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By kilax, February 20, 2016 7:00 am

I had to throw out my beloved leopard slippers, because they got too dirty and gross (okay, and schmelly). Sadness.

Wait. I say beloved, yet, I actually found these under our bed when we moved out of our townhome in the beginning of December. So they are only recently beloved.

But I used the hell out of them for two months at the rental house, then the first two weeks at the new house (aww, it’s been two weeks!). And now, I can’t imagine being slipper-less! And especially goofy slipper-less.

Luckily, I found a perfect (but not purrfect, ha ha) replacement! And for only $5! If they would have had more in my size, I would have stocked up!

Now, I just have to stay out of the garage and other… less clean rooms with them, so they don’t get trashed like the other ones did.

(Ha, but it was totally my feet schmelling them up, too.)

In other news, I can’t believe I am actually looking forward to (attempting to) meet the neighbors today. At our townhome, we avoided our neighbors as much as possible. It’s such a nice change to feel so different! I hope they like pumpkin muffins!

Our neighbor to the west called me yesterday to tell me she put her guest passes to the local HUGE gym in our name to try it out. How nice is that?

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By kilax, February 18, 2016 7:23 am

• We’ve arrived to the part of winter where I see it’s going to be 20°F and think “Oh, it’s gonna be warm today!” Ha! We have an actual warm spell coming Friday, accompanied by 30 mph winds with 60 mph gusts. Okay, then. I hope that isn’t a sign of how our spring will be – you all know I get a little stabby with the high winds.
• I spoke too soon on Monday when I mentioned we hadn’t seen Denali in awhile – he/she came around that morning. I realized Denali was visiting when I saw legs from the basement window. Creepy! Ha! Then Denali and Data had words and I heard Data make some noises I’d NEVER heard from him before. Eek.

I feel bad for Denali. I wish his/her owner would give him some love.

• Would you live in a house without a bathtub? Our new house is 1.5 baths, and there’s no bathtub! Only a shower! I LOVE taking baths, so we worked it in to the FHA 203k work to renovate the first floor bathroom to be a full bath. And we just ordered a deep soaker bathtub for it. SO. EXCITED!!!!!
• Now I know why I have a hard time remembering English words from time to time (pdf here) – it’s because my brain knows too many Spanish ones! There ya go! It’s not cause I’m crazy. Nope, nope, nope. Ha, seriously though, xaarlin shared this article and it makes so much sense to me – when you know (or are learning) two languages, your brain has to make a choice each time about which language to use, and sometimes it messes up and you can’t remember a word you know and used all your life, even if you are speaking in your native tongue. But it’s actually a good exercise for your brain to choose between the two languages! I forget words all the time, so let’s say it’s this, okay? (I know it totally isn’t.)
• I had mentioned I was hoping I’d still be able to see the sunrise and sunset from our new home, and I can! And it’s just a short run to get more of the vista. Now I just need to work on my timing!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 86

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By kilax, February 17, 2016 5:40 am

Alternatively titled “Why We Purposefully Want a Smaller Coat Closet.” This is part of the FHA 203k work. 

There’s a lot of goofy things going on at our house* – things that obviously aren’t “make or break” since we bought the place, but things we will be fixing now and over the years.

And one of those things is (was, really!) the coat closet.

Foyer, before

Us trying to use the coat closet as is – ha ha, my dad moved all the coat hooks from the left side to the right side when he visited (so coats didn’t hang over the shoes) then that wall was demolished five days later. I told him all his hard work was for NOTHING! Ha.

We have a double door entry to our house, with a sidelight on each side. And for whatever reason, the coat closet was encompassing one of the sidelights on the inside. So we had this HUGE coat closet, but it was odd that you could only see one sidelight in the foyer, and that from the outside, you could see in to the coat closet via that window. It made my inner architect crazy.

The window inside the closet

So we had the contractor push the wall back behind the sidelight, to reclaim it for the foyer.

Already looks better!

