Dave&Callie

Nov 2018 - New home renovations in full swing!

Lots of fun stuff going on at the new house. Dave has found several places to have coffee, serve as a cat couch and watch the birds from the new house. This particular perch is in the master bedroom.

Pente is stressed as usual (not!). She loves having much more room to run and play! She even likes prancing around in her dresses as usual.

I did buy two toys since moving. First, this awesome heat press. And second (not shown) a compound walking foot sewing machine. My sewing room set up is complete and amazing!

Although it's been a virtually snow free year to date, when it has snowed, it's been beautiful given the cool trees at the new house! This view is coming down the stairs looking toward what will ultimately be a wall of cabinets and shelves - aka the library.

The biggest project underway is that we are finishing the basement. It will ultimately have a guest bedroom, bath, rec room, library and exercise room. It likely won't be done until Feb - we are psyched! This view is looking from the library to the guest sweet.

To date, the framing, half the plumbing, the electrical and the HVAC is complete. Once the plumber finishes, it's inspection time. We are heading out shortly to pick carpeting and tile.

Looking back toward the stairs, this shows the exercise room

Dave in the rec room where there will also be a bar/mini-kitchen.

From the exercise room toward the library. The wall on the stairs has been removed to make it more open.

The house is loaded with so many windows. You never know who you will see looking out!

One of the first things we did was to set up our bird bath. It has been a huge hit (as expected) and continues to be endless entertainment!

November 1, 2018 A day late - T- Rex visits

It came the day after Halloween, but that's okay as there is always a good reason and time to wear a T-Rex costume around the house.

As anyone who knows Pente could have predicted, she couldn't have cared less! We had a lot of fun though!

November 2018- Miscellaneous - Happy Pets!

An really unexpected benefit of moving is that the animals (and people) really love it here. We never once thought "oh the pets are unhappy", but seeing Pente run around, explore, play and find a lot of sunny spots has been rewarding.

The parrots are happier too. They are less feisty around one another (I think the benefit of a much larger room) and are willing to come out a lot. Dave is really enjoying that part. I think before, they felt they needed to be on guard from a surprise snip from a neighbor.

Look at that happy face! I like that their bedroom has a bathroom. It makes caring for them even easier.

Pente. She's a nut.

Well, someone is a nut. That cat is not able to be scared!

She loves these new drapes that I want her to stay out of. Of course, being a cat, she loves to be in them!

November 2018 House Renovations Begin!

While this house was move in ready, like any new homeowner, there were some changes we wanted to make. Up first is finishing the basement and upgrading the garages.

The basement wasn't finished, but it certainly wasn't a gross scary place. Still, we wanted to be sure to have a dedicated guest bedroom and bath. Plus, we wanted a room for all the exercise stuff, and the books/outdoor gear (library), and a rec room and bar/kitchen.

Framing was completed in 1 day plus a few more hours.

Our first wildlife sighting!

We should be getting electrical work done next.

While we hired a contractor for the basement, Dave and Mark C are working in the garages. The first thing we did was repour the floors.

Then they added a lot of outlets and lights.

And the messiest of all jobs was insulating the walls. Why a builder didn't do it before putting sheetrock up is a mystery!

Regardless, the one-car garage is ready to go with the exception of painting and putting the stairs back. This particular garage will be Dave's dedicated work area.

October 12-30, 2018 - Closing date and the joy of Moving

While we only moved eight miles by car, it feels like a different world. Here is our new home in the above photo. As you can see we are surrounded by lots of green space, peace and quiet!

Before getting to the new house, we had a lot of work that needed to be done. The new owners of the the old house love it - and they should. It's a great house!

Although a smaller home, we discovered that we really are masters of storage! In fact, while packing, we simply ran out of places to put boxes! We lived in box land for a few weeks.

Here the kitchen is pretty much packed up.

And the living room in partially dissembled mode.

This is the downstairs den. It doesn't look as packed in this photo as it felt.

We did such a good job packing that at the end of the last packing day, we had nothing available to eat or celebrate with. We finally found a tiny bottle of Baileys that we used to post the big move.

We rented the Uhaul you saw in the last post to move stereo stuff, fragile stuff and the birds. Here are the cages headed over. The birds were in their pet taxis. The move went smooth for everyone but Henri (and me!) - he managed to get very stressed for some reason. He's fine now though it was really tough.

The new house is amazing, but the garage floors were messed up from heaving 12 years before. So the first thing we did when we moved in was to tear the floors out and have them repoured. So, officially, this bobcat was our first wildlife sighting at the new house!

It was fun to watch.

The two car garage will be a traditional garage, and the single car will be a workshop for Dave.

The concrete guys did an incredible job.

The obligatory shadow photo. We forgot to carve out initials in the new pavement!

Another early change was to get a counter-depth refrigerator. It's been as good as we thought. Insulation in these appliances is so efficient that wall thickness is little. That means more cubic SF for storage on a smaller footprint.