Two Big Projects

We completed two big(ish) projects this weekend, with a lot of help from our friends.

First, we bought and installed a HUGE window air conditioner. It took a couple hours, some work, and some ingenuity.

It is a big one, big enough to cool 600 square feet.


We got it home kind of late on Friday night, but it had to be put in, I had to get some work done the next day, and with temps near 100, it wasn't going to happen without a/c.

Luckily, Simon was around to help.


CJ and Simon had to take off part of the window to get it to fit in the hole. All the other windows on the first floor were way to big, and this is the tiny window.


It looks good from the inside.


But pretty ghetto from the outside with the ladder keeping it in place.


It was well worth it though. Our other big project was moving CJ into the house today. Luckily we got help from about 8 people.

I'm not sure about the official high, but it looks like it hit 100 degrees today, real hot for Minnesotans. CJ had a second floor apartment with no air conditioning. It was pretty unbearable. I believe if we wouldn't have had air in our house, people may not have made it. It was so nice to come in and cool down.

Also, with the air, if it doesn't cool down, we will still be able to get some work done. All is good.

The House is Hungry

The house is eating all our electronics.

It started last weekend with CJ's AirPort Express crapped out. It just doesn't work anymore and he bought a new one.

Yesterday, my laptop died. Or, I guess it isn't dead, but I can't use it. It won't boot up. Rumor has it that it can be fixed, but I may walk away without any of my goodies. I have quite a few picture of the house that I want to post, but it may not happen if I lose everything on my hard drive.

I blame the house, of course. Actually, officially, I blame CJ, but since that isn't very nice, I'll start blaming the house.

Maybe if all our outlets were grounded this wouldn't happen.

New Homeowners Learn Lesson

It rained really hard last night. REALLY HARD.

I came home, went upstairs to take off my wet clothes and saw the rain coming into the bedroom. Oh, so sad, the top window fell a bit and the window was open.

At least that was part of the problem.

Also, there is no storm window on that window. So the water came in, hit the top of the air conditioner, rolled down the side of the A/C, and into the bedroom.

From there, most of it ran down the wall, through the floor, into the dining room, and all over the floor there. Except the water that ran into the floor upstairs and came out the ceiling in the dining room.

From the dining room, most of it pooled on the floor, except the water that made it through that floor into the basement.

Oh, but that isn't all.

In the computer room the same thing sort of happened. Because there was no storm window the water pooled in the window between the inside window and where the screen should be (but isn't because that window doesn't have a screen or a storm.)

From there, a little water got on to the floor of the room. Most of it made its way into the kitchen. There is a small gap between the wall and the floor in the room and I could see the water running down the back of the wall. It came down through the window in the kitchen and on to the floor.

So, now, we are worried about mold. We are worried about the rain expected tonight. We are worried about the damage (though not much) done to the ceiling of the dining room.

We are getting new windows. They went from being a low priority, to something we were going to do this fall, to something we are going to do NOW. Many of the windows don't have screens or storms or both. Some don't open. They are all VERY OLD with lead paint.

Anyone know a good and fair window replacement company in the Minneapolis area?

The Ghetto

I've got at least three posts saved up and fixing the pictures, like how our house flooded today or how our plumbing is screwed up and how my dad fixed it today or how we are going to get new windows like NOW.

Instead, I'm going to talk about the neighborhood. Every time we pull into the neighborhood CJ starts singing Elvis's "In The Ghetto"

We are going to start a photo project documenting the "characters" of the neighborhood. There is the short white guy, who I think is Latino, and just walks around all day long. ALL DAY LONG. Or the woman, who we think is a prostitute, who hangs out in her car talking on the cell phone. Or the guy who is constantly zipping by on his wheel chair (sometimes he lets his friends borrow it too.)

We live across from Fatina Foods. Actually it is Casablanca foods. It's under new management, but they haven't changed the signs. It is an awesome place with two pay phones, cigarettes, and 3.2 beer (if you aren't from Minnesota you may not know 3.2 beer, check here for more details). In other words, ghetto.

Across the street the other way is Juanita's House of Furniture. In front of that is a bus shelter. People just kinda hang out there too. I've called the cops on people just hanging out there.

We sit outside and watch the ghetto go by all the time. It is really quite fun.

The other day, we saw a kid get arrested by a bike cop. That is, you assumed correctly, a cop on a mountain bike. The kid was pretty young, maybe fifteen years old. Of course, when they brought in a squad car to take him away.

All the little hoodlums in the neighborhood were in a uproar. They got Kenny (or whatever his name was, I can't remember) everyone was telling each other. As the bike cop road by we cheered him on. He said something about one down...

Then the bike cop came back. This is when I was finally smart enough to get my camera. He decided he was kicking this guy out of the neighborhood. The guy argued, saying he just lived down the street. The cop made it clear he should stay there then.




Then the squad showed back up:



We've heard the neighborhood is much better than it was. It is the greatest neighborhood for convenience, food, entertainment, just not safety. We've got a security system. We may get an attack cat in the coming weeks (though our hope is to attack the mice.) We will get a big old dog.

We do just love watching the ghetto go by.

I promise pics of the "characters" as we get them.

The Kitchen, Second Try

Okay, here's the long awaited post about the kitchen. Sorry about the wait.

I like the kitchen a lot, though there isn't a lot that is special about it.

The one thing that is special is the exposed brick wall.


All the pictures of the kitchen are bad for some reason, I'm sorry about that, I'm just too lazy to go take new ones.

The kitchen is also pretty big, at least bigger than my last kitchen. There is lots of storage space (unlike the rest of the house) and the appliances are new. It is the exit to our dangerous back porch and what seems to be the prime entrance for the mice.