Sloppy in progress photo, but you can see the extra light in the foyer

Moving this wall has presented a few issues, of course:

• The closet can’t be the typical 2′ depth, because of the location of the window trim from the back (garage) wall (which is already furred out, unfortunately). It’s a couple of inches short, so our coats won’t have as much space as a normal closet, but they’ll fit.
• The previous owners didn’t leave any extra floor tiles in the house (we did find some pretty mosaic tiles though), so we had to try to match the demolished floor. And they put the floor at an angle, so we need a bunch of tiles. We couldn’t match the color exactly, but matched the pattern. We don’t want to redo the whole floor because that would require us to figure out the entire feel we want the house to have over time, and we are SO not there yet. I plan to use a rug to break up the difference in color. Ha. Now you all know my little secret.

But! We think it looks much better this way!

We’ll pick out a new closet door handle, and get to the tile in early March when it comes in.

Much more open!

*We’d love to have a history of the house and all the additions/work on it!

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By kilax, February 16, 2016 6:23 am

A few years ago, I was getting an EKG and chatted with the nurse doing it about where she lives. Zion, she told me.

“Oh, Zion! I don’t know much about that town!”

“IT’S ZY-IN, NOT ZY-ON!!!”

Geesh. I didn’t get to ask her much about Zion, since I effed up the pronunciation so much! I’d only ever heard that name in The Matrix before, and that was the way they pronounced it in the movie. I’ve never mistakenly said ZY-ON again. ZY-IN, ZY-IN, ZY-IN. Got it.

Not our water tower – we’re on a well!

I really DIDN’T know much about Zion at the time – just where it was located (near the lake, and far away from our townhouse). I hadn’t heard about the Zee Bee Run 5K Run Series yet. I didn’t have a reason to go over there.

But now… you guessed it. Now we live in Zion.

Unincorporated Zion, actually. We’re so far away from the town of Zion, it’s kind of silly we’re even considered unincorporated.

Zion doesn’t have a fantastic reputation. I became more aware of this as we told local people we were trying to buy a house there. Almost every person responded with a bewildered look and asked “Are you sure?” Followed by “The school district is HORRIBLE!” Then whatever random story about Zion’s reputation they could remember. Even our townhouse neighbor who moved in from a rough part of Chicago thought we were loco. Ha – my mom witnessed our movers do it to us (and was surprised by it) – when they were at the rental house, they straight up asked “Why are you moving to Zion?!” I told them they’d see when they got to the house. (A few people did have nice things to say – but the overwhelming response was “WTF are you thinking?!”)

I appreciated that people were concerned for our well-being. Heck, I just did that to a friend when they moved – “make sure you’re on the south side of the train tracks!” But here’s the thing (which I always explained) – we’re over six miles from downtown Zion. We’re a mile and a half from the city limits. And we basically live in horse country – most of our neighbors have property with horses and sometimes other wildlife (yesterday I saw a horse playing with a donkey during my run, and during my first run from the new house, I saw horses, donkeys, and bison!). We’re not so much concerned about city crime – not to say we’re oblivious – it’s just that there are other things to think about for security, where we live. And the school district thing isn’t an issue, since we aren’t having kids.

I’m not sure what’ll happen if you say Zion wrong around here though. So I’m definitely being cautious about that. Ha!

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By kilax, February 15, 2016 8:31 am

At the same time I telling you guys about Denali being in our yard (who, by the way, we haven’t seen in a week) I was saying to Steven “I wonder when the deer are going to come visit!”* We live extremely close to two forest preserves, and I saw a large pack of deer in an open area of one preserve a few times and wondered if they’d come by…

… and some did, this morning!

At first, Data and I just saw one.

Data growled when he saw the first one in the yard. Oh, Data.

Then we followed him and realized he was with five others!

You can totally see them, right?! Ha.

I know – seeing deer in your yard isn’t that novel for the northern Chicago suburbs. And six isn’t that many. But I had been hoping they’d come by since we moved in, so it was exciting for me!

Next up – actually meeting the human neighbors, ha! Steven talked to a few of them before we moved in, and they seem really nice. We live on a dead-end street with only a few houses, so it would seem odd not to stop by and introduce ourselves. Hopefully we can this weekend!

*I do want the woodland creatures to visit – just not dogs without accompanying humans.

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By kilax, February 13, 2016 5:32 am

As I mentioned, we got a special home improvement loan when we bought the house – an FHA 203(k) streamlined loan. This type of loan allows the homeowner to finance up to $35,000 in repairs/improvements/upgrades as part of their mortgage. Schweet, right? Our house has some critical items that need to be fixed (see list below) and this was the best way for us to be able to afford to do it, as soon as possible.

