Mi Casa, Sue Casa

Last week we were lucky enough to have our first extended houseguest - my mom!

She had a three-day conference downtown and instead of driving in every day, she stayed with us and took the bus downtown. Slick!
Of course, we weren't just going to let her stay here for free. We put her to work.

A few weeks ago we went to Ikea and got curtains and a rod for our sliding-glass door in the dining room. They came unhemmed, and we got them hung up but hadn't gotten around to using the iron-on hemming strips that came with the curtains. Instead Sue trimmed the panels, zig-zagged the raw edges, and sewed up a nice little hem.

Thanks, mom! Come back any time.

Leaf me alone!

Dear Dana and Emily of 2012,
Remember how last year was the first year you had to take care of the lawn? Remember how it took forever for the leaves to fall? And how the weather was off-and-on warm and cool? So you didn't rake the leaves right away?
This year, remember a couple of things to make this task easier:

1. Keep the grass shorter going into the fall. The long grass meant that raking the leaves was almost more like combing the leaves.
2. Rakes are for suckers. Leaf blowers for the win! But seriously, get the leaves into a few piles and then suck them up and dump them into the biodegradable leaf bags the county makes you use.
3. Buy lots of the stupid biodegradable bags. in 2011 you used 12 just to do the front yard. And hopefully someone will invent bags that are easier to open. Those oversized grocery bags are a pain.
4. Don't worry about the leaves that are still up on the trees all over the neighborhood. You have to start somewhere, right? And who knows if those leaves are ever going to fall?
5. Save your pennies and get a mulching mower! Or, better, hire some poor sucker to do it for you.

Best,

Dana and Emily of 2011

Let there be light!

I couldn't resist the pun. While I was off looking at quilts in St. Cloud, Dana was hard at work at home. Thankfully he had some help from his brother Nick and Nick's father-in-law, Mike, a licensed electrician. Not a bad guy to have in the extended family!

When we moved in, there was no overhead light in any of the three bedrooms or in the living room. There were outlets in each room that were controlled by a switch on the wall, so we plugged in floor lamps and made do. In our bedroom, we had a fan for air circulation and white noise, too.

Don't need you guys anymore!

Sunday afternoon, I came home to this:

Fans in the master bedroom and living room, with separate switches for the fan and the light. Lights in the guest bedroom and office. The boys even used 3-strand wire so we could go in and put fans in there, too.

The lights were a cheapo two-pack from Home Depot. The fans we got from Amazon. Dana made a run to Home Depot for a few miscellaneous pieces for the installation - switches, switchplates, that sort of thing. So we put about $250 into materials ourselves, and Mike guesses he used another $75 in materials that he had on hand.

The best part about having family help for something like this? We could pay Mike double what he asked for and we still got a screaming deal. We had gotten a couple of quotes for this work and they would have charged more than a thousand bucks. Mike, you're a hero! And we owe Nick dinner, too. Thanks guys!

The little things

Before we bought it, out house had been remodeled but not lived in since. So it was finished, but not really finished. Little things were missing: cabinet pulls, towel rods, stuff that you need to have but you wouldn't necessarily need to have right away.
So one of the decisions we got to make was about toilet paper holders. So exciting, right? And who knew there were so many options?

Most toilet paper holders have a spring-loaded center like this:

but I've found that having to deal with that little contraption leads, all too often, to an empty roll on the holder with the full roll sitting forlornly on the counter.

We went with this one instead:

The trick? It pivots on one end, so you can put a new roll on with one hand. It's a little thing, and a little silly even to put much thought into, but I love this toilet paper holder!

Blissful silence

Even in our second visit to the house, I remember remarking that the fan in the full bathroom was loud. But I took it as a sign that it was moving a lot of air.
But lately, the fan had started to sound like this:

A rumbling, screeching, grinding that could be heard throughout the house.
Dana was able to clean it out, lubricate the works, and it was a little better. For a little while. But we knew that the fan would need to be replaced sooner rather than later.

We looked around and found this guy from Panasonic:

The answer to our prayers

The problem? This fan sits in the attic. The cramped, fiberglass-filled attic. And the quotes we got to install it were $200 or more.

Enter my hero:

No superhero in tights has ever been this sexy

First Dana pulled out the old fan. I'm not surprised this was making that noise. Might it have been original to the house?

Then, with about 18 trips up and down the ladder, measuring twice (and cutting twice), the new fan was in. 

Here's some of what happened in the attic:

Dana looked at this and knew what to do. What a rockstar!

And just 1 afternoon later, we have a fan, with a light, that sounds like a whisper.

Success!

Why this house?

How did we decide that this was the house for us? It's a long story, but it has a happy ending!

Our realtor, Brooke, was awesome. Before we even met she had us fill out a questionnaire that really got us to think about what was important to us. Did our house have to have a certain number of bedrooms? Would we consider a two-story? A split-level? How about a townhouse or condo?

Dana and I really thought hard about what we wanted - mostly based on what we hadn't liked about our places in Woodbury and Inver Grove Heights. Number one on our list was no shared walls - we wanted a standalone single-family house. 3 or more bedrooms, at least 1.5 baths. Dana and I had talked a lot about finding a house with an unfinished basement, so we could finish it ourselves and add some equity. We would be willing to make some cosmetic updates but we didn't want to re-do anything major, like a kitchen or a bathroom.

We both wanted to be closer to work. I work in Edina and the drive from Woodbury (20 miles each way) was killing me. We weren't sure where Dana would eventually find a job, so we figured that it wouldn't be too hard to find something more centrally-located than Woodbury.

Next post: We start looking at houses!

Welcome!

So six months after we closed, time to document some of what we've done!

Dana and I closed on our first house in Bloomington Minnesota March 30, 2011. It was in great shape - it had been remodeled just before we bought it - so the work we have done is mostly just to make it our own.

The basics:

Built in 1969

3 bedrooms

1.75 bathrooms

Kitchen, dining room, living room, bedrooms and bathrooms all on the main floor.

Basement is unfinished (now - it was finished in the past but flooded and now it's bare)

It's a rambler, or maybe a ranch? I'm not sure what I'd call it.

Stay tuned for more about how we're making this house our home.