Before we leave this little house, we’ve a little cosmetics to do – the LR and Mbd both had *dark* wall paper when we moved in, so it was immediately removed, leaving light (if slightly less than “clean looking”) plaster coloured walls. *shrug* Whatever – the rooms were brighter and we didn’t really care much about the marks. However, we’re not about to leave them like this so we’ve been scraping off the wallpaper glue (a hex on wallpaper) with vinegar and water (very effective!) and I’ve been painting walls. On the LR I used a cheap Olympic off-white semi-gloss and it only barely required two coats but went on easy and looks nice. Given time is running somewhat short I returned the 2nd gallon of it and bought a Valspar paint plus primer recommended by the paint dude. At double the price I assumed it’d do the job in one coat. It’s white (very white) but I don’t care about that so much as that the paint is complete and utter crap! It’s going on thin – super thin, yet when i use the roller I’ve been having to push harder on it to get it on the walls. (wth?!) It’s covering horribly – leaving roller marks, even! I’ll never mistake price for quality again, that’s for sure, and next time I’m checking reviews – even on paint – before I buy.

Just got a call from Ken, who’s finished up with the inspection of the house. Nothing huge (yay!). The electrical will need updating in the house itself, but we’re hoping we can do it room by room to ease that. The fireplace works, though needs a new damper (?). The chimney for the furnace, interestingly and excitingly enough, has two sections to it and the other section comes out *in the kitchen* (right near where the washer/dryer are). That means I may be able to have a wood cook stove!! I’m pretty excited about that. The front porch posts have rot on the bottoms and will need to be replaced, and the steps need new mortaring. The flashing around the chimney may need replacing. The roof looks fine, and interestingly enough is the “top” roof – they, at one point, replaced the roof by putting an entire roof on top of it. There’s some gaping around the edges that we’ll need to put screens in to make sure wasps don’t make it a home (that’ll be early spring next year). We’ll need to have someone come in to evaluate the pipe coverings in the basement – figure out if they *are* asbestos and either remove it or cover it in such a way that it’s not going to be a problem in the future.

That’s about it, though, which is fantastic considering how old the house is (97yrs). Ken got me measurements of the rooms, along with window and radiator placements, so I’ll be able to draw up a floorplan and figure out where all our stuff is going to go (me, living vicariously through room design, until we can move in).

Ken’ll be home in a few hours, and we’re all looking forward to that!

Ken starts his new job tomorrow. He’ll be doing the “stay with family, drive home on weekends” thing. This weekend is slightly different, though, since the inspection on the house is Saturday morning so he’ll be doing that with his Dad along to give another, knowledgeable, viewpoint. I’m excited about the inspection, and only a tad worried (old houses, y’know). Ken’s hoping to get room measurements for me, and I’m looking forward to having those so I can do what I like doing best – plan! Best of all, we should know whether the house is going to be a lemon or a boon for us. We can’t very well pull out of the contract unless there’s something majorly wrong with the house, and I’m hoping there’s nothing wrong even minorly since we need to save up money to redo the kitchen, work on the garden(s), and eventually create a master bath in the little bedroom right next to it.

This week, since we patched up the walls, I’ll be painting the LR here. I practiced last night by painting my nails. Hopefully I can do the walls nicer and with less “bumping before it’s dry”ness.

Now we gather paperwork and have an inspection done (next weekend) and close (May 29). We’re moving fast because a) it’s already vacant, so why not? and 2) it gives us more time to move stuff in, over several weekends, during June. We’re planning to be out of here and into there by end of June.

It’s been a crazy few days, not even mentioning the drama concerning Ken’s job (I can’t share, unfortunately, lets just say things have been ridiculously stressful in a very weird way). It’s resolved, as of right now, though. Thank goodness for that. I hate having plans up in the air.

Here’s a Playlist I made up of the video’s we took of the house. I’m hopeful it works the way it should… just click the first video and they should follow one after another.

You can comment or “like” or email me or whatever. I’d love to hear what you think!!

This weekend we went to VT and looked at more houses. We saw farms, we saw houses that were nice but not *it*, we saw houses that were immediate “oh hell no!”’s. On Saturday, our 2nd to last house was the one. Like when a bride tries on dress after dress and then there’s one that she tries on and starts to cry because that dress is.the.dress. This house was.the.house. We knew because I stopped taking notes, as I had on the other houses, and we simply didn’t want to leave.

We saw a few more houses on Sunday, then went back to The House and it was still The House. Despite anything else, it was The House. At the upper limit of our comfort zone in price (though they lowered the price the day before by quite a lot), no animals allowed (in town), huge (!), and has a teeny tiny awkward kitchen. It is, nonetheless, The House.

