Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The House is Ours

I'm writing this evening before Megan and I are off to bed. This is the Ohio Nature Blog, but it is also my blog, so expect to see a healthy dose of house stories to come. Today at 7:00 we walked into our new house for the first time as homeowners.

Tonights update: After wanting to tear wallpaper off the walls for weeks, we started peeling off the stuff in our new family room. It came of quite easily, with only a few patches where we ripped off the paper on the drywall. The glue, that is another story. A few sprays of wallpaper remover, a sponge, and a putty knife takes it off, but this process is time consuming and takes a ton of elbow grease.

Tonight I also attacked the upstairs shower in our master bath. Loose tiles are no more. They are smashed and laying on the floor. I'm guessing this tiny shower still had the original tiles, and the tile has been leaking for a long time. The drywall was so soft behind the tiles it had mostly just crumbled away. Mildewy, damp drywall, and even damp insulation all made the lower six inches of the shower really quite nasty. I'm just not sure why the former owners didn't address the problem sooner- the tiles were really loose, I pried some of them away with just a screwdriver!

We're so happy to be in our house, it really feels like home. We've already met two of our neighbors, and we're unbelievably excited about our gigantic burr oak tree (four feet in diameter at breast height) in the back yard, a tree which we are finding the neighbors also love. We're excited to be in our house. It already feels like home, even though we haven't moved our belongings in or slept there yet. We did it, we're homeowners, and wow does it feel great.

Tom

6 comments:

  1. Congrats on finally getting the house! Have fun! Youth....when house repairs seem exciting rather then just work :-) That is certainly the attitude you need! Grab some sleeping bags and sleep under that Oak!

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  2. Congratulations, Tom, what a wonderful feeling! Here's to many happy memories in your new abode.

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  3. Tom: Congrats on being happy with your choice. I hope all the changes go well.

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  4. I can't wait to see the house this weekend, and help where we can . You can tell us what you need us to do. There is never a feeling like owning your first house. Grandma ALWAYS said that, and talked so fondly of her first house in Goodyear Heights, and fixing it up. It was a much older house. She is surely looking down with stars in her eyes and sooooo happy for you and Megan! As we all are!
    MOM

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  5. Tommy, it IS our house! It is amazing how quickly we feel like it is OUR house with none of our things in there. It is fun to establish new patterns in the house- where to find each other- how to call to each other. :-) We now have 3 floors to look on and the outdoors! Yeah!

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  6. Congratulations on your new house!! That's so exciting! Our younger daughter and her husband just bought their first house and are moving in this week.

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