33 Orchard

Laundry Delivery

33orchard — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 21:14:12 +0000

Our washer and dryer are being delivered today! Woohoo! I’m so excited that I’m finally giong to have my own washer and dryer instead of having to share a washer and dryer with an entire apartment complex. No more finding my wet clothes sitting on top of the washing machine because I’m not there the second the wash cycle ends. No more wondering who the hell touched my underwear in order to put it on top of the washing machine. No more dealing with cranky machines that don’t work right, whose agitators come loose and dryers that don’t get hot enough to even dry the clothes! It’s amazing how the simple things can make you so happpy.

Kitchen Remodel

33orchard — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:38:57 +0000

Jeff has been doing a lot of work on the kitchen. In addition to working all day long at his job, he comes home and works 3-4 hours each day and then all day on the weekends. He’s starting to get stressed out, but in the long run, we both know it’s going to be worth it. Here’s some of what he’s been up to.

Jeff started by demolishing the kitchen, ripping out all the cabinets and removing the drywall so that we are just down to the studs. He’s upgrading the electrical and we installed a new water heater, which means he had to have access to both electrical and plumbing in the walls.

Jeff worked with a couple of guys he knows in the business to help us with the electrical and the plumbing.

Additionally in the dining room, we had to move the window because it was installed too close to the front door. This is against code and the only two solutions are to move the window or install tempered glass. Jeff chose to move the window, which meant having to rework the framing of the front wall of the house.

Kitchen Cabinets

33orchard — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 23:11:59 +0000

We ordered our kitchen cabinets and we got the call that they should be in sooner than thought. They are due in mid-week next week. Jeff picked out some really nice cabinets at Home Depot. We got the American Woodmark Charlottesville collection in Cherry Spice. The are going to look really nice in our kitchen with the stainless steel appliances. We will pick out our flooring and countertops after we get the cabinets in. Jeff also bought some of the stain, so that he could add custom moulding on the cabinets. We also still have to buy pulls, as well as a kitchen sink, disposal and faucet.

Moved in….

33orchard — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 22:55:07 +0000

Jeff and I moved in on June 10th. Right now we are living in two of the bedrooms – one functioning like a living room/office and the other functioning as our bedroom. Everything is really tight and there is not a lot of room to manuever around the furniture in some places. In the third bedroom, we’ve stored most of our belongings in boxes.

This first week as been fairly productive. We’ve installed a new electrical panel, upping our amps to 200. We purchased our kitchen appliances, installed a tankless water heater and ordered our cabinets. We expect them to be delivered in about 3 and a half weeks.

We went to Sears for our appliances.

We purchased a gas Kitchen Aid 30″ stove with a stainless steel finish.

We chose Kenmore for our other appliances in the kitchen. We got a side by side stainless steel refrigerator.

We also go a range hood.

And a dishwasher.

We ordered our washer and dryer at the same time. Those are scheduled to be delivered this weekend. We got the LG Tromm in white with a stacking kit.

The Yard

33orchard — Thu, 31 May 2007 18:37:48 +0000

At the time we made the offer, the yard was overgrown. This was in mid-March. A little intimidating, but completely doable in terms of being able to clear it.

After we got the keys, we discovered the yard had grown into a jungle with 5 foot tall weeds.

We spent Memorial Day Weekend clearing the yard. Jeff and I were out there all three days pulling weeds by hand. Dad and Candy came to help us on Monday. We made pretty good progress. But there is still a lot of work to do before the yard looks really great.

We had a 9′ x 9′ tarp that we were dumping the yard waste on. By the end of the weekend, the pile of plant material was taller than me.

We got the keys…

33orchard — Thu, 31 May 2007 06:53:08 +0000

After two long months, we finally got the keys to the house. We made an offer in March. We finally heard back from the seller’s bank at the beginning of May. It was about to go into foreclosure and the seller owed over $100,000 more than what we offered (and what the house appraised for). As a result the seller’s bank had to agree to the offer because they were going to have to eat a log of money on this deal. Fortunately they agreed to it, so we were able to get the keys.

The house had been vacant for several months, so when we went over there on Saturday to do some preliminary work on the house, there were a lot of weeds and other items that needed to be dealt with. We’re not moving in until the 10th of June, so we have some time to get things in order.