Humboldt County Herb Garden

Here is our new pretty herb garden. Designed by Mamma Donna and myself.

Before=YUCK

Afters=Pretty

Starting to fill in ;-)

My Veggie Garden is in! ;-)

Last week while Bob took 9 days of vacation his mother came up from So Cal to check out our new first home and help me around the house. While she was here our number one priority was getting my vegetable beds in and planted. This proved to be slightly difficult because our yard is pretty sloped in that location and we had to build a fence around it as well to keep the puppies out. As you can imagine there was much confusion and disagreements on how to do it right but after finally getting everything level and square the garden came together perfectly. :-) I LOVE IT! So without much further ado, here it is.

What's in the garden:

2 tomato plants

broccoli 

snow peas

sugar snap peas

green beans 

carrots

onions

garlic 

artichoke 

strawberries 

hot peppers 

red and russet potatoes (in wine barrels) 

Ultimate before 

Ripping up the grass and setting fence posts

Beds going in 

The beds are 6x8 and 6 in deep at the front and 12 in at the back

Mamma Donna shoveling in the soil mixture 

Fence coming along

Zoey our garden guard dog 

Complete! YAY

Baby green beans and sugar snap peas sprouting 

    

The Fence is Done

• Well, its been done for weeks now but we have just been so busy that I have had no time to post! The fence turned out beautifully and I can't do anything in my front yard without someone walking by and saying "nice fence!" or "good job!" However, we can't take all the credit because we got really lucky finding our contractor Jerry. We had several fence companies come out to give us estimates, none of them seemed to understand what we wanted and never got back to us once we thought they understood. Jerry understood right away what we were envisioning and added his own great ideas. Needless to say we will have him out again to help with some other project.
  

Before

Posts in place

At this stage our neighbors start to freak out. We get nervous looks and questions like "why are you building your fence backwards?" "Is it going to stay that tall?" "Why are those board shorter than the rest?" 

Final product

Neighbors approve and tell us how crazy they though we were while the fence was being built. 

Old fence gone and pretty plants in its place

Before & Now

Here are some pictures of the kitchen when we first looked at the house and after we moved in. Its amazing what some cleaning, decent appliances and furniture can do for a room! Can't wait to have some after pictures eventually. 

Now

Before

Now

Before 

New Faucet

Getting a new kitchen faucet would have been one of those things that could have waited but the old faucet leaked very bad. Oh darn! he he he ;-)

Ugly leaky faucet

  

New pretty faucet

We're Homeowners!

This home purchasing experience has to be one of the most stressful things that either of us has ever experienced and it was worth every moment of frustration. We have now been living in our new home for a week and a half and have been SO BUSY!

What we have done so far:
-ripped out five large awful shrub trees that were in the way for our new fence
-had new appliances delivered
-gas lines run to the stove and dryer
-custom fence built, its awesome!
-new electrical and outlets run for our TV and microwave
-water line run to the refrigerator for our ice maker and water in the door
-replaced our old LEAKY kitchen faucet with a gorgeous vintage looking one
-new stainless range hood delivered and yet to be installed
-installed a doggie door
-bought a newish pillowtop queen size mattress on craigslist (our cal-king was not going to fit very well in our new room so we gave it to my best friend.)
-removed awful hunting bird tiles from fireplace.
-scraped out old caulking around the bathtub and re-caulked
-somewhere in between all that I also started stripping the many layers of paint off our original kitchen cabinets. I count about 7 different colors.

I will post pictures of all this madness soon. Lots done and many more projects to come. ;-)

Someday We Will Close Escrow

...and it better be soon! We were set to close escrow no later than yesterday but yesterday came and went and we still don't have the house. The selling bank set the escrow deadline (June 30th) and now everyday that we go over that date we have to pay a $40 fine. What is really frustrating is that it took the seller 3 weeks to sign the documents that were required to start the loan process in the first place, setting us behind in the the amount of time we had to close. Oh, and not to mention the sellers agent could not provide us with a acceptance contract, which we found out weeks later that it had been at the title company this whole time. 

Now it seem the hold up is on our side of the equation which was totally unexpected. Our lender keeps sending us a list of forms to be filled out and conditions to be met. Bob and I find our selves wondering why in the heck they didn't ask for these things weeks ago? First, they say we have to fix a broken window and peeling paint on the house, you know the house we don't even own yet? Yeah, that one. Anyway, we get that done and have the appraiser come back out and take pictures of the house to send in for review. That was the only thing they asked us to do so we were under the impression that everything is great and we can close on time. 

Then two days before we have to close we get another list of things they need: 1) a clearer sales contract (that no one seems to have) 2) More employment information 3) Bob's military records 4) School transcripts and finally 5) A real estate certification. Seriously, why do they need our school records? Are we going to get a good student discount? Because that would be real nice! And why do they need military records from 2001? Its not a VA loan its an FHA! Anyway, we get everything taken care of but the real estate certification form that no one including our loan officer knows what it is. 

