of paint and we're going to redo the dining room, living room, and hallway. Here's the new trim color on the front window. The walls will be that green color that Cate swirled around over on the right. We'll also be replacing the white blinds with something else.




Here's our test patch for the hallway.










And, some more test patches.

That was quick

They installed our shed yesterday, in the pouring rain. Whatever Tuff Shed does to their underperforming installers must be worse than hypothermia and blisters from walking around in wet boots.

Shed

We ordered our Tuff Shed TRD-700 yesterday from Home Depot. It will look like this, only less photoshopped onto a stock photo:

If walls could talk

Our first floor bathroom was apparently 47 different colours, one of which was really nice. Please ignore the sweatsuit - it is cold in our house!

Snow Snow Snow!!!

The Focus in the snow,
Catching snowflakes (with the camera)
View down the street

This was the deepest snow we've had...it was gorgeous for the first couple hours...then when I had to scrape my car, I remembered why I moved to Texas.

At last

The gutter is fixed and the wall is whole! After all those bad weather delays, our workmen finally finished and we have one whole wall, Halleluiah!!

Tuck pointing 101

So as I type, there are two wonderful people working on replacing the mortar in the really bad wall of our house. I can not describe how relieved I am, just to have someone working on it. They should be done Monday. YAY! They are grinding out the old, well, sand right now. Who knew? Well, besides people who actually research these things before they throw themselves headlong into owning a pretty old house. (refer to the end of the very first post).

The Move (October 16th - 18th)

A selection of pictures from the move, hopefully the rest will be available on flickr or our myspaces soon.

Raining on the inside. (December 15th)

Here is what happened when it rained really hard. It was scary, but not as bad as it could have been. Check out the pouring water from the ceiling...its a pretty cool photo.

Super Delayed Post

To all of you who have complained that there are no new posts, Sorry!!! So, to make up for the lack of posts here is a run-down of everything.

October 16th, we finished packing, closed on the Condo, ate at Jo's on 2nd and took off. It was very emotional ( I cried) . The drive went really well, we took 2 days and ate at some very good little places.

October 19th, we closed on the house and unpacked the truck. Our stairs are steep and a little bit narrow as we learned unloading all of the upstairs furniture. My folks drove up from North Carolina as a huge favour to me. They were a huge help. Jen and Chuck Stephens came and helped us move in too, and that was awesome to have their help. (So did Taylor, Grant and Brittany, but they're family so they get no shout out. : ) )

December 15th, we discover that our dining room is leaking...a lot.

December 26th-January 3rd, we get a new roof, and discover that the dining room still leaks. Argggh! The walls also need new tuck-pointing. Who knew 115 year old mortar doesn't hold up?

January 17th - 18th, we get a new bed. Its a Louis-Phillipe reproduction and I love it!!!!! Its big and it sits in the middle of the room.

January 24th, we have 3 estimates for the tuck pointing. They are all expensive and now we just need to figure out who to use.

Desirable Condo

Well, after all the work we've done - we listed on Friday and have two offers as of yesterday. (sort of makes you feel like maybe we didn't need to work on it so much after all). The contract on the new house is all complete too so Louisville, here we come!

Our Condo listing

Our realtor did a great job with the photos and listing. Our place looks better than it ever has, right in time to sell it. I've told our friends who live in the complex that if they end up being friends with whoever buys it, and they see that the new owners tear out any of the bathroom, flooring, or whatever that we just put so much time into, I don't want to know about it.

It went on the MLS yesterday morning, and we already had someone calling to look at it yesterday afternoon. They saw it this morning, and were here a long time, so I guess they liked it. There's someone else wanting to schedule a viewing this weekend too.

Our block is significant

The Old Louisville website has put together block-by-block tours of some of the significant blocks in Old Louisville, and ours is one of them. Here's the house in context, set amongst some other houses that makes it look small, plain and insignificant by comparison. It also details our corner grocery and bar.

Cool fact, According to the old property records they researched, Batman used to live next door in #1335. Thomas J Batman.

And we're listed

We finally wrapped up all our work on the condo and got it listed. Our realtor came and took pictures last night and put it on the MLS this morning. It hasn't even made it to the publicly searchable MLS websites yet, but it's clearly visible by agents, because we already have someone coming to look at it.

We got it!

After some back-and-forth negotiations with the seller, we signed the contract to buy the house today. We will close within 60 days. So, time to get that condo sold!