Neighborhood Living

Our new next door neighbors seem nice enough, but they have a seriously huge collection of STUFF! The backyard is home to a huge jungle gym (with VERY squeaky swings) a trampoline with one of those tall screens around it, and a soft side above ground swimming pool. Oh, and two little yappy dogs that stay outside all the time.  Did I mention they bark? All. The. Time.

So, today when I looked outside and saw them erecting a cheap metal shed, right next to our fence I might have gone a little crazy.  We have lived in this house for over three years, and every minute we have chafed at the neighborhood covenants which require approval by the architectural committee, and only a wooden outbuilding with composition shingles of the same architectural style as your home.  This must be submitted for approval and approved prior to building, at least five feet away from a fence.

I don't think I made them happy, but seriously? The house has two stories, five bedrooms, a game room, a two car garage and they need a shed??

In other news, we are almost ready to list this place for sale!!  We just have some work in the garage and outside, but the inside is as good as it's gonna get.  We painted the library, the guest room, the hall bath, one wall in the studio, the living room ceiling, covered over the verses on the hall wall, and painted one small wall by the kitchen/garage door.  We have de-cluttered, rearranged, thrown away, given away, and sold an immense amount of stuff.  Unfortunately, we still HAVE a lot of stuff!  But I'm sure it will all fit in the other house now.

We also cleaned.  Lordy, have we cleaned!  It took me hours to clean our bathroom, sorting through drawers and cabinets, scrubbing, finding homes for things we kept on the counters... then there was the kitchen, which now has a sparkling clean oven, microwave, dishwasher, sinks and cabinets, and counters. I have moved or hidden everything from the counters except the coffeemaker, the knife block and a basket on the bar. The dining room table, and in fact every surface in the house is clean. (But don't look in the closets!)

The Realtor was ready to list it Wednesday night, but we really needed this weekend to get everything done. We will still be working like fiends for a few days on the yard, but the place is looking really good, if I do say so myself! :)

Catching Up

The days fly by and I forget I even have a blog with so many things going on! So, here I am, checking in with my few faithful followers for an update.

Friday night, Ornery tackled the wall in my studio that we had left deep teal colored when we painted in there earlier this year. We still had some paint, which he used until it was gone, then we started Saturday off with a quick trip to Lowe's for another quart. That room was done by noon, and while I worked on putting that room back together, he decided to paint the guest room and hall bathroom, which were also deep teal. That took up the rest of the weekend, and is still a work in progress.

I had a professional carpet cleaner come Monday morning, and they cleaned all the carpet, ceramic tile and a wool rug. I spent that day working on pen pal letters in the garden room, which was the only dry floor in the whole house!

Yesterday I caught up on a bit of art, as I had received two art journals to work in.

Today I am going to hopefully get the house cleaned up, then work more on my pen pal letters. I'm pretty motivated to do more art, so it's hard to focus on mundane tasks like cleaning bathrooms when I'd rather be creating, but soon this phase will be over and normal life can resume.

More Check Marks!

We marked off a few more items on the list today. The garden room table has a lovely new cover on it, the hall wall is all green again, and the wall in the alcove by the kitchen/garage door is green again, too. The living room is rearranged, and Ornery is finishing up a repair of a bad three-way switch in the entry hall.

There is a bit more tidying up, and the studio and garage each have one wall to paint, but we are on target to be ready to list on the 15th.

Here is a little glimpse of the living room...

That's all I can show at the moment. There are still many piles and other non-photogenic areas and I'm embarrassed to post those!