I have video, but need to figure out how to rotate it (it’s all taken with the phone and is sideways oriented) and upload it to YouTube to give out links. In the meanwhile you can see the outside:

Right-hand-side of the house showing the driveway with seperate 2-car garage in the back (more on that later). The bit that juts out is the kitchen and the side-entrance is right next to it.

Left-hand-side of the house showing the awesome 3-season porches. The windows are stiff and have some water damage but they’re definitely fixable and quite large areas to sit in, hang a hammock in, sleep in on hot nights…

The back-side of the house (3-season porches on the right) showing the back entrance which is a landing between the 1st/main floor and the basement.

From where that last picture was taken, looking slightly to the left is the garage/shop. There’s a covered porch area with a hanging swing under it and a clothes line set-up that stretches across to the back door and back (retractable). The front half is garage, there’s a small middle part where the side door is, then the back section is all work shop (huge, well equipped – power, heat, drafting table!?).

Looking further left and you see the back, garden area. Lilac’s on the right (3 large ones were just leafing out), there are 2 old gardening beds already back there that you can see. Small, but ready for some TLC.

To the right, behind the shop/garage, are several other garden beds. One long, rectangular one has what looks like may be blackberry canes, alive, but it’s hard to tell yet.

The property is 2.5 acres and I don’t have any pictures of the big, grass, flat area on the right of the driveway – just ripe for a mini-orchard!

Inside, the house, the first floor has a formal dining room, foyer, living room with the lower 3-season porch off it, and an office (where Ken will be working – he’s going to be doing contract work and working from home!!), family eating room/laundry, kitchen, and bathroom. 2nd floor has 2 bedrooms (boys), master bath (with en suite 3-season porch), full bath (though old), and a small bedroom that we’re hoping to convert into an en suite bath since there’s a door between the master bed and the little bedroom (maybe it used to be a nursery?). 3rd (!) floor is slightly rougher (wood steps, not carpeted, walls are in need of a little cosmetic work) and has 2 smaller but decent sized bedrooms plus a little cubby area that could be storage or play area. It’s naturally going to be the warmest area of the house, so we’ll put Sharon up there when she stays with us (she has issue with cold).

The kitchen, tiny and shaped like an ‘L’, is… kinda terrible. The fridge is stuffed almost in the doorway, everything is cramped, it’s the first thing we’ll change and we hope to make the family eating area/laundry into the kitchen instead (maybe put the laundry in the current kitchen area). Clearly the previous owners (in their 90’s, he died last March but was quite the motorcycle, machinest, WWII fighter plane/pow vet) were more entertainers than cooks. I’ll have to figure out how to make it work for me, but feel confident I can. Otherwise the house is basically amazing. We walked through it going “Oh my God!” “This is amazing” Even Ken.

We sign the offer tonight. Hope for/with us! We’ll know in a few days, I think. I’ll get video up once I figure it out (though I may not figure out the rotation thing so you may need to turn sideways).

We’re going up to VT again this weekend to look at houses. A very busy Saturday and some more on Sunday and hopefully we’ll find *the one*. The boys will spend some time with Aunt Katie and Uncle Austin on Saturday, and time with Grammy on Sunday.

I hope our luck holds out and we find the right house for us and we make an offer and can be in it quickly. We’ve given notice to our landlady that we’re outta here end of June, so we need to live *some*where. (No worries… Sharon’s offered to let us stay with her for a few weeks, if we need to.)

We’ve spent the past 8 yrs, give or take, trying to find work for Ken in VT. Finally, as of today, he’s got a job offer from a VT company. 30 mins from one sister, 1.5hrs from the other (with the newest babeee!!), 1hr from Ken’s Father, 1.5hr from his Mother, 1.25hr from his Grandparents. Right in the dead center of VT – you can’t get much more VT than that, can you?

Last weekend, when Ken went for a 2nd interview and we looked at some houses in the area. Next weekend we’re planning on looking at more. I’m hopeful we can find *the one* and tie it up quickly. Ethan’s done school on June 21, so Ken will be staying with his sister/brother-in-law during the week and coming home on weekends. We’d like to keep that as short a time as possible and have as much of the summer to settle in as we can.

It’s taking a little while to sink in, but I’m happy… excited. Finally we can stop just staying here… stagnating… and get on with living. I can’t wait to get started.

Ken had an interview yesterday, which went well but he worried he’d be bored. So, given there just aren’t jobs for his abilities in VT, this morning we agreed to give up on that idea and just settle here since he’s happy/challenged at his current job; it’s just everything else that we’re not happy with.

