Who Shot the Mama? But Did Not Shoot the Deputy...

(I know they aren't the lyrics, but it's the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the picture. Thanks, Bob Marley!) There's one member of our little clan whom I have (so far) failed to really mention.  This one member REALLY, REALLY loves the new casa and makes us believe that our selection and purchase of number nine was essentially for her and no one else.  I have never in my life seen a happier dog.  Yup, I speak of the one and only, Mama (or Stella for those who aren't familiar with her moniker).  The back yard is Mom's little mecca of all things deemed most important to a pup.  Since the yard is fenced in, she has freedom from the leash that once restricted her. (And P.S. anyone reading whom has a pup that loves to play and would benefit from a fenced in yard, Mama is taking applications for friends to come over and play.)  However, this new found freedom also means new found exhaustion and fatigue.  You see, Mama runs and runs and runs AND runs until she has run herself what some would view as dead.  See what I mean? 

Then, she gets up and runs some more.  Last week when the heat was hovering around 90 degrees, Mom was still running; honestly we all weren't quite sure how.  When we got back to my Dad's after a long day working, Mama passed out.  When it was time for bed, she slllooooowwwwlllyyy raised her exhausted body from her dog bed and limped - as if she were a dog 10x her age - to bed.  At first we thought that she had hurt a foot or buster a pad, but when we realized it was from achy muscles we chuckled.  This dog had literally run herself out; and for those of you whom have met her, know that she is high energy...so yea, that's how much she runs.  


Before we bought this house, I would constantly hear Ed say things like: "I want my own lawn to mow" and "I want my own garage to put my tools in" and "I need my own throne".  Well, the lawn hadn't been mowed in almost a month; it was a mini-jungle.  Seriously, it was taller than Mama stood.  My amazingly-awesome-kick-ass Dad bequeathed his Honda mower to us to use for an indefinite amount of time (read he's so excited to have it out of his garage, I thought he was going to throw a party. Who likes beer?)  This mower has been sitting idle for 13 YEARS, plus, I remember using it to cut the lawn when I was a youngin'.  So, it's old.  Ed (because he's AWESOME) fixed this sucker up, got it running like a sewing machine and wah-la!  Ed got his wish...a lawn to mow and a mower to mow it with.  Awww, a happy ending.  It even fit in the back of the GTI.  What up, hatchbacks?!    

We got tile!!  More specifically, bathroom floor tile and you know what?  It's gorgeous.  Want to know what else?  Ed picked it out.  Want to know one more thing?  We negotiated the price down to the cheaper tile price we didn't want.  What?  We're on a beer budget and have champagne taste.  This tile is marble.  This tile is light colored with gray veining.  This tile melts my heart.  This tile will rock your socks, guaranteed. 

The plumbers finished their work - ha ha ha ha!! - or so we thought.  Yea, well, in addition to the thirty breaks and countless broken couplings they found, they also found the furnace will not hold pressure.  Wah-wah.  Buzz kill.  So, we are faced with quite a few thousand to replace the furnace.  I personally think heat and hot water are overrated, but others (everyone except Katie) seems to disagree.  The mold guys - remember them?  They're the guys in the tyvek suites with capes. No?  Well, they came and saved the day with the mold-mobile and mold signal in the sky and a 20 yard dumpster.  I want to kiss these men.  Seriously, they offered for us to use their dumpster for $85.  Yep, let's slash that $600+ quote from numerous dumpster dropper-offers  and use the superhero mold guys dumpster for $85.  Score.  House 17, Kel & Ed 1.  We still have time to catch up, people.  Have a little faith.  We'll have a beer. 

Ok, well, I think I've covered this very busy week - one of which was full of craptastic surprises, superhero's in tyvek, and wore out puppy dogs.  We will be victorious eventually, it's just going to take (a lot of) time.  I'm ready to go back to Hawaii.  Now.  Please.  Is a second honeymoon before a first anniversary out of the question?  What's that?  I hear you whispering furnace in my ear.  Ya, thanks.  And here I thought we were mates.  That amazing swim with an endangered green sea turtle on the Big Island is still fresh in my mind.  I'll visit that for now I guess.  That water was so clear and so warm...

We Are Talkin' Cents, Baby...

So, do you remember a while back when I spoke about how Ed and I never pay full price for anything we purchase?  Well, we held true to our philosophy while making some major (and gorgeous!) purchases this weekend.  Check out the deals we scored!!  Ready for this amazingly gigantic dose of awesome sauce?  Can you handle it?!  I said ... CAN YOU HANDLE IT?!  Ha ha.  Yelling is almost as fun as using a wrecking bar.  Note, I said almost.