An FHA 203(k) streamlined loan requires quite a bit of work on the homeowner’s side. It’s the homeowner’s responsibility to find the 203(k) approved contractor, and to develop the scope of work with them. The homeowner has to get a construction estimate and a bunch of FHA 203(k) paperwork from the contractor before the mortgage process can begin (then sometimes, throughout the mortgage process, your close date is delayed by a week because the lender decided that fixing a low pressure faucet needs to be added to the FHA paperwork and then it takes that long to review it again… sometimes that happens). After close, it’s the homeowner’s responsibility to pay the contractor (via checks from the bank) and to oversee the construction, and make sure it’s done in the right amount of time.

Steven and I are really comfortable with overseeing construction – it’s basically what I do for work (well, used to… when I was more involved with that stage). And how exciting that we get to watch our house be transformed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <— yes, I really mean all those exclamation marks.

So here’s what our general contractor will be working on:

• Soffit and fascia repair
• Installing new gutters
• Installing gutter apron flashing
• Attic cleaning and new insulation
• Removing and replacing patio doors
• Remodeling first floor bathroom
• Remodeling coat closet
• Fixing low water pressure on second floor bathroom sink

This list is WAY different than what we thought it would be. Remember I mentioned us almost not buying the house since we can’t get cable internet (we need fast internet since we both work from home)? We were considering installing a tower on our property to get internet. We had a wireless site survey done, and the guy flew a drone and told us we’d need to build a 90′ tower to clear our trees… then we found out the next day* that the county only allows 65′ towers. Crap. Steven and I came to the conclusion we’d use a wireless hotspot, and were excited to have $15,000 back in the budget for other projects (remodeling both bathrooms!!!). Ha, not so fast! The next day*, during the roof inspection, we figured out why there were so many animal droppings in our attic – there are actually openings in the attic, to the outside. Uh, that’s not good. So guess how much it will cost to fix our clay tile roof – that $15,000 we thought we had back. Ha! (Our roof is really neat, but it’s a specialty roof and expensive to work on.)

But! The great thing about all of this is that we mentioned to our general contractor how we can’t build an internet tower, and he got us in touch with a buddy who sells T-Mobile wireless to businesses that work out of the home. We talked to his buddy and got an AMAZING deal on our wireless – 300GB a month PLUS binge on for Netflix/etc for a steal (we got it for the same price we were looking at for 30GB a month!)! All Steven had to do was plug the antenna in on Saturday and the internet was ready to go and works great. YAY for something being so easy!!!

It was too cold to begin the roof repair work this week, so the crew came over and started demolishing the coat closet yesterday.

I’ll explain what’s going on with that when it’s finished!

Data’s spot of choice during the early am wall demolition (he slept on the bench during afternoon demo, ha ha).

There’s lots of stories about each repair item, and I will share those as we go!

*This was the craziest week ever. Black Friday was the previous week (11/27) and Steven was SO busy with work – going in the warehouse EVERY day (because there were so many sales, yay!). Steven was at the new house on 11/30 for an inspection and for the wireless site survey (ha, and I had to go there that night because he accidentally locked his keys in the car). I had to go downtown for work 12/1 and 12/2. We met with a potential contractor at the house on 12/3 (and Steven again on 12/5 in the morning). Steven went to the roof inspection on 12/4. And… we moved in to our rental that Saturday, the 5th. We didn’t get much packing done during the week! All this made me feel much more confident about move #2, since our week was less hectic, going in to it!

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By kilax, February 12, 2016 4:01 am

Our first completed house project! Yay!

Our home was move in ready, but we have a HUGE list of improvements we look forward to making (and then there’s another list of stuff our contractor will be doing!). The first thing Steven tackled and completed this week was installing a garbage disposal. We had one at our townhome and didn’t realize how much we used it until our rental house didn’t have one and it that made me loco (seriously – I got so sick of picking bits of food out of the sink to throw away).

Under the kitchen sink – before

The garbage disposal at the new house required some special attention because we’re on a septic tank. That’s the little blue box on the front of the unit – every time the disposer is turned on, it injects microorganisms in to the disposer to break down the food waste in the septic system. Gotta keep the new septic tank healthy!

