Busy, Busy, Busy & Fancy New Lights

Good Afternoon.  It’s Time Change Day!  It is crazy to think at 2am the clocks roll back since it already feels darks so early.  I’ll be at work tonight until 3am, which I am now calling “the second 2am.”  I have been trying to shave some time off my gals working graveyard tonight so they don’t end up working a 13 hour day!  We have been working an abundance of overtime and it looks as though there is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel ahead.  I just need to power through these next two weeks and hopefully it will settle down again.  I have been so busy with my regular job, working part-time with WW, overtime at my regular job, and training at my part-time job.  Whew.  It has been a lot.  I found a groove but will have another shake up and then should get back into a groove again.

On Wednesday, our permanent lights were installed on the house.  OMG, I am in love!  I spent Wednesday and Thursday playing with color combinations and I am stoked with my purchase.

These are gemstone lights that reside within a track that attaches to the awnings of your roof.  They blend in with the paint color and when they aren’t turned on you don’t even notice them.

The two guys that did our install were really fun.  They have recently started up this business and it has already taken off.  They completed nine measurements in one day earlier in the week.  Thankfully our weather improved and the rain stopped in time for the install so they weren’t completely miserable.  It was an all-day install and they didn’t complete it until after sunset.

I had to work overtime on Wednesday night so it as killing me to not be at home.  I ended up getting off early and spent a good chunk of the evening turning on different light combos.

The light have all sorts of special effects too which just amps up the fun!  It is Game Day for Boise State University so I’ve been creating various Bronco color combinations.  

There are several folders with holiday light combos available for download.  You can also make your own color combinations using the color wheel and slides.

This is just too much fun!  If you are interested in some custom lights, give Vivid Lights LLC a call and make sure you ask for Zack and Alex.  

One Year In Our New Home

On the 18^th, Kenyon and I celebrated the one year anniversary of building our new home.

 

She is still holding up well.  We had our inspector back out at the house in July with only a few minor issues.  The biggest one is the side patio yard near the front of the fence is sinking.  They think mostly it is due to being on the line dug under for drainage and will send somebody out to level it out.  Between that sinking area and the vole damage, it looks pretty bad.  But, Kenyon and I don’t even like grass/yard/landscape so eventually we do plan to get some quotes for getting rid of the grass on the patio side in the fenced area.  If we did that, I might even go back to mowing!

Once we got our fence, mowing was a bit more difficult because you had to now edge/trim around the fence and also wasn’t able to just walk back and forth the length of the yard with the fence now in the way.  I’ve been hiring out a service bi-weekly and have liked how it is turning out.  If we had even less grass, I would probably force myself to mow it rather than pay.  I’ll be happy come October when I can save that money I’ve been spending on lawn care.

We had a few cracks with the house settling but they seem to have re-sealed on their own.  We also have some nails working their way out of the walls/ceiling.  The inspector said that was due to a nail that went in wrong and was never taken out.  We have some gashes in our pocket doors due to screws behind the door in the wall area.  It was decided to leave the doors as is because replacing them would take more work than we want to put up with.  When it comes time to move, we will have to address it then with our realtor.

Overall, still very happy with our new house.  We still love our location and our neighbors.  Our ‘hood has not grown into the second phase yet but we do have many more alley load houses than when we moved in.  The traditional homes are also finished.  We learned we are getting some apartment complexes around us and will soon have an influx of extra people and cars.  We aren’t too pleased about that but there isn’t much we can do.  It is just a huge bummer.

Norwex EnviroCloth & WindowCloth

Are you familiar with Norwex?  It is a company that sells eco-friendly cleaning products and I’m hosted a party on Sunday and it was a huge success.  It was so much fun learning more and getting my house cleaned by somebody else.

When I went to my last Jamberry get-together, my consultant was telling me about her Norwex cloth and how it had cleaned her house (and windows) before we arrived.  I had heard the ladies talk about Norwex at other get-togethers but I never really looked into it further.  It’s not like I really need to be spending more money on home-party gigs.  But…

After seeing a demo on the EnviroCloth and WindowCloth in action, along with hearing the buzz words: good for stainless steel, granite counter tops, and gas stoves, I was hooked.  I ordered my cloth set and have been using it for a few weeks now.  I love how my kitchen shines!  Here are some before/after photos.

