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!

Hot Mess = Our house

11 days later and the hurricane of making the house "safe" to move in is in full effect.

Things we have done so far:
1. Had the popcorn ceilings removed.  In doing so we discovered that the drywall wasn't put in properly (shocking) which added 2 days to that project getting done.
2. Enclosing in the half wall in the living room.  That is actually going well (thank you Eddie and crew).
3. The original appliances have been replaced (thank you all the sweet angels) and are working (thank you Angel Paul for that!).
4. The kids bathroom has been painted.  Just waiting for the ceilings to be done and will get to the doors.
5. The Alarm system was put in  (go safety)
6. The kitchen has been painted as well as the cabinets and just waiting for the ceilings to be done to finish.


Happening this week:
1. The Carpets :D
2. New Lights/ceiling fans double :D
3. Finishing Kids bath and fingers cross kitchen

Angel Paul putting in the Dishwasher

That would be gross contact paper layer THREE

The half wall becoming a full wall

The kids bathroom going from nasty brown to a pale yellow Vivi picked out

The kitchen in phase of painting and new appliances. 

Its Officially OURS!!!

Like I said in the last post we got Le Ugly Dream House at a relative steal.  Reason behind that is the seller essentially refused to do ANYTHING to the house aside from fixing outlets and the railway coming to the front door.  Aside from that...nada!  Me being me and Jordan being my partner in all things essentially said "oh really well than we want you to pay; 1. Our realtors fee 2. Half of closing 3. Titling fees 3. Insurance/taxes to this point"

Now if the seller had just spent a mere 5k in the house he probably would have gotten 90k in closing but since he was being difficult he got under 20k (HA!). Meanwhile we were able to buy down 1.25% and got money back (wwwwwhhhhaaattttt uuuuupppp).  So when you see the dancing pictures it will all make sense :D

I couldn't have dreamed of a better birthday gift of being handed the keys to where we are going to raise our kids for next 18+ years.  Le Ugly Dream House = El Barr Casita

We are days away from closing on our house...our very ugly dream house.  It has 1.6 acres, 3 bedroom, 3 baths and is less than 10ms from "town".  We are getting the country feel but still close to town for the kids and work (wherever that will be).  I'm really shocked how well priced we got the house for considering that its the non burnt part of Black Forest but woooooooooowwwwwweeeeee does it need work!  Thus begins our journey making our Ugly Dream House into our Dream House.

Here are pictures of what I'm talking about.  Hello Brady Bunch Split level!

Classic Split Level...can you believe that they painted it this color!!!

Another view of the house

Detached Garage - that's a interesting story!

Master Bath - look at all that lovely blue!

Kids bath...there are no words

That entrance is TILE...someone ACTUALLY laid that down!