Sad News

Well thankfully the AC is fixed for good....and the bills should be drastically lower! That's the good news. The bad news is that after our hard work (well, Mike's) and being totally in love with this house, we are deeply saddened to have made the decision to sell......not a decision we take lightly, and not one we had planned on doing this soon (the tax bill just went down for crying out loud!) but other commitments and circumstances beyond our control have facilitated this decision.
Do me a big favor-Pass The Word Around! It will be a special kind of person who will fall in love with the house as I did.....big old houses are not for everyone. It is a commitment of both time and money. I know there is someone out there who will love this house as much as I do.....I just hope I find him or her soon.....I want to sell soon.....I hate having a house on the market for extended periods of time, I'm not that neat! The house still needs a little bit of work, the previous owners did a lot, we did some, including the new roof last year......but nothing major.....we had an extremely thorough inspection done when we bought in '05, and nothing really bad was cited.....just the expected, replace some wood here and there.....most of the problems in the inspection were fixed by replacing the roof......the landscaping is not finished....we will continue to work on it. I think the biggest selling point will be the size of the house (3,036 sf). Not a lot of choices in this neighborhood if you want a big house, particularly on a double lot. Heck, my neighbor's house is for sale for $650K.....granted, it's beautiful and much more "done" than this house, he really did an extensive and quality job on it. Size is the key factor here.....4 bedrooms, 3 full baths, huge living room, dining room, den, office, front parlor, laundry room and kitchen with a walk in pantry. An interesting history doesn't hurt either......an elevated water tower in 1915 looked to have provided water for the newly platted neighborhood.....people were coming up to the spigot in front by the "Water 10 cents" sign up into the 70s. Boarding house, bordello, halfway house and back to an awesome single family house is quite an interesting life. Plus it is the homiest, most comfortable, welcoming house I've ever lived in except for maybe the cottage on Sebago Lake up in Maine that my papa built just shortly after this was built. Now I'm getting emotional (again). Forgive my rambling......it is an awesome house, please let someone know it is available; I am asking $500K....we'll see where that goes......I'm happy to talk to anyone about the house....but I will only show the house by appointment; I have dogs who need to be stuffed in the car and taken for a ride when I show it......bad vibes for potential buyers to be mauled while looking at their potential next house.
Thanks for reading my rambling........and please pass the word.....

Hot Enough For You??

Not much has gone on around here...its been sooo hot! We are trying to get more mulch delivered so we can continue the back yard, and we finished the side door installation except for the paint; we are thinking over a new color scheme so we will probably wait on painting that. We have also been busy watching our new sod die out....not sure whats going on there, but we think it may be chinch bugs; we did spray for them, but the rains may have washed the application away before it got to work. I am not laying one more piece of sod until we figure out what is killing everything, the other side (the driveway side) is completely grassless-weeds only, at least they are green.
Also occupying our minds has been our latest electric bill...and this will make all of you bungalow owners happy with your bills.....$702! We think (we are actually praying) that something is wrong, the bill or usage have never been that high, and it is substantially higher than last years bill. We have not added any energy munching appliance or a pool....and I actually bought some drapes just for this reason, to save some energy. The highest bill we have seen was just over $500 last September. We are trying to get an AC guy over to give us the once over...we have checked what we can check, the water heater, the thermostats......I really hope something is out of kilter.....who has $700 electric bills??

Kitchen Floors

We have a really colorful kitchen; "atomic tangerine" painted walls.....black tile counter......pretty jazzy. The floor is a slate-like tile, which I thought for sure was slate until I saw an unused tile.....I personally think the room is screaming for black and white tiles....not that there is anything wrong with the current floor.....besides a little missing grout and cracked tiles.....I just think black and white would look sooooo good in there. I guess I could say "well, there are cracks and some missing grout, so we really need to replace the whole floor", but I guess I'm not ashamed of the fact that I want to do something which is not an emergency, not necessary for the integrity of the house, not paramount to good health, just something I want to do. I have seen so many older homes with the checkerboard floors, they look so nice, and with the splashy colors in our kitchen, I think it would be awesome! I guess the only thing standing in the way is demolition of the existing floor (we are used to the house self-demolishing before we fix), it would feel weird ripping up a perfectly good (almost) floor....and it is also very labor intensive (to me anyway). I also am not sure it I should go with black and white ceramic tiles, or black and white linoleum squares...I think a large percentage of the floors I've seen like this are linoleum. I guess I will have to do some research......

Teenagers in My Area??

I am wondering aloud (or should I say-in print) if there are any young teenagers around my house...I have a daughter who just does not have anyone to hang around with, and we really thought that since we were so close to the schools there would be droves of kids here.....but alas, I don't see any. I'm really hoping whomever buys and/or moves in across the street will have someone in this age group. Any OSH neighbors who know about anyone....(I know that's cheesy, but hey-it's my kid) let me know...my daughter would KILL me if she knew I was asking.......

Slow Times

Not much posting lately; some personal commitments, minor surgery and inability to charge my camera have prevented me from posting anything monumental. I am feeling better, but still I have little to update.
The rotted side we have been working on is almost done.....some finish work and paint and it will be history, and the last of any outside work until fall...too darn hot! We will forever and ever have siding replacement to do, one section at a time, the most rotted and nasty looking gets first priority. Due to the scourge of time and weather, this will never be completed. This particular job was really overdue.
I do think I will push forward on the backyard project......it's mainly free, so that fits right in with the budget. I hope to have the entire back mulched this summer so we can stat planting stuff this fall. I'm not sure on when the walkways will go in, I figure the mulch and plantings will form some pathways to some extent. Probably within a week or two, the mulch piles will reappear on our driveway.
I am really frustrated with the front yard; just as we get the "bad" side sodded, the "good" side goes and dies......I think we may have some sort of infestation.....even the new sod we put in the corners died, and the plugs we put in last season which were doing great are dead now too....only the weeds prevail. Pretty unbalanced yard....starting to think strongly of doing the mulch thing in front too......why waste time, money & water on an impossible task? A couple of my neighbors have very nice front lawns, but I think that is not the norm in Seminole Heights. Plus these lawns are so small, I could afford to re sod them every season, which is probably what they do..(I'm not bitter). I'll think on that for awhile....maybe draw up some plans, look at some pictures of glassless front yards.......it's got to be pretty!