Homeowners

We have had the keys to our new place for a couple of days now. So far we have swept, mopped, washed walls, scrubbed baseboards, broken down and hauled out junk left behind by the former occupants, and done yardwork.

Here is some awesome stuff about our awesome house:

• The toilets have those cushy-foam seats.  Classy, no?
• The former occupants left us a bottle of 1988 Chauteau d' Gaudin wine (probably by accident).  It's from France.  What are you feelings on cooking with wine?
• We have a fig tree that I hated until Paul pruned it and now I think it looks gorgeous.  We also have a lemon tree, an apple tree, and an orange tree.
• The black lineoleum turned out to be a light pink colored once I scrubbed it for four hours with flu-killing, anti-bacterializing, bleach infused cleaner.
• The oven is so small that it doesn't look like it will fit a normal sized cookie sheet.

On Saturday Paul started demo on our first real construction project.  We maybe jumped the gun here a bit since we won't actually be remodeling the kitchen until next year, but there is a wall dividing the kitchen from the living room and he started taking it down today.  We plan to put in an island between the two spaces but otherwise having an open floor plan.  First he had to dismantle a bank of cabinets.  Then he even moved all of the electrical wiring from the wall that we wanted to tear down and channeled it into another wall which is a much more useful spot for wiring anyway. 

For those who are interested, here are some additional photos of our new place.  Most are of the main living area.  Those are not hardwood floors btw, just laminate.

The wall in the middle of this photo is the one that is coming down and will eventually be replaced with an island and counter seating.

We plan to rearrange the kitchen layout and move the fridge to a where the oven currently is.

Here is the guest bathroom.

All of the bedrooms are tiny and they look exactly the same, so I am just posting one bedroom photo here.

The hallway and linen closet.  Paul hasn't yet been able to get these doors back on their tracks.

Our front entrance.  This is after Paul removed the ghetto screen door.  Behind the massive bush is a window to the guest bathroom.  The window to the left of the photo is the master bathroom, and the windows to the right of the entrance are the kitchen windows over the sink.

The driveway.  The giant flowering bush has got to go. 

The back patio and yard.  We've already done quite a bit of work back here and have additional photos, but will probably try to do a before and after post pretty soon about this area. 

And here are some of the start of the remodel taken with my camera phone (sorry about the quality):

Contemplating what to do next. 

The wine.