 

First clean with your wet EnviroCloth

Then dry with your WindoCloth

Look at that shine!

Ooohhhh Sooooo Shiny

What I love most about my EnviroCloth is that I can use it all week before washing it and there is no smell!  Due to something called BacLock, it also doesn’t transfer bacteria.  All you have to do is rinse the cloth well and hang it to dry by its’ tag.  I hate stinky kitchen wash clothes that you can only use one.  So this was a huge plus in my book. 

Oh, and did I tell you I clean my whole kitchen (and bathroom) with the EnviroCloth and water.  Nothing else!  I love it.  They sell a four-pack travel size and I’m also interested in some of their kitchen towels.  I can't wait until my other products arrive so I can keep the clean going.

Spreading Holiday Cheer

Today is my Mom's birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! She is in her last school year of work before she retires and they actually had a snow day today. I figured she would have been there answering phones as she has in the past but thankfully she took the day off too. I took her some flowers and a gift certificate where she gets her hair done yesterday afternoon.

I thought I would spread some Christmas cheer today and share photos of my house decorated for the holidays. I am hosting the immediate family get together next Friday, which is perfect since my house is festive.

I love this time of year when you can turn off all the lights and enjoy the glow of the Christmas tree.

It took a little while to find places to put my existing holiday décor since we don't have the same set up in our new house. Perhaps in the years to come I'll decorate even more.

Happy Holidays!

Home Update: The Kitchen

I am way past due for a new home update!  We got the keys to our new house on August 19^th and I can’t believe it is already the end of November.  Time sure does fly.  We love the new house, the area, and the new neighbors.  It has all been wonderful.

Good news is I cleaned my house on Saturday but I didn’t take updated pictures…yet.  Here are some of the kitchen I took last months that I have been holding onto hoping I would have others to share others.  At my snail’s pace, I better get something out!

 

We decorated with the same chili pepper we had in our old house.  After living with less during our home selling phase, I really like the cleaner look of less clutter on the counters.  We have a huge walk-in pantry so that make hiding stuff away really easily.

I had an over the cabinet outlet put in so I could put up some fun lights above the cabinets.  My coworker told me about some really great LED lights that are remote controlled and change colors and brightness/dimness.  We ordered them and I climbed up on the counters to put them in place.  I love it.  It is so much fun to sit and watch TV with just the glow of the TV and the lights on the cabinets.

 

I’ll share more when I can get more photos.

Crany & Canopy Nova Duvet Covers

Since I read several blogs daily, two of the different bloggers I follow shared about their new duvet cover purchases through the online store called Crane & Canopy.  When I followed the link and saw the video on the new Nova duvet comforters, I was hooked.  Here are some things on why I really liked what a saw about the Nova duvet covers vs. the one I currently have and why I decided to purchase some really expensive bedding:

The Nova duvet cover ties into the bottom of the comforter with some strings on the inside.  This keeps the comforter in place so it isn't shift around inside the cover so much.

There is a hidden zipper/closure to the top half of the cover instead of traditional duvet covers which have the enclosure at one end or the other.  This just looked easier to put the comforter into the cover and got me really excited!  And NO BUTTONS since it is a zipper enclosure.

The benefit of the Nova series is that it makes it looks like you have a top sheet folded over the comforter so your bed looks fully made just by pulling the comforter all the way to the headboard.  I don’t usually turn my bedding down so I love that I get the look without the fuss.

I was in love with all the fun prints and colors.  FYI, I wanted the coral/orange for the spare bedroom but at the last moment, Kenyon asked that I look for another color.   I seem to be into oranges lately and am already decorating our downstairs half bathroom in orange.  I guess it is all a little much for my muted-plain-color-loving-husband.  Since I don’t compromise much, I obliged.

I ended up picking the Pacific Teal for our bedroom.

And the Noe Quartz for the guest bedroom.

I really love the prints of both of these covers.  I wish the color of the purple was more vibrant.  It makes me wonder what color the coral/orange would have really been like.  I also think that for the expensive price of these covers, the quality of the sewing should be better.  It is a very thin fabric.  And lastly, I feel they wrinkle really easily.  I'm sorry but I don't have time to iron my bed sheets/duvet cover and unless you don't actually sleep with the comforter, I have idea how you keep it from not wrinkling.   

