Let's Take a Look INSIDE...

Alright, here we go!

Here are some of the "before" photos of the inside...

Our Pumpkin-Orange living room...looks the same at the moment, minus the saloon doors and plants, plus our fabulous furniture :)  This looks like it will be our Labor Day weekend project...the carpet is yucky and smells like smoke, so we're eager to get it out of here.  Still working on a less offensive color choice, and figuring out carpet vs hardwood.

We're also going to get rid of the wooden slats that are in the entry, although there is a little monkey girl who might be extremely disappointed.

 

And then we have the kitchen and dining room, also unchanged thus far.  We spent forever putting new shelf paper in the cabinets and filling them with all our stuff...at least now we're getting to cook in our kitchen!

All three bedrooms are done - painted, which is a huge relief.  Ethan's room is grey, the spare room is yellow, and .  We got free paint at the Last Chance Merchantile, so we just went for it.

Here is the "before": 

 Ethan's Room ^

Spare Room ^

Our Bedroom ^

Look at all the awful smoke stains!!  We're so glad to have them covered.... I'll take photos of the new rooms soon.  They're filling up quickly, and we're getting all of our stuff sorted and out of the garage.  Speaking of all our stuff...here's a look at what our living room looked like when we hauled all our stuff in from the apartment...

We had so much help from my parents and Sachi and Ethan...even Asia pitched in.  We were covered in paint and dust, but we got so much done, and just before I had to go back to work. 

Ethan and Casey built an awesome fence to keep the dogs away from the kitties.  It's working quite well.  So to close out my post for today...kitties :)

More later ~ our internet is all hooked up, so I can actually keep up with this business.

LOVE, JESS

Project: Backyard Demolition, part 1

Here's the front side yard, about 1/2way through...there was originally a smallish tree against the wall that blocked all view to the area.  And then below, is a photo of the mostly completed, cleared yard...

This is the front of the house after we got rid of the big ugly bushes in front of the chimney.  We still need to get rid of the ivy, but maybe the fumigants will help us kill it!

Then we had to deal with the HUGE bouganvilla that took over the backyard along with a jasmine plant.  It was at least 10 feet tall, covered at least 10 feet of the backyard wall, and stuck out about 10 feet into the yard.  Yes, a giant ball of foliage.  

Part of it was originally tethered to a big telephone pole, which we uncovered after cutting the plant trunks and watching in disappointment as it did not topple over like we hoped. 

And now look at how the boys dealt with that one!

Finally, on Saturday night, we got it all down and rolled the last piece of it over so we could cut it into a few pieces.  The rest was already lying out on the front lawn...

So then today, Sunday, our task was to haul all the brush away.  So we borrowed Ernie's truck and trailer and only walked away with minor wounds (bouganvilla has NASTY thorns!!)...

We were welcomed this morning by a pile of kitties, and Penny, hissing away at me.  The pile retreated into their hideout, except for Sheldon, who kept sleeping. :)

Casey and I hauled all the brush (from the front yard, side yard, and the 2 big halves of the rolled bush that we left in the back) into the truck and trailer and miraculously made it all disappear in 2 loads to the Gonzales dump.  Hooray!

Tomorrow...photos of our cleared yard and hopefully I'll get some interior painting in!

LOVE, JESS

 

Did we buy a house or a jungle?

Here it is!  Our newest and biggest purchase, the Ohana Hale.  This is the view that will change the least in the next few years.  The rest of the place will be under a little bit of renovation for a while.

We got the keys on Friday afternoon, and I was there for maybe 15 minutes (waiting impatiently for the water company to arrive and turn our water back on), when I made the best discovery EVER (almost as exciting as homeownership itself)....

Four little babies (maybe 3 or 4 weeks old) living under the ramp to our shed!  I've named them Sheldon, Leonard, Rajesh, and Howard (they'll just have boy names even if they're girls, sorry kitties!)  Their mama, who I named Penny, is not happy with us yet...but she did eat the food I left for her.  Ohana means family, and family means no one gets left behind, or forgotten. Needless to say, we're keeping them!!!!

The first order of business is to have the house fumigated for termites, which is scheduled for Monday.  The "only" thing that needed to be done before fumigation was to have the plants in the yard cleared from the house.  You will now see why that was problematic....

There are more photos, but you can't even tell where the house is!  SO - we started hacking away at the bushes and plants right away and spent the remainder of the weekend chopping and sawing and hauling the jungle away.  Everyone helped and somehow...it got done...ish.

More to come...

LOVE, JESS