Home Sweet Home

Hooray! We have a place to live! The next thing to do was to get it into shape so we could be happy living there. And make it suitable for the many guests that have already made their reservations! The landlords had originally scheduled the property to be available for February 1, but here it was January 15th and we had moved in the day after the previous tenants moved out... So the landlords did not have a chance to get in and do regular maintenance, and the previous tenants didn't do a great job (or apparently, any job) with cleaning up the place. Well, no big deal - this was the "cost" of being allowed to move in early.

Besides simple cleaning, the bedroom in particuar was in serious need of some paint and upkeep. Check out the wall paper and "window treatments".

Also, the wood paneling on the lower half of the wall was white at one time (maybe in 1915, when the house was built!), but had browned with age - or dirt. Who knows. In the photo above, you can see where we had cut in with a new coat of white paint. Having new paint on the paneling really made a difference, but we weren't nearly done - that wallpaper had to go!

Behold! Our new bedroom, complete with "window treatments" that will hurt a lot less if they happen to fall on my foot. Maybe. They look like they'd hurt less.

Anyway, to all those people on HGTV's "Designed to Sell" I say: In Your Face!






Here are shots of the dining area and living room.

And some shots of the outside. Our house came with a front yard and gated entrance:

The vines (which provide an excellent privacy curtain) are all passion fruit - we have eaten a couple since we've been here. They are kind of like pomegranates, with lots of seeds and a messy pulp inside of a thick rind. Pie Girl has invented a passion fruit-based drink she calls "Light in the Loafers."

One thing we can thank the previous tenants for is the fact that this front garden is all strung up with twinkle lights, which makes a neat effect at night. They also left their cat, Pee Wee. Poor Pee Wee! The landlords are her new caretakers and asked us not to let her in the house since they were trying to teach her that their house (right behind ours) was her new home. She used to try and get in everytime we opened the door and even jumped in an open window one day! We had to endure about an hour each night of her cries at the kitty door, but she is starting to get the hint. She still hangs out on our porch and guards the house for us.

Who could leave this kitty behind?


The front yard at night.