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LJ (sales counselor) called me tonight, I guess the lady I spoke with at the central office told him I had called her asking questions about the repairs I want done. He wants to do a pre-walk-through with me Friday. He seemed extremely shocked that I had 42 items on my “still needs to be fixed” list. We’ll see how that goes on Friday. Hopefully, in the process of cleaning and finalizing things this week they’ll notice some of my minor complaints themselves and fix them so I don’t have to complain about as much. Most are very easy fixes, but things I don’t want to do, especially b/c I’m paying for them to do it right the first time!! Hmph!

I can’t wait until we’re in…things are perfect, and life settles down…

Our front door was painted today; maroon to match the shutters.

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Also, I give a thumbs up to Maple Street. They finally are fixing the drywall in the guest bathroom. They ripped out that extremely crooked wall, and put new drywall in. They still have to mud and sand it, but I’m glad they did it before the walk-through. It gives me hope that they are actually going to fix things before we move in, since that wall was our biggest concern.

We went to Best Buy tonight and bought our refrigerator, washer and dryer. They had some really good deals going on, plus Paul had almost $150 in rewards coupons, so we got a great deal on them! They’ll be delivered, installed and checked over all for free! Can’t beat that!

Check out what we got!
Fridge: Click here (we added the ice-maker)
Washer: Click here
Dryer: Click here

We’ve been looking for these appliances for a few months now, and are really excited that we have one more thing checked off the list for the house. We are ready to move in now!!

All that’s left is buying the blinds and paint from Home Depot.

Please read this if you own paintballs and have pets!

Yesterday morning we had all of out paintball gear laying in the living room before we left. One of my mom’s dogs, Lizzie, rooted through the stuff and ate about 50 paintballs. Since they are non-toxic we thought she would just throw them up and it woudlnt’ be a big deal. My mom called the vet just to be safe. The vet ended up ordering Lizzie to the doggie ER, where she stayed for 12 hours!

Apparently, even though the package says paintballs are non-toxic, they contain extremely high levels of sodium, which depletes the body of liquids, and causes the brain to swell which will kill the animal. Lizzie had to get blood and electrolites drawn every few hours, had IVs in, and her prognosis wasn’t all that great. She ended up being ok, and allowed to go home late last night.

The vet said that paintballs are made with fish oil, which is very attractive to animals. They think it’s food and will eat them ALL.

Lizzie’s large size helped her out in this situation, but the vet said that smaller dogs or cats have died from eating just a few.

Please be sure that your paintballs are stored away from children and animals of all sizes. I’d never want anyone to have to experience the scare that we did yesterday.

What a day! Paul and I started the day off yesterday playing paintball with some friends. The weather was perfect, probably the best that I can remember. We had a great turnout, 17 people! We played a couple games of capture the flag, then 2 games of protect the pope, then a 20-round capture the flag (each person only get 20 paintballs for the entire game).
Got some great pictures of it all.

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After paintball we went up to Dayton to watch movies/play poker with some Cincy DSM guys. Paul won the $25 pot at the end of the night (yay Paul!). We learned a few new games that were really fun…we’ll have to have a poker party when we get into the new house!

Paul and I have decided to have a little fun in our last few weeks before we move. We’ve decided to have a contest to see who can guess the closing date of our house. The person that comes the closest will get a cool prize…we’ll have to think about what it will be All we know is that it’ll be sometime in March. Guesses must be submitted by Sunday, March 5th to count!

If anyone thinks of a good prize for the winner, let us know. We were thinking about taking the winner out to dinner, or cooking dinner for them at the new house…but what if the winner lives far away? Hmm….maybe a “coupon” for a dinner at the house?? Dunno, we’ll be thinking about it; we’ll finalize the prize by March 5th. In the meantime, let the games begin!

Happy guessing!

The carpet and doorknobs are installed! Looks like the only thing left to do is clean, clean, clean!

I talked with LJ (sales counselor) and he said that the exterior paint (garage door, front door and front door molding) will not be painted until spring. They have to wait until the weather warms to a consistent 50 degrees so that the materials can get warmer and accept the paint. Also, the yard won’t be graded and seeded until around the same time. Kinda disappointing that we’re moving into an unfinished house, but…at least we’ll be in!

Click here to see today’s pictures

Today our mailbox was installed, along with the molding around the front door. They still have to paint the front door maroon to match the shutters, and the front door molding and garage door tan (same as the gutters).

Nothing new on the interior today.

Click here to see today’s pictures

We finalized (we think) the paint colors for our house. We plan on painting before we move anything in…that way it will be done, and we wont’ have to worry about painting down the road when all of our stuff’s in there…bleh, what a hassle. It’ll be hard work, probably will take at least a week, but it’ll be worth it in the end.

We chose Behr paints. You can go to www.behr.com and use their Color Smart system to look up our paint colors. They obviously don’t look exactly the same online as in real life, but it will give you an idea anyhow.

Click on the explore color link, then click to select color by name/number. Type in the colors below:

Kitchen and breakfast area: Spicy Cayenne
Family room and upstairs hallway: Desert Powder
Front room: Brown Bread
Office: Green Tea
Guest bath and laundry room: Soft Denim
Master bedroom: dunno yet
Master bathroom: Sage Tint

We aren’t painting the guest bedroom or our extra bedroom…gotta save something for later! We have enough to paint as it is anyhow.
-ec

Amazing…the house looks pretty much finished. Other than carpet (which they don’t install until right before the walk-thru), vent covers, painting the front and garage doors, and massive cleanup cleanup cleanup, I can’t find anythign that’s left to do! Yay!

I hadn’t gone to the house since Sunday (I know, I’m a slacker). I figured that we’re really near the end and there wouldn’t be much change. Today I saw:
-windowsills were all installed and painted
-more touch-ups were done
-the final coat of paint was done
-towel bars and toilet paper holders were installed in the bathrooms
-the bathroom mirrors were installed
-all closet and pantry shelving was installed

They still have two repairs to do that we will not move in unless completed. The bathroom wall that Rick said he would get ripped out and replaced got caulked instead, and one of the baseboards in the garage is about 1.5 inches above the ground. Don’t know how they didn’t notice that…duh

Overall, the house looks great and we’re getting really really excited. We got an awesome loan rate locked in, finalizing paint colors, budgeting for things we need (fridge, washer/dryer), getting homeowner’s insurance squared away, and getting antsy to move in!

I took some videos of the house today, along with a few pictures. I barely got the pictures before the battery died. I’ll get some more tomorrow or Saturday. Hopefully we’ll get the videos up by tomorrow night. Check back to see those.

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