So, now that I'm done yelling at you (with a smile on my face, of course), I want to share with you a very proud moment for not only Ed and I, but for our wallets.  Remember I mentioned my favorite online shopping site ebates.com?  Well, using them at Lowes.com earns you a whopping 4.0% cash back.  Memorial Day weekend boasted a LOT of amazing sales and desperate need to boost the American economy.  Well, we par took in this attempt to boost the economy and for good reason.  Check it out...

• Frigidaire 30-Inch Smooth Surface Freestanding Electric Range:  Original price $899.00 + tax + delivery.  Total: $1039.00

Kelly and Ed price: $719 + tax + free delivery + 4.0% cash back.  Total: $746.00  Savings: $293.00 (!!) 

Next up: 

• Whirlpool 3.5 Cu. Ft. Front-Load Washer ENERGY STAR: Original price: $699.00 + tax + delivery. Total: $822.00

Kelly & Ed price: $424.50 +tax + free delivery + 4.0% cash back. Total: $441.00.  Savings: $381.00 (!!).  

So, are you all proud of us?  All and all, we spent $1187.00 opposed to the $1861.00 without sales.  We still have to buy the matching dryer and microwave, but honestly, this red house is expensive ( I know you thought that exact thought after seeing the gutted bathroom AND kitchen) and making sure there's enough to go around is more important than a dryer/microwave right this minute.  Priorities people.  We have landed in the world of adulthood and honestly, it's weird to be excited over appliances when I used to be excited over concert tickets by the 10x and the next road trip I was going to take.   Ah, how life changes.  

The End. Of This Chapter. Three Parts.

First:  Memorial Day weekend offered all of us a three day weekend.  However, I can't not post the importance of why our three day weekend came to fruition.  Hero's.  American Hero's that put their lives on the lines, have sacrificed their lives and time and families to ensure that us here, on the mainland, stay safe and continue to exercise our freedoms.  Thank you. 


Second:  *Disclaimer* *The wellbeing of my family is never second.  Never.  Just wanted to clear that up.*  I want to wish my amazingly-awesome sauce-somewhat-broken-sister-in-law, Marilyn, a get well soon.  Dudes, her thumb is bad ass and broken.  Surgery, broken.  Pins in two spots, broken.  Her SCUBA tank kicked her thumbs ass (if her thumb had an ass).  I will spare you the picture she sent me.  Owwwww-ch.  Love you, Mar!!  


Third:  Look at our kitchen...now.  I killed it.  Ok, I didn't kill it, I simply was doing it a favor by giving it a makeover - What Not To Wear Style.  I have to give creds where creds are due.  Thanks to Adam, Dad and Ed for their help, burgers, dogs, and delicious beers.  Doesn't it already look a billion times better??  Wait till you see our new pretties... 

 The last pic is just a silly add on.  Ed's trying to fix the new bathtub.  It's goin' well ... as you can see. 

New stuff comin' soon.  Fun!! 

Sweat Equity. Literally.

A lot has happened at Red House Nine since the last time we spoke and there is progress!  I've been a really bad blogger and haven't been around much, but there is a LOT going on (seriously, it's not an excuse, I still love you all and don't think any of you smell, promise).  Ed's little red GTI died last week - the day of the Rapture. It was a causality of the rapture, and when I say died, I mean it - D.E.D., dead.  We are faced with having to purchase another car on top of everything else that is going on.  Wonderful, right?  Who needs cabinets and a stove when we could have another car.  Ah-boo.  Anyway, I digress and didn't mean to turn this into a bitch session .... but really? REALLY?!  ugh. 

This long weekend has held a lot of surprises for us in terms of discoveries (including the 85 degree + heat).  We found that the sub-floor in the bathroom around the tub and toilet was made of marshmallows.  Ok, well not literally, but the amount of water damage around those two areas made the sub floor mush. So much so that if we (read Dad and Ed) hadn't taken the time (an entire day of aggravating work) to replace it, the next person to use the toilet would have ended up in the basement.  Yay Dad and Ed!  So, you may be asking what I was doing while Dad and Ed were fixing the marshmallow floor.  Well, you may have guessed I was slacking off working on my tan or frolicking in the sand under the broken pool, but no! I was not!  I was wrecking the kitchen and disassembling the cabinets, psychedelic tile, and dance party USA ceiling.  There were a LOT of surprises in the ghetto-kinda-fixed-but-not-really kitchen. Wanna see a couple?  

