Last Friday was a busy night for me. I spent the beginning of the evening at a Super Secret Session of FNSC. I can’t really tell you what happened there, because it is a secret. After our session concluded in a secret manner I made my way over to Terra’s… Read More »Cardinalidae
On Saturday, Jason and I got the garage opener put on the garage door. This makes parking in the garage a lot easier. This was a good thing, because when I looked out my back door on Sunday after I got home from church I saw the following: IMAGE LOST… Read More »Saturday’s Accomplishment
Last Wednesday I saw the first signs of spring popping up in my yard. Although I have no clue what to do with this rhubarb, I have a line of people that are interested in it already.
The room that has proven to be the most work by far has been the kitchen. The walls took 6-7 coats of paint. Cranberry Punch I originally was considering a color called Raspberry Couli, but I had a lengthy conversation one day with Sara about red paint. She painted her… Read More »The Kitchen
I actually struggled quite extensively with picking out colors for the living/dining room. I wanted to do the accent wall thing and I didn’t want to match any of the colors in any of the other rooms. Red, blue, gray, yellow and green were all taken. I was heading towards… Read More »The Great Room
The guest bedroom. I view it as my library, but most people view as the cowboy room. When I got around to picking the color for this room, I had already picked blue for my bedroom, red for the kitchen, gray for the office and green for the bathroom. I… Read More »October Leaves
There are no pictures from moving day, but I would like to thank the people that gave some effort to make moving day work out. The Friday before moving day had spectacular weather. The Saturday of moving day was not scheduled to have spectacular weather. I returned to work on… Read More »Moving Day
I’ve always wanted to paint my office gray. My inspiration for that has always been the gray card. We all know that a gray card is a flat object of a neutral gray color that derives from a flat reflectance spectrum. Typically that would have 18% reflectance. I didn’t want… Read More »My Favorite President
The very first color I decided on was for the bedroom. I was kind of partial to Dutch Boy paint because an old high school chum used to wear a Dutch Boy hat around. Plus, I like the plastic paint jug with a pour spout. Plus, I picked up paint… Read More »The Master Bedroom
On Monday Shannon and Jesse came over to help paint the kitchen. This concludes all the pictures I have of people helping with the new house. It took 6-7 coats of paint to paint the kitchen. That is lots and lots of paint.
Although Carla and Alexis did a wonderful job of taking pictures, one of the downsides of not having taken any pictures myself is that I didn’t get pictures of everybody that helped. So thanks to my incredible painting crew on Primary Painting Day: Jason Stensland Carla Stensland Alexis Stensland Jason… Read More »Primary Painting Day
More pictures from paint prep night. I got those green chairs from my Aunt Linda to with a sweet white table she was throwing away. Those chairs are surprisingly popular. That is also Shannon showing off her taping skills. Carla painting the bathroom. Life Lesson: When working on a ceiling… Read More »Friday Night Paint Prep Club – Part B
Day 3 of home ownership consisted of paint prep and lots of it. Her are some pictures in no particular order from that night. Teresa eating. Shannon would want me to point out one thing in this picture. Well maybe two things. One she is a master taper. Two she… Read More »Friday Night Paint Prep Club – Part A
Day 2 at the house involved a ton of work on the cabinets. Carla put a coat of paint on the bathroom walls. The carpet removal team started their work. I don’t remember the actual name of this color, so we will call it green. I respect Carla and her… Read More »Day 2 – Things Start to Look Different
I have not touched any of my cameras since I left the resort in Arizona. Luckily for me Carla and Alexis did a fair amount of documentary photography on the work that was done on the house. Day 1 consisted mostly of swapping out light fixtures and starting the nightmare… Read More »More Day 1 Fun
On Wednesday, February 25, 2009, I officially became a homeowner. I arrived at the office of my Mortgage Broker and signed papers with a lawyer for about 30 minutes. I fully intended to count how many times I signed my name and put my initials on the bottom of other… Read More »The Adventure of Home Ownership Begins
Negotiation isn’t the sharpest tool in my skillset. So after I had made the decision to make a move and try to buy the House with the Cute Backyard, I was a bit worried about the negotiation part of the process. To not bore you with the details of the… Read More »The Ballad of House Buying: Part 5 – The Art of Negotiation
On Sunday, January 10, I looked at the House with the Cute Backyard with Jason. I had seen the house with my Mom, Carla and Jay. Plus Teresa had seen it earlier. I wanted Jason’s far more practical perspective. Jesse also dropped by to look for a lead pipe. A… Read More »The Ballad of House Buying: Part 4 – A Closer Examination
I got pre-approved for a home loan in March or April of 2008. I went through the process with the bank that houses my checking account, Bank of the Bear. I would like to say that the process was enjoyable, but as most of my interactions with that bank, it… Read More »The Ballad of House Buying: Part 3 – Re-Pre-Approval
Saturday was the day of the big Ottumwa Blitz. I made plans to see the houses on Saturday morning before Jay and I headed to Ottumwa. I had drove past the house on Union a couple of times and determined that the backyard might be a little bit too cutesy.… Read More »The Ballad of House Buying: Part 2: Initial Look
So I think I can be a little freer with the experience of house buying that I have been enduring. I guess the most important news is that I am officially going through the process of buying a house now. I would like to at least go through the process… Read More »The Ballad of House Buying: Part 1 The Surrogates