Ohhhh how I love me some gutters

Yes I did say gutters, next to a good scotch, cigar, yellow diamonds and my Jimmy's right now gutters are my version of a yellow diamond.  Its ok...I have issues...give it two weeks it will be garage doors.

We GOT GUTTERS!!!
I know right...how can a house NOT have gutters?!?!!  That sounds really insane, like isn't gutters house 101?!?!?!  Well guess what..it's not and we had to pay to put them in.  Now that seems like a fairly simply deal right.  Roll of seamless gutters, some screws, maybe some paint...pppsssaaaahhh what would be complicated.

oh wait...its OUR HOUSE...everything is complicated out here.

Our fascia was rotted cause the house never had gutters (shocking I know) so that had to be replaced.  But a carpenter only replaces the wood, not paint it.  A gutter guy only does gutters not the wood and the painter well...you get my point.  After weeks of looking I found a company that does it all and it was great.  They gave us great discounts that it was no problem going with them.  Booked the appointment and a couple weeks later...I have GGGGGUUUUUUUTTTTTTTEEEERRRSSSS!!!

Thank you JB Masters for a great crew and an amazing job!

To Plant a Garden is to Believe in the future

Apparently my mom feels our future is going to be vast!!!  I bought a few plants, less than 10, knowing that things were going to be a bit crazy when we first bought the house.  When everything that happened with the retaining wall went down I essentially gave up all hope of a nice tiered flower bed and that raised galvanized vegetable garden was no longer in the plans for the next...ohhhhh three years.

Enter my Mom...my green thumb, bulb salivating, can make any plant come back to life Mom.  She went bonkers in the "clearance" aisle at Wal-mart, Lowe's, Home depot...anywhere selling plants.  Lets not add what my neighbors, (million and 5 year old Mrs. Faye who still mows her own lawn and Garden enthusiast Mrs. Trudy who knows every tree/plant I have on my property) giving her different types to plant.  She got tools, a back brace and put her music on and went to town.   Ohhhh....she had me get a TRUCK BED full of mulch (yes only $5 but still...truck bed) to cover said plants or use to kill other areas "for future planting"

All that being said...holy hell it looks amazing.  I'm pretty sure she is going to take up target practice to get the deer and/or raccoon in the neighborhood but she did any amazing job. I may not have the best looking exterior house but my Mom sure does have impressive gardens.

Even Vivi is involved in it!

Please PAHLEASE don't electrocute yourself!!!

When we were discussing things that we could do ourselves Jordan said he could do the outlets and the switches himself (no need to pay someone).  I am pretty sure he heard the teeth suck clearly half way across the world.  But The Man said he had itI had to trust he had it.  And let me tell you....he TOTALLY did...until the front entrance.  Where for three solid hours he cussed at the switches climbed up and down the stairs at least a hundred times and couldn't get them to work.  All I heard was "this doesn't make sense, why would you wire this backwards?!?!?!"  I tried so so sooo very hard not to be snarky with my comments but I finally had to pull him aside and say "its because it's our house that everything is backwards...can we please call the electrician now so we can enjoy our day?"  He gave in and a couple bennies later the lights work...ish...the flood light is a super emotional whence that goes on in a breeze but not when someone walks buy.  Again...our house...why wouldn't it be moody :)

What's in a door...EVERYTHING!!

Jordan and I went to look at front and garage doors knowing that they are going to have to be replaced before the cold sets in.  The color we had picked for the front door was just perfect for me but I was super super concerned that it wasn't going to be something that he liked.  So off to Lowe's I went to do a color match.  And this is a testament to just how much time I have spent there in the past 90 days when I walk up to the paint area, my expert Donna looks at her trainee Sam and says " I don't care what you are working on when you see this lady you stop and help her.  She spends A LOT of money in this store!" 

Yes....yes I do...(le sigh)

So here is where we are going for the door concepts

This is what was in the house

This is the color we picked out I'm thinking its gonna look fancy!!

