Let's Try This Again...

So, as of the last post we were supposed to close on the house mid-April...somehow that has turned into mid-May.

Anyhoo, we are finally closing TODAY!! It's been a frustrating few weeks but we've enjoyed having the time to spend with friends instead of having to work on the house every weekend. If you are in the area tonight, we'll probably be sitting in the dark, on the floor of our empty house celebrating, so stop by! :)

Closing Date Almost Here

Ken (list agent) and I set a tentative close date for either the 23rd or 24th. Hopefully the FHA can get on their horse and get things done ASAP. Everyone clear your schedule for the weekend of the 26th and 27th because you are coming over to help!

I can't believe Abby got me to blog...

-Kevin

Project #1

One of the first things we needed to work on was the staircase that leads to the upstairs back porch. A few of the boards were rotten and we needed to add supports between the handrail and the stairs. This needed to be done before the house would pass inspection. It finally stopped raining on Sunday, and with the help of Kevin's dad, we got it finished in a couple hours.


While the carpenters were working on the stairs, I started attacking the overgrown backyard. At one point there had been quite a few flower gardens, but the women who lived in the house had gotten too old to maintain them and the entire yard had been taken over by ivy and some other crazy, twisty vine. I did lots of raking and brush cutting, but I'm not quite sure what we are going to do with all the piles of yard waste yet.

Ugh! That entire bush in the back corner is overgrown with that mysterious vine and will have to be gotten rid of.

The inspector was coming back to the house today, so we are hoping to be able to starting working on the inside in two weeks!!

Croswell Ave House

We moved back to GR!!

Our new house is in East Grand Rapids and while it's definitely a fixer-upper, it's in a great neighborhood and doing the fixing will be (I hope) a lot of fun. We are walking distance to a grocery store, ice cream store, drug store, restaurants, shops, Starbucks, and Reed's Lake. And the best part is that it's a two-family house so we have an apartment to rent which will completely cover the mortgage!! So if you know of anyone looking for an apartment this fall in GR, let me know.

We don't close on the house for another couple weeks, so we can't get in yet to start working on it, but some of the first projects will be: completely remodeling the bathrooms, painting all the walls, putting new carpet in the master bedroom, and getting new appliances in the kitchen. Some later updates will hopefully be: tearing off the back porch and building a deck, getting rid of all the ugly wood paneling, and making the closets bigger. There is also a fireplace that was covered over, so we're hoping to be able to restore that. Here are some 'before' pics:


This is the front of the house (obviously). I'd like to get rid of that big, ugly green bush and plant some tulips. I'll probably wear my wooden shoes while I'm planting them, just for the memories.






View from the front porch looking out towards the road








Kitchen and door to back porch







The dining room is through the arch. I think the lack of counter space means I don't have to cook very often.








View of the kitchen from the dining room








In the living room








View into the office/bedroom








Lovely wood paneling in the office/bedroom. I think the only place wood paneling should be is on the side of a Dodge Caravan.







View from the master bedroom to the living room. The closet is on the wall to the left and also covered in wood paneling.







See above comment about closet. Oh, and the people selling it still have their crap all over the place. Even in the fridge. Nasty.







Shelving in the bathroom.








That's the toilet. Turn your head again to see the made-to-look-like-tile particle board that is around the toilet and shower.










So those are the highlights of the downstairs. We are accepting applications for part-time plumbers, electricians, painters, and plasterers...It's gonna be a lot of work but we are soooo excited to be back home :)