My First Patio Visitor

I've gotten to know my new neighbor, Trini, quite well over such a short time. I asked her if she would be home one evening where we could break in one of our new patios with some beer and girl talk to get to know one another better. Trini works a lot of house just like I do but  she did have a free evening on Tuesday night.

We sat in my new adorandac chairs and enjoyed a few of the Samuel Adams Fall Variety pack of beers. It was wonderful to get to know her better and continue to build a friendship. She is very happy with her new neighbor just as I am.

Side note: I had asked Kenyon earlier in the evening of Trini could come over and play. I was joking like you would of you were a kid asking Mom for permission. We had a good laugh at how it doesn't sound the same as an adult.

Update On The Last Few Days

I'm pretty sure this salad is the only healthy food I've eaten in days.

We are very much in the easy and convenient train for breakfasts and the sit down dinner restaurants. I've not quite got the kitchen ready to go.

We have been on the go since Saturday. I'm exhausted. Between a Uhaul truck, Kenyon, myself, and my parents, we got the small storage shed unloaded. This way we saved money on the hourly fee of the moving company we hired for the large shed. After moving boxes up the stairs we were over saving money and paid the extra money to have the movers get the rest of the boxes upstairs. That was a huge relief!!

We were all moved out of Mom and Dad's house and sleeping on the floor Sunday night. It was nice to finally be in our own place.

I've been burning lots of calories and we are both very sore. We are working to get  stuff put away and organized. Lots to do!

Christina & Company

I cannot express enough how wonderful our realtor team has been to both Kenyon and I throughout this whole home building/buying process as well as the sell of our Excalibur house. We fell in love with Christina when we met her upon purchasing our Excalibur home and I’m so glad we have remained in close contact.  She and her team are top notch when it comes to communication!

If you are reading this blog as a local resident of the Treasure Valley and ever need somebody who will be in your corner 100%, please contact Christina & Company.  The amount of knowledge and professionalism each member of the team brings to the table is top notch.  They were in constant communication with us and CBH Homes and always available to trouble shoot any problems that came up.  They even calmed my nerves a time or two.

We are so grateful for their help during these last four months.

I would like to say thank you to:

Christina Ward, Tracie McDonald, and Kelli Day at Christina & Company as well as Lane Ward and everybody else that worked behind the scenes for us

Dawn Crochet at CBH Homes as well as everybody at the Boise Office

Melinda Kim and Amanda Osburn at Guild Mortgage

Melissa Mireles at NextTitle

It takes a village to build a home…ha!  But seriously, thank you.  We appreciate all you did for Kenyon and I in helping us to get into our new home.

Final Upate On New Build: The Final Days Of Closing & Offical Homeowners Again.

It has been a hectic week with lots of hours at work and little hours at sleep.  But…I MADE IT!!!!  We are finally homeowners again and it feels wonder.  Thank goodness.  Now that I am off work for several days we can get moved in and settled.  I am super excited for the settled part.  Ha!

Here is a recap of the last few days.

Wednesday was our final walk through with CBH Homes and the day we met with our superintendant of our home build process.  We sort of got on this guy’s nerves early on with all the issues that came up.  But I don’t think he keeps a grudge so that is nice.  This is my only experience with a home build where I have been really involved.  My sister Katie built a CBH home many years ago but we didn’t look it over as closely as we did this time.  I guess you can say I am older and wiser?  Bottom line is that at the end of the day we have a beautiful looking home.  Are there still issues?  Yes.  Will there be stuff that comes up down the road?  Yes.  I feel after our meeting with the super that he might not be as keen on attention to detail as we are.  I’m sure that he is a part of so many house builds that he really doesn’t see little issues as big issues.  As a home buyer though, you see those little things as big things.  I felt that despite having the 3^rd party inspection was a good idea, the super didn’t really care about the items brought up.  As a customer, that makes me sad.  I understand that CBH Homes has minimum standards and from our experience, that is about as far as they reach…just the minimum.  Needless to say, I suspect in a few weeks we won’t notice the little things anymore.  So it will all turn out okay.  We want to be in this home for years to come and I know we will be happy.  And hey, as long as I got Kenyon with me… I’m happy!

