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!