March 17th

Just wanted to give a quick update on the house situation. We now close on March 17th despite the bank wanting to move it back a few weeks, then up a few weeks, then immediately. I haven't been to the house in awhile but we should be back tonight and/or tomorrow and I'll take some better pictures and get them posted.

We have spent some time looking at carpet, mudroom ideas, and other things we plan on improving in the house. If anyone has any great ideas, suggestions, pictures (especially of mudrooms) please forward them on! I am very overwhelmed with the prospect of all the new improvements. I'm afraid I'll do it all wrong and tacky. Sarah P. I wish you lived around the corner again. You helped me though decorating my kitchen and playroom which were the only rooms I ever really decorated in my last house. You have beautiful ideas and taste and an eye for decorating.

We plan on improving the upstairs right away before moving in. Even though it will be a money crunch, we figure it will be best in the long run to just do it now. We will do the downstairs later. Our realtor recommend our backyard neighbor and he is overseeing all the improvements.

Our rental house is on the market and I have to say I'm really, really, really annoyed about having to show my house. It is so much stress to get the house clean and ready to show. We did it on Saturday and I feel like it is a BIG inconvenience to leave my house so Jake can show it. Also, because we are moving I stopped keeping my closets organized because I figured it would all have to be packed up before too long. So now I feel weird having people look into my messy closets and pantry. Part of me feels like Jake should give us a break on the rent or be willing to end our lease early if we have to show it. What do you think is reasonable. The stress from showing our MN house is still fresh and I really don't feel up to doing it again so someone else can sell their house.

I guess my blogging time is over because Ben won't stop climbing on me and grabbing the mouse.

Sometimes It Is Nice To Rent

One recent Sunday morning I walked downstairs to the basement and I noticed something unusual in the window well. Upon closer inspection I discovered 2 to 3 inches of water pooling in the window well. As I was standing there I also realized my slippers were getting wet. I called to Brad and informed him of the problem. As we were trying to figure out what to do, we realized, "Hey, this isn't our problem. Let's call Jake!" I couldn't help but breathe a sign of relief that we didn't just buy a house with water damage.

We made a speedy call to the owner of the house as we tried to do what we could to discover why this was happening. We had had heavy rains that night (the first since we had lived in Idaho) and I realized that the rain gutter was dumping the water just to the right of the affected window. I found a tube that I used to divert the water away from the window until Jake could take a look.

When Brad and Jake pulled back the carpet they found a river of water running right into the basement under the carpet. They bailed the water out of the window well and set up fans to dry out the carpet.
It took a while to dry everything out and the water had seeped much further into the family room then originally thought (I had to pull the carpet back much farther than what is shown in the pictures). I used a dehumidifier to help get rid of that damp, musty smell that comes following problems like this. It appears that this has happened before and Jake is working on making sure it doesn't happen again.

Hopefully, it won't happen again...at least while we are living here.