Yay. . .it finally arrived

When we bought the house, we discovered the dishwasher was broken, disappointing but easy to fix right?  I shopped online looking at different brands and models, checking sizes to make sure it fit the opening, checking noise levels because the deaf-man don't like loud appliances. 😐 It took me a few weeks to decided, then I went to the local appliance store, independently owned, small business, of course they didn't have one in the store, but they agreed to order one and let me know when they could install it. I didn't mind waiting, I don't like handwashing dishes but it's not that big of a deal. 

It should have arrived last week, but the lady called and apologized because their delivery truck never came last week, found out later it was a dispatching error the wrong trailer got attached to the wrong truck and drove to Ohio. 😕 I didn't get angry, I played it cool, we had a laugh about. This week's truck arrived and had my dishwasher on it, yay!

it's nothing fancy just a fairly standard whirlpool in white, it's so quiet 💖

I am really happy with it, it was a good install, I even enjoyed chatting with the appliance guy. 

I am working on my shop off and on, but I still have a bunch of stuff to do in the rest of the house so it's slow progress.

I am getting ready to tackle the hall bathroom. I've got the towel bar, toilet paper holder, hardware stuff. I've got the new toilet seat and curved shower curtain rod ready to go. Yesterday we picked up a new faucet because it was half-price and I am changing from shiny chrome and gold to a brushed nickel finish, not sure why there ever was a chrome faucet under a gold mirror to begin with but I cannot take the mis-matched-ness, it's ridiculous. I am painting the medicine cabinet, the gilt/gold around the mirror never matched, I don't know wtf they were thinking, but I do know it's a cool old Sears medicine cabinet so I'm planning to keep it and just refinish it. We'll have to wait and see how my plan works out with the layers of paint, I'm going for a distressed, antique look with a white base and silver finish. 

I did get a photo of the drapes that sort of shows their color better, but I am starting to realize part of why I love the drapes so much is they are just like my car, the color seems to shift depending on the lighting and the viewer, so are they burgundy, purple, maroon, etc. don't care. I don't have to name the color to tell you I like it. 😇

Expensive but worth it

I am making progress on making the new house a home. When we bought the house it had massive sets of drapes in multiple rooms, but they had been hanging there for several years and desperately needed to be cleaned. I spent hours wrestling them down removing the pin hooks and hauled them off to be dry cleaned. When they came back the clerk was shocked at the cost, but I happily paid the over $300 because they are JCPenney home collection custom drapes with massive linen lined panels, multiple valance swags, and end pieces. The replacement costs would have been well over a thousand dollars, and the originals were still in good shape other than the decade plus of dust and dirt. 😅 Since getting them back they have spent weeks hanging in the closet, initially it was because we needed to paint the rooms first, then I wanted to move the rods, but I have decided to leave the living room rods extra wide and only shrink the dining room. Yesterday I finally got the dining room set re-hung and due to the shrinking of the rod mount I didn't use all the top pieces, but I am happy with how they look. 

Currently the pleats are a bit stiff and it will take them a while to relax, but they look like new.

plus I just love the color 😇 

In other crazy home making news; I bought a giant hall tree. Even I think it's nutz, we already have too much stuff as evidenced by the fact that it took 2 moving trucks, but I wanted it. 😅 The husband wanted a place to sit and put his shoes on in the morning, we have benches and trunks and I could have moved one of those, but a bench doesn't hang coats or hats or store extra shoes so. . . 

I tried looking for local used furniture, secondhand shops, but I couldn't find anything that suited so I searched online and what a mind-numbing 3 days of comparing photos, checking measurements, and specs. I settled on this monstrosity, when I ordered it, I was aware it would be a flat-pack and I was aware the package weight was just over 100 pounds, but I underestimated the number of pieces it would come in. 😅 In the photos I liked the inset panel design of the back but I didn't realize it wasn't 2 panels, each of those "panels" is actually 7 damn pieces. Yeah, it took me 2 days to assemble, and I had to have the husband help at the end stages, because

by design and as per the instructions, it constructs as 3 pieces that then have to be stacked

I didn't have any hope of lifting that and aligning all the pegs and dowels by myself 😏  to be fair the instructions do say it's a 2 man job, although I did 90% of it by myself.   

