Archive: Sep 2007

One-Year Anniversary

Here I was hoping to break out some great blog about our one-year homeownership anniversary…and all I got was this crappy photo. :-P

So yes, a year ago today we signed our lives away to own this house. We didn’t move in a year ago, but nonetheless it’s crazy to think a year has passed since we bought the house. We’ve got several things accomplished – like putting in all new plumbing, electrical, A/C and heat, a new kitchen and a new bathroom…and well, we’re obviously still slowly working on the rest. When I think about the ugly house we had under contract in East Atlanta I am sooooooo glad that the deal fell apart and we ended up with this house. I absolutely love it and the details and the history and the fact that I can say that I bought a house when I was 24 years old!

So here’s to our one-year homeownership anniversary…in PJs and ready to go to bed, but a “cheers” nonetheless. :)

2007 Anniversary

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And Here We Thought We Were Done With Plumbing…

So here we thought we were done with plumbing. Since our house had been stripped of all its copper plumbing before we bought it we had to replace the whole system. Then take the whole plumber nightmare (after nightmare, after nightmare, …) into account and well…let’s just say we were very much over plumbing and plumbers. Apparently fate decided we weren’t quite entirely done with it just yet.

While we were on vacation I went online to pay out water bill. I was a bit shocked that the bill was about $30 more expensive than our highest bill – and we had been out of town and not using the water for half of that period! The city had recently come by and replaced the old water meters with some new digital ones. Patrick and I had heard from other people who had theirs replaced that the water bill became more expensive afterwards.

When we got back from vacation Patrick mowed the lawn and had trouble at one spot next to the house where it was still very wet. We didn’t think much of it. It had been pouring a couple of days earlier so it probably just hadn’t dried yet. Only the wet spot stayed even after days of no rain. By Sunday we were starting to get into panic mode – it had to be a water pipe leak. We found a place online (based on Kudzu recommendations) who also happened to be open Sundays. We called and scheduled an appointment for Monday. Monday a guy came and gave us an estimated cost – ahhh, you gotta love those unexpected high bills. (I guess that privacy fence I so desperately want will have to hold off a bit longer.) The plumbers were scheduled for “sometime Tuesday” (but couldn’t specify when).

The two-men plumbing crew rang our door bell about half an hour before our alarm clock was due to go off. We showed them the area and they got their tools ready. Before we knew it our yard looked like this…

Plumbing pipe replacement

Plumbing pipe replacement

…and exactly 2 hours later the guys were all packed up and driving off…. :)

Plumbing pipe replacement

Plumbing pipe replacement

Instead of running the pipes through the yard to the back of the house like it was before we followed their suggestion to bring it in at the front of the house and run it along inside the crawl space instead. I’m not sure how much other people pay to have their pipes replaced, but I definitely can’t complain about the 2-hour turn-around time and the fact that they were able to come out a day after quoting us a price.

Hopefully our plumbing woes will be over for a while now. Really the only original plumbing feature now left in the house is the sewage pipe back to the street. But I won’t talk about that too loudly…I don’t want the sewage pipe to get any ideas after all. ;-)

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Bungalow Blogs

Houseblogs.net – Read about other homeowners remodeling and restoring adventures.

1912Bungalow.com – West Adams, Los Angeles, CA

1916Bungalow.Blogspot.com – NE Portland, OR

1928Bungalow.com – East Point, GA

BeecherBungalow.com – West End, Atlanta, GA

Blog.Gizmodyne.com – Pasadena, CA

HouseInProgress.net – Chicago, IL

House-Made.com – Oakland, CA

LibertarianBungalow.Blogspot.com – Westview, Atlanta, GA

OurNewOldHouse.Wordpress.com – East Side, Des Moines, IA

PorchRail.Blogspot.com – Westview, Atlanta, GA

StuccoHouse.Blogspot.com – Minneapolis, MN

Texas-Street.Blogspot.com – Morley Field, North Park, San Diego, CA

ThirteenEleven.Blogspot.com – Georgia

Tinybungalow.Blogspot.com – Oak Park, Chicago, IL

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Garden Updates

Since we were going on vacation for a little while Patrick’s mom volunteered to come by the house to water our plants so they wouldn’t die while we were gone. Naturally other items continued to grow as well though…

The neighbor’s unstoppable kudzu managed to get all the way to our house!

