Monday, July 13, 2009

HOME - Joys of home ownership

Rob and I are now officially the proud new owners of a home built in 1913. We knew it would be a lot of work and even though we are sore and tired of spending money - we are having a great time updating much of the house. We were hoping to salvage the original Douglas Fir flooring in the front room and bedrooms - but much to our chagrin - there were nails every 16 inches - likely to diminish the squeeky floor. We could not remove, pound down, or sand over the nails - so we had to go with Plan B - a new hardwood floor. We are using Acacia in the front room, pre-stained and all set to install. We went with this type b/c it is 3/4-inch real wood - rather than the engineered hardwood that is iffy to refinish. In the bedrooms, we are using bamboo - but it's a grass, not wood. Here are a series of photos of the front room and the work we have done so far. If you know of anyone looking for brass fixtures (lights, door knobs, hooks) - we have them from every room in the house that are yours for the taking. All of the new sub-floor is down, boxes of wood, and bamboo are open - tomorrow is a painting day.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

I am pretty sure that the rhubarb raspberry jam is my number 2.5 favorite jam ever - right behind strawberry freezer jam and tied with apricot. I will be sure to hoard this jam, just like the apricot I still have in the basement. Speaking of which, I ought to pull that out and eat it before the apricots really start showing up at the market. The rhubarab did not breakdown as I hoped, instead I processed it for about 5 seconds, got it boiling, then added the pectin and raspberries. This jam has a really vibrant color.

We are closing on our new house in 7 days and are very excited. Our current rental, while a nice place to have called home for 8 months, is becoming a pain in the behind. It's up for sale, meaning we have to leave the house in the evenings - with dogs in tow - so that people can come see the house. I would be much happier about the whole thing if we got something out of it - like a decrease in rent... Instead, we have to deal with a young realtor that is awfully unprofessional - requesting that we leave the house open rather than putting out a lock box. Lock box is now up per our insistence.