Yesterday, we get a call from our loan lady and she says my school transcripts do not have enough information. REALLY??? At this point Bob is looking like he is going to kill someone and Im in disbelief that they even what this information and are being such a pain in the butt about it! I call my school and beg them to put a rush order on my official transcripts and they say that they can put them in the mail today. I ask can I PLEASE come pick them up because we can't wait two days for them to show up in the mail? I get a call back saying that I can come pick them up but I have to pay $10 for a rush order. So I get all that done, drive to my school, then to the bank, and back home to get ready for work. I get home and decide to google search this Real Estate Certification form that no one knows about and low and behold I find a pdf form. I email it to our loan lady and she emails me back that she found out they just wanted dates changed on that form that we had already filled out. Now, why did she not know what form they were talking about? She is an FHA specialist and does not know the forms? I guess I can't be too hard on her because we did sign the form and had no idea what they were walking about too.

I did hear some good news yesterday though. Our real estate agent hired someone to clean up the yard at the new house. Thanks, Tom! 

New and Improved

We don't even own the house yet and its looking better already! As it turns out since we are buying the house "as is" we have to do any repairs it may need for our loan to go though. This included fixing a broken window and some peeling paint. Big deal, right? However, it does seem so silly to me that they would require us to fix the paint. I especially did not want to put any more of that yuck mint green paint on the house when we are just going to have to strip it back off to paint the house the color we like. Anyway, enough complaining its all taken care of and the window is shiny and new. Here are some pictures as proof. 

Before:

During repair:

After: 

Ordered Our New Appliances ;-)

We walked into Sears on friday afternoon expecting to pick out our appliances and wait for them to go on sale during the fourth of July however, it turns out Sears was having a 20% off fathers day sale! So as you may have already guessed, we ordered everything that day and even qualified for a Sears master card with zero interest and no payments for the first twelve months. yay!

What we purchased: 

Stainless Steel Kenmore Elite 40 in. Dual Fuel Self cleaning and Convection Oven

Ultra Satin Kenmore Elite 25.5 cu. ft. Side-by-Side Refrigerator w/PUR water filtration 

Neat White Samsung 4.0 cu. ft. Hight Efficiency Front Load Washer
                      

Neat White Samsung 7.3 cu. ft. Super Capacity Gas Dryer 

We Have Fruit Trees!

A few days ago we were having fencing estimates done on the house and the first fencing contractor (an older gentleman) pointed out to us that we have a Cherry and Pear tree! Low and behold I get my camera out and zoom in on the tree to find it covered in cherries. I am so excited! The tree has to be pretty old, its about 25-30 food tall so Im defiantly going to need a ladder for cherry picking. The pear tree is also covered in fruit however, someone chopped it down almost to a stump and now it looks like a big bush because of all the off shoots. For the time being we are going to let it continue to fruit this year and then decide if it should stay or we should start over with a proper tree. 

Fencing We Finally Like

Over the past five months we have been trying to decide on fencing options for our new house. We knew we would need a fence that was tall enough to contain our very athletic dogs without making it look like an unwelcoming fortress. The only thing we could think of was a tall picket style fence of some sort but that just seemed kinda boring and not really secure enough. Then, a couple days ago Bob drove by a house on his way to work and found this awesome fence! It has a security style bottom half and a nice decorative top. What is so awesome is how deceiving this fence is, it looks like its about 4 or maybe 5 foot tall however, its actually over 6 foot. Perfect for keeping the puppies in the yard and maintaining an open airy feel to the front of the house. 

Here is Bob (6" tall) standing next to the fence which really gives you an idea of how tall it is. 

Here is a pic I put together when I was being silly on the computer and wanted to see how this fence might look with our house. We are thinking the top is more intricate than we would like so we are going to do a simpler square pattern. It will also look much better once the house it painted a new and improved color. ;-)

We Have Interior Pictures!

Last Wednesday the tenants moved out of OUR house, Yippee! So the first thing I wanted to do was go get pics of it without all their stuff obstructing our view. 

Here is the living room. I just love all the old thick craftsman woodwork and big windows. As you can see we need to replace one window but at least its a small one.

Click on the pictures to see them larger.

Our realtor and Bob standing in the living room. OH, how I love french doors! The doors lead into the dining room. 

Dining room china cabinet. I plan to strip that awful white paint off the outside and match it to the ordinal finish that you can see on the inside. 

The Kitchen's 1960s Orange paint and wood paneling has GOT TO GO! I have great plans for this room: mahogany stained cabinets, dark green granite counter tops, stainless steel sink and appliances.

The bathroom is also in need of some updating. Luckily that awful cream, hot pink swirl, and burgundy tile is actually a roll of faux plastic tile! Easy fix! Now the linoleum is going to be a different story.