Under the kitchen sink – after

Steven said it wasn’t too bad to install – he rerouted a few pipes and put in an outlet. And it only required ONE trip to Menards! Maybe everything will go this smoothly?! Ha!

And! We got to use it last night when we made dinner. Yay, home cooked food!!!!!!!!!!!

And sort of related (because it’s also in the kitchen) – we have more space in our kitchen/dining area, so Steven was able to bring home his espresso cart from the Fake Meats warehouse (he used it there, before)!

And bonus – we can put ALL the coffee things on/in it, which frees up counter space. Schweet! Eventually, I’d like to get a buffet for the wall next to the cart, to store serving platters and alcohol-y things in, but that’s a way down the road.

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By kilax, February 11, 2016 6:26 am

• I’ve reached my eating out threshold – I can’t do it anymore. I need a home cooked meal. Ha! This was actually one of my biggest worries about moving – how much we’d be eating out due to not having appliances with which to store food and cook. The appliances were installed Tuesday, but we had our well chlorinated on Tuesday and couldn’t use any water until Wednesday so the house hasn’t been conducive to cooking. Today, hopefully!
• But, yay, new appliances!!!

The thing to the left of the dishwasher is a trash can holder – we have to find the right size square trash can to put in it.

We plan to have a backsplash put up, then we’ll put the hood in above the stove.

The delivery guys asked if we got red because we’re Blackhawks fans! Ha! Nah, getting red was just a special treat for us. 

• In other house news, Denali didn’t stop by yesterday or Tuesday! I hope he/she is somewhere warm! (And stays there.)
• Ha, that model I wrote about? The only one I’ve kept? Data knocked it off a shelf this weekend. No more models! Thanks for deciding for me, Data!
• Speaking of things breaking, only a few things did during the move – a cheapo lamp we don’t care about, a clear cylindrical vase that probably came with some flowers, a piece of art I was able to fix, and something else I threw right in the trash because I didn’t care about it anyway. Ha! Our movers were wonderful and did a great job! I am so happy we hired them – it made things SO MUCH EASIER for us. I highly recommend Lake County Movers if you’re local!

• The movers were not able to completely clear out our storage space on Saturday, so there are a few things remaining there – garage stuff, all our books, games, the Wii stuff, a few kitchen boxes, Christmas decorations, old clothes that don’t fit – all stuff I haven’t seen in months and am not too worried about. Ha. We’ll get to it when we can (or have the movers do it – Steven and I weren’t expecting them to be able to get it all on Saturday, anyway) – all the important stuff is at the house!
• An enthusiastic “yes!” to the timing of this Just Little Things post! Gah, with the move I thought I lost my favorite hat and panicked until I located it in my purse. I don’t lose things. Or misplace them. That’s not in my nature. I’m organized when it comes to keeping track of my stuff. So for me to be forgetting where things are… must mean I am a bit stressed. It was hard for me to not know where things were after the move (because the movers put some things in larger unlabeled boxes). I couldn’t stop thinking about whatever it was until I found it!

Found it! Phew!

Link to Random Thoughts Thursday 85

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By kilax, February 9, 2016 5:31 am

We were in the middle of moving in on Saturday and a neighbor came over to say hi! How nice!

The problem with this neighbor though, is that they weren’t accompanied by a human! Ha ha.

When I called their owner to tell them where they were, they weren’t concerned that the dog, Denali, wasn’t home and just told me “Yeah, they roam x street, y street, z street…” (Denali doesn’t actually live on our street.)

So that was all fun and games on Saturday, then Denali showed up again Sunday night. And Data saw him/her.

Then again yesterday morning.

And now I see Data walking around the house, sometimes (not all the time) on high alert, looking for Denali. So far, when Denali shows up, and Data sees him/her, Data gets tense, and bats at the window and hisses.

Maybe Denali will lose interest in our house. Maybe Data and Denali will learn to be friends.

But I don’t think I want someone’s dog randomly roaming my yard (even though Denali is very nice). It’s creepy when Denali just shows up at the window. (I know, get curtains – but that is the nice part about living in the country – I didn’t think I needed many – ha!).

And cleaning up Denali’s poop isn’t that much fun either.

We’ll give it a few more days before I call the neighbor again. Hopefully I don’t have to call animal control. Eek!

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By kilax, February 8, 2016 6:40 am

After months of waiting, we’re finally in our home!