Invasive kudzu

The Hosta’s look like they grew quite a bit – one of them even grew flowers! And the Red Fountain Grass must have gotten somewhat of a beating from thunderstorms – usually it perks back up, but this time it appears to be permanently down. We’ll have to tie them together or something so they won’t stay so droopy. (Compare to pre-vacation photo)

Fountain grass

The sunflowers were such a success. Yeah…well…or not really. Next time I’ll know better than to plant sunflower seeds on a west-facing wall. Those sunflowers took one beating after another. Some of them were doing alright in the beginning (See photo), but every time it rained those poor fragile little plants were beaten to the ground. Plus the ones facing north must not have received enough sunlight because they slowly but surely shriveled up. The only ones really going anywhere where the southern-most ones…and even though a few of them are at least blooming they’re not exactly standing up tall and strong! Like I said, I’ll know better next time…

Sunflowers

Aaaaand the lavender. My sweet, sweet lavender. We’ve gone through a bit with these little ones too. Originally we had planted them in our “pond” spot where the Hosta’s are now located (See photo). We transplanted them to this (above) location because the area is much, much drier. The one on the left was the “Hidcote” variety that I had picked out; the one on the right was the “Sweet” variety that Patrick had picked.

Lavendar

Now that we returned from vacation I was sad to see that my poor lavender didn’t make it. Perhaps we had transplanted it too late? Unfortunately it had to go to plant heaven.

Lavendar

They still had some lavender’s left at Lowe’s, so we planted the “Province” variety that we also have at the front of the house.

Lavendar

We added some more flowers at the front of the house. Earlier we had planted the Japanese Boxwoods and some yellow annual flowers. Patrick’s mom forgot to water this flower bed, so one of the boxwood’s isn’t doing to well and we’re considering replacing it (the others seem to be doing ok after watering). Funnily enough the annuals grew bigger than the boxwood’s – perhaps because the rain still hits them but not the boxwood’s behind (See previous photo). We’ve added these white “Mum’s” because they’re quite beautiful and because they’re perennial’s. That way when the yellow annuals die the Mum’s will be there to keep the flower bed green.

Foundation plants

And lastly we have a new buddy around the house. To our shock our right-side neighbors had moved out while we were gone. They had only moved in in April, so we didn’t expect them to be gone when we got back. Unfortunately they have abandoned their two cats – momma cat and her teenager (born right around the time when the neighbor’s moved in). To make things worse we discovered that momma cat is expecting again. We are considering keeping the little teenager (above) around, but are not up for the task of keeping mom and her soon to be family additions. We’ve tried to contact animal rescue place after animal rescue place, but they are either full or claiming they can’t accept cats and to go through the city’s animal shelter instead. We’ve been hesitant to call the animal shelter because we know they put cats to sleep if they don’t get adopted within a certain time frame and we can’t bear the thought of that. So we’re in somewhat of a dilemma about what to do with this abandoned pregnant cat. :(

Neighborhood cat

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Yes, We're Still Alive

Yes, yes…we are still alive! Apologies for the lack of updates lately, but we’ve taken a much needed vacation! So really there isn’t anything new to report since we just got back (well…minus that the grass needs mowing!), but I do have some photos to display from before we left…

We felt like one of the basement windows/coverings needed a little temporary face lift. It just seemed to be dangling around.

So after some quick labor we took it out. Don’t mind the sweat – at a boiling 104 F breathing alone will make enough sweat water for a bath!

The new sturdy framing has been cut and put in place.

Additionally we had to paint the door. When we bought it we had the intentions of staining it. Unfortunately time did not agree with our intentions, and before we knew it the door was stained not by polyurethane, but by rain! So instead we painted it white. (We still have to scrape the paint off the glass.)

Before

After

This weekend we hope to get the garden back under control. When we do I will post more garden pictures…including some from before vacation.

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