Adjusting to our new home

Last Friday, Paula and I began moving into our new home. It's pretty exciting, but we're sort of making it painfully drawn out by moving over in the little loads that our mini-van carries. But, we're nearly finished and we're all beginning to adjust to our new place. We christened the house with my mom, Eirik, Heidi, and their son Skye who were in town.

Due to the heat wave, Paula and I are adjusting from our quasi-finished basement where temperatures feel like they're 30 degrees cooler. Our pets on the other hand have been having a more interesting time.

Maddie has been coming over and hanging out while we've worked on the house for the past month. So, she's quite at home in her back yard now. Gordon (aka. Fat-tastic), is the easiest going cat in the world and essentially thinks everything on the planet is for his benefit, which is making his transition go pretty smoothly. However, Cleo and Gus (our two neurotic cats) have their own methods.

(Maddie in her back yard)
(Gordon and his dominion)

After letting Gus out of the pet carrier, he ran directly into the return air duct system associated with our furnace. While he eventually came out, he then hid above the duct system in the basement for another day. The bad news is that Gus (typically a white cat) is now gray. The good news is that we've had our HVAC system cleaned out.

(Gus is in there, somewhere)

Cleo (a small black cat) has found every small nook and cranny for her to blend into the darkness and shadows. Her favorite spot in our old place was below the guest bed, which seems to be a prime location for her again.

(Camouflaged Cleo)

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And so it begins...

We've got the keys to our new 1956 house! So, let the chores, projects, and to-do lists begin.

First on our list is remove the carpet and refinish the oak hardwood floors so we can move in. This is what I and the pooch started on Saturday afternoon while Paula was off saving kids lives. So far so great. The carpet has been coming up pretty easy. It's just time consuming getting all the tacks and staples up, but that's what books on tape are for. Already, the floors are looking so much better. However, give us a couple weeks and I'm sure they'll be even sweeter!

(Living room with carpet)

(Living room without carpet, but still with padding)

(Maddie enjoying the new/old oak hardwood floor)

We're excited to start planning out the project list, building the house in Google SketchUp so we can play around with future design ideas, and generally working on the house. Although its in good condition, I'm sure there's going to be a lot that we'll need/want to do.

I've also met some of our neighbors too. Seems like the whole block are full of good, friendly folk. Especially when they're having an ice social in early August! It's like they already know what my weakness is.

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It's official, we're HOME OWNERS!!!

We just got the call that all the paperwork is complete and we're now terribly in debt. We're so excited to start pulling carpet and get the renovation show going. The Radmakers have another 10 days in the house to move out and settle up with everything. So, that puts us into moving on July 12th, if we want. However, I think we'll probably stick around where we're at through July and slowly move over while having our floors refinished. We're looking forward to having a house warming party/bbq as soon as we can. I guess that means we'll be needing to buy a bbq in the near future...

Bring on the tax breaks!

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