I have also made some progress on sorting out the shop but I'm still not ready to unpack it yet.  

Faerie blessing? . .lol

So, I finally started working on my shop a bit.

 Just shuffling stuff around, still trying to decide on a layout for the workbenches. 

I have not opened a single box or drawer yet, they are all still sealed, taped up and in some cases stretch wrapped. 😅

Strangely somehow out of nowhere I noticed a single ring laying on the rug. I say strange because I haven't moved the boxes of rings, they are buried in the closet, the drawers I unwrapped and restacked are literally leather, paint, and bead supplies. I had vacuumed the rug before I rolled it up so I'm pretty sure the ring wasn't there. 😐 

 It's like the craft faeries blessed my shop.

First Key may be the worst. . .

I am not young and I'm not that naive anymore, at almost 50 I have lived in a lot of places in a lot of rentals so when I say First Key may be the worst corporate landlord I've ever dealt with that has some weight behind it.  😏

Let's start with I think all corporate landlords are bad, no company should own whole fucking neighborhoods, period. But since they do sometimes you have no choice but to sign the devil's contract if you want to live in some cities. 

While First Key has a lovely website (it's actually a maze of several sites and portals all designed to screw you into never being in the right one) it is dysfunctional and repetitive. However, you don't have much choice in using the stupid portals because they make you pay your rent and utilities through a portal, they force you to report maintenance stuff through a different portal, there are actually 3 and I never did figure out the point of the 3rd one.  😕

When tried to notify them of intent to vacate even though there are specific drop downs in the menus for that purpose it still says in very fine print that they must be notified in writing, not email actual mail. I am betting lots of people have been charged the insufficient notice fee because they didn't mail paper after doing the thing in the portal. 

After they accepted our move out notice I received an email with instructions and the steps to exit the property, but most of it is straight up BS. It said there would be a inspection/walk through 30 days before move out but no one ever called schedule or showed up. It said there would be a rently box placed on the door and to leave the keys in the rently box, but no one ever came and installed one. It said they will inspect and decide on the refund of the security deposit and if after you receive your refund you want to dispute the amount you can file in the portal and upload documents and photos as support for your claim but literally days after our move out all my logins have been disabled and I cannot log into any of the portals.  Seriously, I will get a final utility bill that I won't be able to pay online but have to call and do it over the phone and be charged an extra fee for the inconvenience of it all. We have to wait 30-45 days before they are obligated to send the security deposit refund (if we are actually getting anything back) and then I will have no way to dispute anything or upload evidence because they pre-emptively disabled all my logins. 😠 

So, they better send me the full amount back or I'm getting a lawyer and I don't give a flying Fuck if the lawyer costs me 10x what I'll get back it's worth it to me to prove the point and I might just contact the state's attorney and report the inappropriately cutting off portal access before the settlement of the status of deposit refund. Cutting off the payment portal and forcing me to pay the final utility bill over the phone is hella shitty, I had payments set up in the portal so that I didn't have to pay the extra fee on the payment and they took that access away for no valid reason KNOWING there is still a final bill to pay. 😡  

I spent weeks working my a$$ off cleaning that house from top to bottom, I took down all the glass on the light fixtured and actually washed years of dirt off, I cleaned things that have never been cleaned, I cleaned things that were dirty when we moved in. I paid over $800 to have the whole house's carpets cleaned and I have photos to prove it. 

the place was spotless when I walked out, which is more than I can say for when we rented it

I had to turn the flash off to get photos of inside the appliances because they were so shiny

when I tell you I cleaned every damn thing I'm not joking, I CLEANED like an OCD person on a mission

you cannot tell there were ever cats in the house, it is literally cleaner than when we moved in, it is the definition of move-in ready 

I double-dog dare them to not give me a full refund. . . 😐 I'm already mad and trust me when I say you do not want to mess with a menopausal GenXer with plenty of time and resources. 