Yes, what you're looking at are ancient hornets/bees nests that are directly built on the insulation and wall boards.  I bet you're wondering how they got in there.  Well, see that rectangular "window"?  That was a vent that was at one time hooked up to a vent that went to a range hood which then vented outside.  That was hidden behind the cabinets not sealed off and stuffed with insulation.  So, we took out the vent and fixed up the non-window window the correct way from the inside and the out and moved on.  Next, we found the tiles came off with ease...pop, pop, pop... and that's not a good thing.  We wanted a challenge and if it were tiled right in the first place, it would have.  What? I love using a wrecking bar!  The plumbers have so far found 28 (!) breaks in the heating/domestic system.  This is a far cry from the 7 we were originally told by the sellers.  Some souvenirs and a 85% gut kitchen:

So, those are a few of the surprises we have found so far.  Yea, that's right, I said so far.  This house has all of us saying multiple times a day "this place never ceases to amaze us" and that isn't being said in the optimistic butterflies and rainbows way. No, it's being in said in a "are you even freakin' kiddin' me?!" skulls and crossbones kinda way.  We are diligently working on putting the bathroom back together and we hope it will be as awesome in real life as it looks in our visions.  Stay tuned, kiddies.  The good stuff is ahead!

Wreckin' The Place.

Who doesn't love some good ol' fashioned demolition?  I know I do!  My brother, Adam, made a really clever suggestion to us come the Saturday after closing - his first visit to our new humble abode.  After scoping the place out, he mentioned how the front closet missing one door could be removed, thus opening up the entire entryway.  What's that you say?  A plain, unobstructed view to my future lime green door and or new and improved kitchen?  Ok!  Sold!  So, with that decision made, my dad began disassembling the front closet.  Not too long after, however, he found that the closet was built like Fort Knox leading him to believe that it could be potentially load bearing.  Psych!  It wasn't (well the wall to the very far right lining the staircase is, but the rest is not) and the rest of the closet will be magically transformed into ... I'm not telling. 

 

While the closet destruction was taking place, Ed and I began demolition on the mold-riddled bathroom upstairs and IT. WAS. FUN!  The amount of mold surprised us, but not on a 'holy crap that's a ton of mold' scale, but more of a 'that's it?' scale.  The mold was 95% around the tub and the remaining 5% on the floor - honestly, I was expecting to see it EVERYWHERE.  So, Ed and I to got swingin' our sledge hammers and pounding on the crowbars and took that bathroom down.  Kel & Ed: 1, Moldy Bathroom: 0.

When too may cooks were in the umm, bathroom, Ed, Adam and Dad all went down to the kitchen to see what disaster they could stir up.  Well, lo-and-behold, a disaster was waiting to be found, and found it those men did.  Remember the full frontal of our giant fridge and the UGLY white cabinets that surrounded them?  They are gone. Hasta la bye-bye. Adios.  Ed took his new toy, the sawzall, and wrecked 'um (wrecked 'um? damn near killed 'um!).  What discoveries were made behind the monster fridge and not-attached-to-anything cabinets??? MOLD!!!  wah-wah.  Also, we found that the lazy-ass geniuses that put this 'kitchen' together decided to tile AROUND the cabinets and fridge.  They also shimmed the countertop to 'attach' it to the cabinets.  So, honestly, Ed and I have decided that the entire kitchen is going to be replaced.  Hear that screaming?  Yea, that's our wallet saying uncle.  

So what were Ed, Adam, Dad, and myself left to do?  Hey!  Don't judge.  It was a long (albeit saddening) day.  Well, for some of us. 

Video Bid-ness.

While Ed was changing locks at the house today, I decided to shoot you all a video tour of Red House Nine.  Excited?! I bet.  It's almost as exciting as winning the lotto ... or maybe just finding a heads up penny on the ground .... or going to the dentist.

Plan on a revisit when the place is transformed into awesomeness. Ok, maybe not awesomeness, but definitely more awesome than a visit to the dentist.

P.S. sorry for the lame-o commentary and my over usage of the words hot and awesome.

Red Hizzouse #9 and the Tale of How It Belongs To Us!

And my friends ...... we have a house!!!!  

Ok, so there's no tale, really. We closed yesterday and got the key today!!  Ed and I are more excited than you know (no really, we are).  However, I can't sit behind this computer screen and tell you that we aren't just a little bit terrified.  I know, I know, it's a 'good' terrified, and we both truly believe it.  This is a one MILLION percent upgrade from the 12550 address we used to have.  Yea, our 'old hood' is now riddled with gang and drug busts weekly by the FBI (yea, breaking out the big guns - literally). Compared to that, this terrified feeling is most welcome.  So all-in-all we are looking forward to all of the renovations, aggravation, guests, cookouts and family gatherings.  And yes, if you must know, the fact that #9 is an odd number drives me crazy.  I'm just happy it's not prime and it has a square root. 

Oh! P.S. Our Real Estate agent gifted us this: 

Yep, she's amazing!! Give it up - whaaaat-whaaaaatttt!!