Thursday was our signing with the title company and the day we handed over the cashier’s check.  Having the money we made from the sale of our Excalibur house was the most money I’ve ever had in my savings account.  While I am sad to part with it, I am happy for our brand new home.  The title company selected through CBH Homes was NextTitle and we really liked them.  Normally we use Title One.  It is nice to have some options though and we were happy with this experience.  I learned that you have to sign your name as written, including the middle initial if it is also printed on the documents.  I don’t sign my name with my middle initial currently (Kenyon does) so it was fun learning how to sign and not screw it up.  It rarely looked the same.  Whoops!  But we got it done.  Our buyer’s agent then came with us to the new house to take some photos with the SOLD sign.  If you are reading this and on my Christmas card list…you are getting a preview.

 

Friday afternoon we waited what felt like forever for the call we could pick up the keys.  We ended up getting the okay with one minute to spare before the title company closed for the weekend.  Whew!  It feels so good to have the keys in our hands and to finally be done with this whole build process.  I think that is the biggest thing.  It is exhausting and I am so glad this home build process has come to an end and Kenyon and I can get back to normal life. 

Just as we were leaving the house we got a text from our buyer’s agent saying there was something outside our door.  She left us a beautiful bouquet of flowers and a Starbucks gift card.  How sweet.  Nothing says new home like flowers!

We won’t have internet access at the house for a while due to a glitch with Cable One.  So, I’m not sure when I’ll pop in over the next couple of weeks.  I’m sure I can make due of Starbucks WiFi pretty easily thought.  So you just never know when you will see me next.

Ciao.

 

 

Update On New Build: Show Me The Money (Or Lack There Of)

I am feeling a bit stressed out about all the money needed to get a new house up and running.  It isn’t even the large items we need such as the fridge and the washer and dryer.  It is all the little extras like blinds, fencing, and some added furniture that has me looking for a stiff drink to drown away all the numbers dancing around my head.

After meeting with two fencing companies last week we have realized that wrought iron fencing is expensive.  Ugh.  Today we met with a local representative from Boise Best Blinds.  We had decided we would order our blinds through Blinds.com and were just waiting for a good sale to come along.  In the meantime, our realtor gave us a recommendation for her local contact.  They came out today to measure and look over some of the samples.  They have a business to run, I get that, but of course there is a million reasons as to why they are better than Blinds.com.  Much like the fencing quotes, I am left wondering if cheaper also means lower quality.  And in that case, do you spend more thinking you are getting a better product?  I honestly have no idea.

What I will tell you is that since we have been dealing with several business on fencing quotes and now with a business on blind quotes, all I see is dollar signs knowing that when you add in a person other than yourself…the cost goes up.  At least $800 of the quote for the fence is just in labor alone.  Now, that doesn’t mean I want to dig holes, pour concrete, and build a fence with my own two hands just to save some money.   In the case of blinds, I can hang my own blinds just fine.  Well, Kenyon can and I’ll just supervise!

We have to wait and see what the quote comes in at for the blinds and we are still waiting for quotes on two different fencing companies.  In the case of the fence, we don’t have to get it now.  So we just have to make a decision on what we really want to do. 

In the meantime thinking about all of these large numbers makes my head hurt.  I didn’t get much sleep today so I’m really tired.  I need coffee ASAP!

We are just one week out until we meet with CBH Homes to do our final walk-through with the construction super.  We submitted our items from the inspection to them and they are working on those items in the time between now and next week.  We are still set to close on the 19^th and will be signing our loan paperwork on the 18^th.  So we now have nine days until we hope to have keys in hand of our new home.  Kenyon was noting that of these next nine days he only has four work shifts left before he can start his time off.  I wanted to throat punch him after I counted up mine and still have a million work shifts to go.  Okay maybe not a million but I am working the next eight of those nine days.  Ugh.  It is sure going to make those 13 days off that much sweeter and will make me wish I had more than 13 days off. 

I Can Never Successfully Surprise Kenyon

Kenyon had expressed interest in a letter opener that was shaped like the sword from The Hobbit.  He found it on Amazon but didn’t think he should spend the money on it.  I told him to send me the link and maybe I’d buy it for his birthday (we don’t usually do gifts).  Since I wasn’t sure how long it might be on sale, I ordered it on the sly after an idea to give it to him as a housewarming gift.  After all, he has put up with me a lot since we’ve gone through this house selling/buying/building process.