The following conversation happened this afternoon…

me: the foster/scituate area has a really good school system, it seems

me: So Vermont yes?
Or industry change?

Ken: If I say VT yes, will you throw a book at me?
I want to be without thrown books

me: *cough*
I’ll inform you that I deleted all the realtor and zillow links, houses and specific searches.

Ken: that’s ok
we’ll take a fresher appraoch

me: And when Jess emailed to ask how it went, I told her the truth as I knew it this morning.

Ken: ok

me: And told the boys we’re looking for a house of our own to live in.

Ken: We are looking for a house to live in. Just not here…

me: So what do you want to do (keep in mind, you can say “not sure yet” if you like)?

Ken: let’s discuss at home

I think he’s forgotten that, at home, I *can* throw books at him.

Well, the Acer love was short-lived as I started hearing “hard drive tick” on friday and by midmorning Saturday it was basically useless. 3wks and I’m not happy. It’s well within warranty, so we’re working on that, but I’m without my own until then (can still use Ken’s and my old Precious, thankfully). Could be worse…muchly.

This weekend Sharon flew down and Ken and I ran away to Boston for an overnight in a nice little B&B and the Final Fantasy Symphony, which was different than I’d expected (very casual, audience participation at the end) but a very enjoyable performance. We arrived early and did some wandering and shopping and took our time and had a lovely time of it. Feeling good.

Ethan is learning, well, cursive. He’s crazy excited about it, too.

The 2nd day we worked on his homework, he’d gotten bigger, but also better…

On the other front, Victor has his first loose tooth!!!! He was very upset about it; scared and worried (doesn’t help that it was sore). We talked and he slept on it and today he watched an episode of Dinosaur Train wherein a dino looses teeth (T-Rex, like sharks, regularly lost teeth and replaced them), so he’s much better about it.

Ken, who’s the world’s worst surprise-keeper, told me last week what he’s doing for White Day. We’re going to the Boston Symphony to see “Distant Worlds: The Music From Final Fantasy”. It’s a good idea, since he’s wanted to take me to the symphony before we leave/while we live here and Final Fantasy music is surprisingly good (lots of RPG music is, actually) and Ken listens to vg music often. We’ve worked out further details for our trip the past few days (me, being a planner, initiated that). We’re staying at a B&B that’s an easy subway trip to the symphony house and sounds quite nice. There’s loads of restaurants around the symphony, so we’ll eat around there. We’re staying just the one night and taking the train in/home. I think we’ll have a nice time! I’ve bought myself a nice, new shirt (not going *too* formal) and am thoroughly looking forward to it!

I’m putting this article up because I found it really interesting and promising. Have a read: Why Breasts Are the Key to the Future of Regenerative Medicine.

The new computers have arrived. We unboxed together and I’m amused at the little details they paid attention to, comparatively speaking. Ken’s was basic, manly. The surface of his is a teeny tiny faux diamond stamped metal on the outside, and teeny tiny faux chain link pattern on the inside. Very manly. Mine has a 3D wave on the outside surface that’s a ripple effect. The velcro for my power cord is the newer, quiet, softer type and the plug has a fully rotating head – small, surprising details that make me feel like this is a more feminine system. I’m calling mine Ruby, for obvious reasons.

Getting used to a full sized keyboard is going to take a while (Precious has a 92% which works well with girly hands). Ken’s tickled, though he won’t admit it. He’s spending his time stripping it down and making it *cue serious voice* “work focused” (he’s so cute!). He named his Athanor, which is very apropos and all, but I’m likely going to call it Skull Boy.

I’m tired, so transferring over everything from Precious is going to have to wait til tomorrow. It’s thinner, the screen’s definitely bigger, the touchpad feels weird and I keep triggering it when I don’t want to (same thing happened when I got Precious – it’s a learning curve). The surface is a nice matte, though, and definitely won’t show up smudges. I’ll see how fast it is tomorrow, and stare into the gaping maw of the hard drive.

The cardigan I’ve been working on is called the Shapely Boyfriend, but I’m referring to it as my Shapely Husband for obvious reasons. I just finished the collar/band edge, tried it on, and Uhoh.

That diagonal "seam" is the raglan seam, and there's too much fabric at the top edge. Sadly the cardi was worked from the top down, so I'm trying to figure out the easiest way to fix it - likely rip out and reknit and graft the two together. A pain to do, and I'm going to have to snip out the ribbed collar edge and hope I can graft it on afterward (I hate ribbing, so I don't want to undo it completely).

I like how the sweater fits, though, so it's worth it.

(excuse the lumpiness, especially at the bottom edge – it’s unblocked).