Today we painted for the first time at our house.  We decided to paint the kitchen an olive green color.  We only ended up painting a few walls, but it seemed to take forever going around cabinets and appliances.  Now we just have a few touch-ups to do and then we’ll be done…with the kitchen anyway.  We’ll see when we can muster enough energy to move on to another room.  Check out our time lapse video painting the kitchen and photos of the final product.

Music: Kevin MacLeod

It is done! As of this morning we’re mostly done with the backyard! We moved four and a half tons of rock from a pile on our driveway through the gate to the backyard (after a short interruption from a thunderstorm). As you can image we were very tired once everything was moved and spread. We got most of it spread out last night, but it got dark, and we finished it up this morning. So now all that we have left to do is find some plants for the back portion against the wall of the yard. Hopefully that won’t be as tiring as the last parts! You can see the final shots of the 90% finished backyard in the gallery.

It’s time for another catch-up post. We’ve been busy since moving into the new house. We took a quick vacation in DC after Jess’s work trip. Photos from DC are up in the gallery. Since then, we’ve been getting settled into the house. This includes a lot of work in the back yard recently. We wanted to get things taken care of out there before the Monsoons come in mid-July. The first task was digging in the HARD NASTY Arizona dirt to install drip irrigation so we can grow a few plants back there. This weekend, while Jess is in Chicago for her sister’s bachelorette party, I did a few other jobs in the yard, including laying pavers out from our patio (thanks for helping Will!). Now we just need to cover the rest of the ground with rocks. Later this week four and a half tons will be dumped in the middle of our driveway. I guess that plans out our weekend for us. After the rock goes in, the last item left to do is plant a few things out there. I’m sure we’ll have photos up when everything is finished. It will be nice to have the yard all said and done so we can move onto new projects (painting!).

I set up the laptop to capture a time lapse of the pavers going in.

Music: Kevin MacLeod

Everything successfully made it from the old apartment to the new house with relatively little hassle (for a move). We moved in all the non-furniture items after picking up our keys last Tuesday morning, then movers took the furniture over on Wednesday. We have been unpacking boxes, and hooking stuff up since then. The keys were turned in for the apartment over the weekend, so I guess we’re official now. There is still a good load of boxes yet to unpack (we can’t park in our garage yet), and after things settle down a bit, we’ll be doing some painting. If you haven’t found them yet, new house photos are up in the gallery.

The apartment is now empty, and the movers are en route to the house with our furniture.

The truck is empty!

The fun begins…

But this is a good madness. The big moving week is finally here, and it’s going to be crazy. Last week the final pieces to the big house puzzle fell into place. Jess was in Michigan for her grandmother’s funeral, so I got to participate in the final walk-through of the house. Everything looked really good. There were a few areas that needed to be touched up, but really nothing major needed to be done before we get the keys. They even had a lovely banner up on the front of the house for us (see the previous post). Then last Thursday morning I signed all the papers. Since Jess wasn’t able to be there, I had power of attorney and got to sign my name, and her name about a million times (my hand still smarts a bit). Now we just sit and wait for everything to go through. Actually, we’re really not doing much sitting, it’s packing time. This weekend we’re putting everything we own into boxes in preparation for the move on Tuesday morning. We were originally going to do all the smaller stuff (boxes… furniture) in our cars, plus Nancy and Robert’s pickup, and Brian’s pickup, but today decided to get a small UHaul for an in-town move. We figured it was worth it, and we wouldn’t need to make as many trips back and forth. So bright and early Tuesday morning, we pick up the truck, and head over with the first load and get our keys at 10am. Then on Wednesday, we have movers coming to get the big stuff (furniture!). After moving everything back in August, we are absolutely confident that movers are worth the money, given we’re on the 2nd floor, and about a half block from the parking lot where the truck will be parked. If everything goes according to plan, we’ll be totally moved into our new house by Wednesday night. WOO HOO! Just in time for Jess to head out of town on Thursday and Friday for work. Then, she has to take off for a training in Washington DC the following Monday for the rest of that week. I’m joining her for a little vacation that Thursday. Some of her friends from law school live out there (looking forward to seeing you Megan and Jason!) and we’ll be bumming around DC with them. Then we’ll both be flying back on Monday, the 9th. Like the title of this post says… madness! We won’t actually spend a full week in our new house for another few weeks. Oh well, it will be nice to come home to. That’s when the home improvement will begin. We will need to do some major unpacking, painting, and we still need blinds for the entire house. It’ll all get done in due time I’m sure. We’ll be posting photos throughout the whole process - so stay tuned!

Just finished the walk-through. everything is A-OK!

I think I’ve mentioned this before, (probably several times) packing sucks!