Another of the things I really like about it is the big kitchen window. I've never had a huge window in a kitchen before and I like it.



Then, there are the things I dislike. First, of course, is that fact that we have mice. And not just one, a few. We have poison out and they eat it and eat it and eat it. It must be really tasty.

I don't like the counter tops at all. They are very ugly and not in very good shape.


I really hate the cabinets. They are cheap. They were painted badly. The drawers fall down when you open them. I worry about heavy things on the shelves. Some are missing handles and the handles are ugly.


The sink also is a mess. It was all clogged up, so my dad took it apart to snake it. Now, it is just kind of put back together. It was so poorly designed (or something, I'm not exactly sure) that my Dad couldn't easily get it back together. We have been instructed not to touch it. A hard bump could lead to it leaking.


Then, there is the paint job. When we were looking at the house she had a note out in the kitchen about how she was still painting, sorry about the mess, sort of thing. Of course, the fact that the whole house was a mess wasn't lost on us, but it seems she never finished painting.



It is really too bad. I like the color of the kitchen, but we will have to repaint it because she couldn't get it all finished.

Oh, yeah, we also found out that the oven doesn't work. We have to try it a bit more, but luckily it is under warranty.

So, that's the kitchen. It also isn't a super priority. While I don't like a lot of the stuff, it isn't horrible, so we will live with it for the time being.

Furniture (Test Entry)

We bought furniture this weekend. We expect that it will be delivered in two shifts, one in September and one in October. That's a long time to wait for furniture, but we think it will be worth it.

We got this couch:

We got it in a greenish color, called Kermit.

We also bought the matching chair:


We bought two of these chairs, also in slightly different colors:


And we got this table:


It seems the photos are working now on the site. I'll fix the rest later when I have the time.

Technical Difficulties

We planned to get a whole bunch of updates out today, but it appears that the changing over to a non-blogger hosted account has come with some problems posting images.

We are working on the issue and will fix it as soon as possible.

Thanks.

The Management

Lies

Okay, I'm a liar. No pics, no updates, NO work done on the house this weekend. It was so hot in the house (and outside) that we spent most of the weekend away from home in air conditioned places. I'll do the best I can for something tonight.

Hot

It is hot. I think I got a bit of heat exhaustion (and maybe some exhaustion.) We have been painting what will be the TV room. It is the biggest of the second floor bedrooms. With temps in the 90s, no air conditioning, and me up on a ladder, I ended up feeling a bit sick (vomity, hot, dizzy.) I called it a night. CJ is in there painting as we speak.

Now I'm in the one air conditioned room, and I feel fine, just really tired.

Lots of stuff to blog about, but I haven't been getting much sleep. By Monday I promise my love/hate list for the kitchen, love/hate for the TV room and before and after pics of the TV room. For an added bonus, you will get the story (and some pics) of the kid who was arrested by a bike cop while we all sat on the porch and watched.

By Monday. I swear.

Outside, Continued

Well, as you can see, we have mice. That's not what I am talking about today. We will save that for tomorrow and the what I love and hate about the kitchen post.

Today, I want to tell you about what I hate about the outside of our house.

I guess I hate the yard. Not the fact that we have a yard, but what has become of the yard due to the previous owner's neglect.

There are weeds,


dry, dead spots,


and garbage in it everyday.


The trees, while wonderful, need to be trimmed:



There is no telling where the flowerbeds end and the yard begins:


Some plants are dying, others already dead:


Then, there is the back porch.


The bottom step broke in half at some time. Another step is not safe. The whole thing shakes, probably because it is not attached to the house.

It is all around unsafe.

There are some areas where the bricks need to be tuckpointed, painted, and/or replaced.



And we weren't too surprised by the mouse being that this huge trap sits outside.


All said, there are a lot of things to work on, to get fixed, to clean up. It is already much better than when we moved in. Next year we will have beautiful flowerbeds and pruned trees and maybe some green grass. It just takes time.

house guest

See the blur on the right side of the grate? I know it's not very nice to poison a house guest, but I'm afraid this little one's days are numbered.

Outside

I'm having a hard time getting motivated to unpack the house, so I bought a camera. That's the obvious answer. As I get the room cleaned up and unpacked I will be detailing my favorite and least favorite things, before any work is done.

Now, the yard, that was another story. Something had to be done immediately to the yard, I was afraid the city would be called. So I cleaned it up. I spent 4 hours mowing (more specifically raking, weed whacking, mowing, weed whacking, then mowing again) the over foot high grass/weed mix we've got going on. I also have done quite a bit of watering, trying to bring things back to life.

So, here it is, my favorite things from the outside of the house:

First and foremost, I love the house. This is the front. Isn't it cool?


I also love the Ivy that is growing on the side of the house:



We have a wrought iron fence around the property. I think it is super cool, especially the gate:

Yeah, we totally have a gate.

Then there is this thing. We don't know what it is. I think, maybe, something to tie your horse to. It is on the side of the house, on the boulevard. It doesn't move.


I love our front door. We have a mail slot that says "mail." We have a crazy old door bell. You turn the handle and it sort of rings (it is sort of broken.)


Most of all, I love our porch. First, we have a porch, looking straight on to the ghetto. It is great. I always wanted a porch. Also, see those three plants? I bought those plants and I love them too. I love that it is covered. I love that it is red. We have already spent a lot of time sitting out there, just watching the neighbors. It is much better than TV.


I also love the fact that we have a yard, that we have trees (which don't photograph well because they are BIG) and that we live in a super cool little ghetto neighborhood.

I was going to do all the things I hate about the outside, and there are a lot, but they will have to wait until tomorrow.