And than there were the trees...otherwise known as "fire mitigation"

When we bought the house we knew that we were going to have cut down some trees.  I mean come on there is a tree DIRECTLY under my house in front of my master bedroom....trees were coming down.  So being a smart person I went and got estimates and let me tell you cutting down trees is the business to be in.  I was quoted anywhere from $2000 - $6000 to cut and haul the trees.  My Mom, bless her awesome self, gifted Jordan and I a husqvarna chainsaw for father/mother day and let me tell you...I LOVE THAT THING!

There were a total of 36 trees that had to come down and 10 that had to be trimmed and let me tell you after the whole electrical/landscape debacle my hate fire was raggin' and I had trees to take it out on.  Pretty sure I scared the bejesus out of my Mom a few times but man oh man was it fun.  Now not all the trees are down, there are 8 that have to be professional removed.  They are taller than the house and there is no way I am risking doing damage by taking it down myself.  Plus Jordan wants to take down some trees too :)

I have to have the fire department come out and make sure that I'm good to go and thank you El Paso Country for the Slash/Mulch program.  No kidding $2 a load and they take all the branches and my neighbors who have wood burn have taken the actual trees.  Awesomeness!

Here is some of the pictures for you.

Can of Worms I say

Really starting to feel like the house is that way.  I start one project get about 30% into and than 5 more things pop up.  I get to 80% and I feel like "eh" and force myself to finish the last 20%.

Lets talk electrical shall we???  We knew when buying the house that we were going to have to update the electrical due to the panel being only 100amp and a Federal Pacific (50-50 chance of just burning the house down).  When we brought out the electrician to give us a estimate this is where things turned south.  Like everything else in the house the builders cut corners and the didn't lay a conduit for the electrical line to the pole.  YUP live wire barely 6 inches in the dirt roughly 95 feet in length.   A-W-E-S-O-M-E
So a $1600 project turned into $5500 in a blink and now we had to dig a trench.  This was my past week.  electrical and a trench...joy.  Now par for course we get the trench going and my retaining walls, made up of lord knows how old railroad ties, started to crumble.  Just crumble and now that is another $2000 in just trying to get the retaining wall by the house replaced.  The retaining wall by the lower driveway I am going to do at a later date cause when our fantastic landscaper said nearly 6k for it all I just felt like I got gut punched.  That will be a later post on how that went.

oh oh oh oh oh and tttthhhhhaaaannnnn my furnace died after we turned the power on. You know on the day it snowed, in MAY, it just died.  Thanks be to God for that warranty and it only cost us $75.  Two out of the three major components went to furnace heaven.  But at least its working and keeping us toasty warm.

Huge shout out to Swartz Electrical and their entire staff for not robbing us blind and genuinely caring about the work they do.
Aire Serv for getting the heat back up in half a day (Friday afternoon no less)
Mountain Splendor Services,PH - 719-683-9214

Old Panel

New Panel

Need a bigger painting now

Our fantastic Electricians

Guys getting to work

Digging the trench

Rotted retaining wall full of Cintrella Ants

Bloody (lots of profanity) exhausted

My hair follicles hurt...yes they hurt.
While so much has happened I look around and still feel that its NOWHERE near enough. I'm going to try and break things down in bits so that I don't flood one post with pictures cause man oh man are there pictures.

Gabe's Room

Vivi picked out the paint for his room.  Its a very vibrant green but it really works in there.  We had a ceiling fan put in and I am going to update his doors and closet here soon (add to list) but here is how his room turned out.

He seems to like his room...well at least his bed

Vivi's Room

She originally picked out no kidding pepto pink and I just ignored that and went with the purple.  She went bonkers when she saw it.  She also suckered me into the ceiling fan and the guy at Lowe's didn't help the case when he said I could replaced the blades.

Kid's Bathroom

Vivi yet again picked out the paint and must say the kid has a knack for it (1 out of 5 horrible is pretty solid).  Jordan picked out the iron cast towel hangers and I just pretty much tried not to burn it down.  All in all I say it came out pretty nice.  I got the hardware at Hobby Lobby and we already had the shower curtain and Brave/Mike the Knight Stickers.

For some reason I didn't take a total before picture of the pain but you get the point

Lastly here is Vivi drawing a picture of her "forever house".  As you can see she is a bit excited!