There’s not this much snow on it now, but I just love how it looks with all the snow!

Ahhhhh.

Entry gate to our home

It’s a loooooong story of how we ended up with our new home, and what we went through to buy it. I won’t tell it all today (that will come later!) but I do have to share some parts of the story (yes, there really is more than this long post)!

Steven and I had wanted to sell our townhome and move for a few years. We wanted privacy and more space (land, not necessarily house space) We also wanted peace and quiet – we had years of discourteous, disrespectful townhome neighbors. We decided last summer was the summer to do something about it. Finally.

Steven searched Zillow for houses with land and privacy. We’d drive around and look at them. There was only one house we were excited enough to consider asking an agent to show us around inside.

But we decided before we went and saw it, we should probably meet with an agent and see how realistic it was to sell our house – because we needed to sell to be able to buy. In August, we met with an agent who had recently sold a townhome in our neighborhood. After discussing our house, he asked if we were looking to buy, and we told him yes, and started describing what we wanted, and he said “I have a house just like that!” And lo and behold, it was the house we wanted to see! Wow! (That was a sign, right?! Ha.)

We toured the house in August and I fell in love with it and could immediately imagine myself living there. I stared thinking about it a lot. I talked about it a lot to my friends and family. I definitely became too attached. I drew the house in AutoCAD and sketched some renovation ideas Steven and I had. We even had an inspection done (since it was a foreclosure and had been sitting vacant for awhile). But I realized I was becoming too emotionally connected, with no chance to buy since our house wasn’t even on the market. So I stopped thinking about it (however, Steven kept thinking about it since he was there for the inspection and became much more attached to it then).

The back of the house in August. The top left windows are the master bedroom, and the bottom right ones are the room we’re using as a dining room. The little window is the kitchen. 

The windows on the left are the dining room, and the rest are the living room. 

We got serious about selling our townhome in the fall. We packed up a lot of stuff and put it in storage, staged the house, and listed it in early November. We thought the house wouldn’t sell, and we’d have to relist it in the spring. It sold in two days! Wow! But that meant we had to get out and had no place to go.

We drove around and looked at other properties in November. Amazingly, the house we looked at in August was still on the market! We weren’t sure about it though, because there were a few issues – it required construction work (we’d have to get a special loan for that), the price needed to come down because of the amount of work required, it only had 1.5 bathrooms, it didn’t have internet/cable access because of its remote location, the taxes were (ARE) really high, there were a lot more inspections to be done (well and septic…), and so on…

But we looked at a ton of other houses and none of them were for us. That house was the only one we both loved.

So we went back to the original house. And made it work. We negotiated with the bank, found a general contractor, did a lot of other inspections and research, got the special construction loan, and worked hard on keeping things moving forward…

And here we are!

The living room

It hasn’t sunken in yet – that I am living in the home I fell in love with instantly upon seeing, and even more upon stepping foot in. I feel so lucky. When I woke up there Sunday I thought “this is really my home!”

North side of the master bedroom

South side of the master bedroom

Yay!

And Data is doing well! We brought him over to the house early Saturday morning. He got to explore before the movers arrived and after they left. Data loves the windows. The ceiling fans still freak him the eff out. Sigh. And there’s a visitor he doesn’t care for that I’ll tell you about later (it’s NOT my parents, ha!).

I’m happy we brought Data in the early morning instead of late at night like the last move – this way he was tired and ready for bed (rather than running around like a nut all night). Sunday morning was the first day in weeks that he didn’t wake me up early to feed him – he needed his sleep!

My parents were a HUGE help this weekend! It was so nice to have an extra pair of hands and for Steven and I to divide tasks and do things with one of them. Bobbi came over and helped clean and unpack, too! I LOVE that she is only a ten minute drive away. Love, love, loooooooooooove!

The house is still in unpacking mode, hence the mostly empty pictures! We’re getting there though! A lot is unpacked and the appliances arrive today, yay! Expect many photos in the weeks to come!

Here’s the kitchen before moving in – it already looks a lot different – we removed a few cabinets and the weird wooden panels.

The other side of the kitchen – the dining room.

The room we’ll use as the office (outside of the kitchen)

Another view of the living room. And there is a garage, big basement, guest bedroom and 1.5 baths. But we can look at those another day!