Kenyon tracks the shipping of all items to our address so I knew he would figure out his surprise if I had it shipped to the PO Box or to my parent’s house.  I decided to have it shipped to Phoenix’s address instead.  I had Phe bring it with her last Saturday when we met up for the fair.  Of course he hadn’t left for work yet so I had Phe’s daughter Kiki smuggle it out of their car and into mine.

On Sunday morning I met Kenyon for breakfast at LePeep.  We were talking about tattoos and how he has never found anything he wants permanently on his body.  I was joking about him getting a Lord of the Rings or Hobbit tattoo.  This was my first mistake!  That remark reminded him think about the letter opener and he made a comment about having to order one before they were gone.  I slyly told him to “just wait it out a bit.”

Since Kenyon is pretty quick to be in the know of most things…the letter opener had been in his Amazon wish list and he noticed that at the time he sent me the link there was 18 items left.  Well now there was 17 items left.  As I was taking a drink of my coffee he asked me if I was the one who purchased letter opener number 18.  I about spit out my coffee and obviously that was a dead giveaway that my surprise was ruined.

Poophead!

I told him he couldn’t have it yet as it was a housewarming present.  So he has to wait it out.  I should know better than to try and surprise him.  It is funny because when we started talking about the package being shipped to Phe’s house and Kiki trying to be all sly passing it to me…he knew something was up then.  I just can’t get one by him.

Good thing I love him!

Update On New Build: 3rd Party Inspection & Fence Estimates

Oh my goodness it has been a busy few days!  I am now back at work and feeling like that is at least a “rest”.  Although I haven’t formally exercised in two days so I guess I had better log some time on the treadmill this evening.  I’ll save all that for a later post!

I traded shifts to take Wednesday night off in an attempt to get some sleep before our 11am appointment to meet with the 3^rd party inspector we hired to inspect our new home.  We went over to the house on Wednesday evening to meet with Butte Fence so we could get quotes on a wrought iron fence, the standards for alley load homes in our community.  Our neighbor on the left side has a large Saint Bernard and she needs to have her patio side fenced in.  We knew eventually we would want a fence on both sides of our house so we offered early on to split the cost of the shared fencing on that side.  We really liked Butte Fence and if we go with them will get a 10% discount since we are in a CBH community.  We learned a lot about fencing and decided on what we would like so that was super helpful.  We have two more fence companies coming out this week to give us quotes.

The inspection went well.  We hired AAD Inspection Corp and we really loved our inspector Mike.  He was a really nice guy, very informative, and super friendly.  He tried to ease some of our concerns reminding us it is a new house and there will be issues that come up.  He also wanted us to remember that when we point out little stuff that needs fixed, the fix might look worse after than it did before.  So that is really good to keep in mind.  He will come back out in 11 months and do a re-inspection before our 12 month warranty ends.  In the meantime if we do have little things come up we will just keep a list and discuss it all with him at that time.

 

 

Mike said overall the house looks really good.  There are a few things CBH needs to fix and we will know more once we get his report.  We will also turn in a list of items to our realtor and she will then submit all that to CBH.  They have until our closing to work on completing the items.  We hope these next two weeks will go smoothly.  Everything as far as the loan side of things looks really good so the wait is now on the house being ready to go at closing.  We still have our official walk-through and meeting with the superintendant on the 17^th.

While I am not a fan of complaining about a business (which I’m sure doesn’t seem that way with the issues we have had during our build process) this is a way to document our new home and also a way to provide a review about a company for anybody out searching in the World Wide Web.  While we do have stuff we like about CBH Homes, I am a bit irritated with how sloppy the cutting of our outlets.  Almost every outlet upstairs was cut too large and thus now had to be patched.  Mike pointed out that the fix can look worse than the issue?  Well….that is very true.  I took a photo of an outlet in our laundry room.  Thankfully this outlet will be covered by the washing machine.  Seeing stuff like this makes me not want to give CBH Homes a very good review.  I am not a fan of sloppy work.  I know these types of build jobs are fast but there should be some pride taken when you are doing the job you are being paid for.  That is where my irritation comes from.