Our New House!

Denver turns from Summer to Winter in a matter of weeks, there’s not much of a Fall to speak of.  We went from warm weather to snow and wind just before Halloween.  Halloween was a overly successful.  We converted our front patio into a mini-haunted house:  Enclosed the entire patio in black plastic and added tomb stones, decorative wall coverings, cobwebs, black lights, scary music, various skeletal figures and filled it all with a smoke machine.  Kevin dressed in a gargoyle outfit with full latex mask, make-up and wings.  Megan had various bloody latex wounds and a deathly make-up job.  They hid in the smoke and scared those old enough to enjoy it.  Unfortunately, there were too many very young children, some of which were too afraid to even enter.  During the night, our neighbor across the street kept adding things to their home trying to duplicate  what we were doing, with their kids trying to scare people as well.  In any case, it was thoroughly enjoyable for us all.

Next year, we plan to go with a pirate theme and convert our entire garage.  Ann has given her okay to paint the walls into a Pirate’s Cove.  We’ll have to start planning early.

Thanksgiving was pleasant.  We had Ann’s extended family over with lots of food and games for all.  We continued our new tradition of having a Friday night dinner, so more friends and family can come over and everyone can bring in leftovers from the night before.

Our new house continues to be a rewarding pleasure and an exellent party host.

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Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted as the pace has slowed on things now that we are settled in.  The summer went well.  I picked up a lawn mower and trimmer and used them on the front lawn every weekend through the growing season.  The grass is thick and luxurious, so comfortable to sit and lay on.  The summer concluded with putting up the only fence we needed to complete… Continue Reading »

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A few weeks ago, a friend of our told us they were redesigning their back yard and would be bulldozing much of their garden. If we wanted anything we could come over and dig it up. So, we rented a U-Haul pickup truck, bought some supplies from the hardware store and headed over to their place in Denver.

We dug up four very large tree-like shrubs and about ten small ones. We started at about 1:00. It was a nice day but fairly long work. By the time we had some dinner and got home it was 7:00pm and nearly dark. The dirt in our backyard is all clay. It’s tough to dig in and incredibly sticky when wet. I went at it with a pick but it was still hard work. We got everything in the ground but my back was sore for three days after. Continue Reading »

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It’s been a long time since my last post. It’s amazing how things have slowed down now that we’re in the house. For those of you who have followed so far, you might remember that we had designated a sitting corner in the living room next to the fireplace. However, the leather chairs we had picked out were sold out by the time we were ready to buy them. We had put two of our dining room chairs in their place, the two we had with arms on them. Well, Ann finally found some suitable chairs for the corner. Continue Reading »

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A few weeks ago we picked up some assemble-yourself furnature for the dining room.  In lieu of a buffet, we found a couple of great units.  One is a set of 8 drawers, the other has three doored cabinets.  Yesterday, I finally hung the curtain rod in the dining room as well.  Ann has sewn up the curtains and just needed a length check to hem the bottom.  We still need to settle on a fabric for the living room curtains.  I still just have the black-out fabric hanging by itself.

We had Barbara and our friend Mary over for Barbara’s birthday so we got the house nicely cleaned up.  Here are some pictures of the dining room and living room so far.  Continue Reading »

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Ok, here’s the long story.  We picked out a great set of couches from JC Penny.  We had family and friends sit in them and they were perfect.  So, after a month of mulling it over, we picked out the sectional pieces that we liked and ordered them in October.  That night we cut out some large construction paper to the size of each of the pieces and layed them out in our living room and found that they were just a little too big.  We cut some new pieces based on a sheet we had of all the furnature they had available in this brand and found a new layout that would work better.  We called JC Penny and cancelled our original order until we could be sure of what we wanted.

Continue Reading »

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Room decorating is going very slowly. I just upgraded my fish tank over the weekend and just tonight cleaned up the mess.  At one time I had 5 fish tanks running:  50-, 30-, 10-, 6- and 5-gallon sizes.  This was back in a previous townhome, before the last apartment.  At that time, I phased out all of them just so I could start and keep up with a Reef Tank in the 50-gallon.  Once we moved out of there and into the last apartment, there was no room for such a big fish tank so I downsized to a 30-gallon. Continue Reading »

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We closed on the house on Wednesday 10/25, started planning our move on Friday and started packing that night with the help of Barbara.  We rented a moving truck for Saturday and Sunday, figuring that we could move everything ourselves.  Or original plan was to hire movers for the second day to handle all the big stuff, but between Kevin, Ann and I, we were able to get everything but the couches, which are going to be left behind anyway.  Friday night, the kids and I wanted to stay the night at the new house.  Ann slept at the apartment.

We spent all day Saturday moving but Kevin had to work in the morning so he and I handled the big stuff when he got home at the end of the day.  We loaded up the truck and hauled over the first load.  We unloaded some things into the house, but most of it was just put into the garage.  We only unloaded part of the truck since it was getting late, saving the rest for Sunday morning.  We had moved the beds so, from that night on, we only slept at the new house. Continue Reading »

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As much as this house is perfect for us, we have already begun improvements even before we have moved in.  Yesterday, right after closing, I went to the house to break in our keys.  The locks of all the houses in the community are set to accept a master key used by the builder only until the new owner first uses their new keys.  So, I had to go to the house and turn all of the locks one time with our keys so that the builder’s master key will no longer work on our locks.

While insulating the garage is, technically, the first home improvement project we completed, I did two more on our first day of ownership. Continue Reading »

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WE OWN a HOUSE!  We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     Woo hoo!  We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     Woo hoo!  We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     We own a house!!!     Woo hoo!

And we even got $127 back!

We’ll start some real moving this weekend!

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