Done, but not finished

There is a difference between done and finished, if you know you know. I am so done with this move even though there are things that are not yet finished. 😏 I am so done with the corporate rental company and their 4 websites and 3 user portals and stupid processes that no one follows, giving instructions that they don't even follow through on. Like be so f'in serious how am I supposed to leave the key in the "rently box" on the front door when no one ever came and put a rently box on the front door??!?!? 😖 Why does the email say the window to install said box is between 30 and 7 days? really!?!? could you be any less specific or useful 😠 I tried to follow the rules, I tried to follow their directions, but they literally made it impossible, so I'm done. 

In good news, the cats are adjusting and even liking the new house.

Merlin's barstool now has a view, he seems very happy with.

I still have a ton of painting, trim, and touchup to do, not to mention all the ongoing unpacking and organizing. It will be weeks if not months before I'm fully unpacked and settled. 

Holy exhaustion Batman!

No seriously, I'm getting too old for this Sh*t! 

Don't ask where it hurts because it would be a shorter list to ask where it doesn't hurt. 😒 My ankle popped so loud the other day I thought my foot was just going to snap off Death Becomes Her style. Thank god for the movers, those young men worked so hard, we have a lot of stuff. Although, I should point out that it wasn't 2 men and A truck it was 4 men and 2 trucks, did I mention we have a lot of stuff. 

Even with 2 trucks we ended up with stuff in our trailer and left stuff we have to go back for, yeah like I said too much stuff. 😏  

Part of why I'm so exhausted and sore is because my cRazY insisted on trying to paint the whole house in a matter of days before the furniture delivery. 😅 When talking to people about this it was pretty evenly divided between thinking it was brilliant or insane; it is way easier to paint before there is furniture and stuff in the way, but it is also insane to try to paint a whole 3000 sqft house with different colors in different rooms in a matter of days and then have the energy to move in. Even people who thought it was insane admit it was a great plan because once stuff is in the way and unpacking and setting up and then everyday life kicks in and so many of those little things you never get back to fixing. 😐 But this is not our first home purchase, and I know that from experience, while in previous homes we have done some stuff there is always a list of things you never get to. . .until it's time to sell or move and then you do those things for the benefit of the next person. Well, no offense to our Georgia renters or the guy who bought our Tipton house, but I want to enjoy it this time. 😎

And while I didn't succeed in painting the whole house, I did manage to finish the dining room, living room, master bedroom, my shop, the world's longest hallway and half a guest room (ran out of paint). I still need to do the sunroom, the laundry room, the back office, and mud room, and yes, it is a big house but see the aforementioned "too much stuff". 😅 Luckily the house also came with a second garage just for husband's too many tools, so I can still park my car in the attached garage.

The cats have adjusted quite quickly, I'm a bit surprised, especially by little Merlin as he tends to be a bit skittish and scaredy because of his less than perfect eyesight, but less than 24 hours and he's strutting around like he owns the place. 😌

of course, there is too much to see and explore so he won't sit still long enough for me to get a photo 😅 so here is the blur that is my Merlin

New house. . .

I am exhausted, I really hate moving, but things are happening. I know now that I'm not just feeling behind, I am in fact falling behind, but there is nothing I can do about it. There are a limited number of hours in a day and I am only 1 person, so I will do all I can for as long as I can and it will have to be enough. The movers and trucks are coming on schedule whether we are ready or not. 😏

in the meantime, I find myself wondering why one would hang such a massive set of drapes in such a manner over a normal sized window 😅

Oh, but I am keeping those drapes, they are JcPenney home originals in good condition (I took them to the cleaners) however, I am absolutely shrinking the rod footprint and getting new shears. The dining room and living room both will keep the fancy drapes, just reconfigured and refreshed. 😎 Although they are not the reason I like the house so much, they are just a nice touch, the real reason I love the house is the location and the view. 

 

Yes, that's a deer out my kitchen window just wandering through in the middle of the day. 😍