Here we are, two month after we’ve closed, and our house is still a disaster. I’ve been putting off updates on the condition of the house simply because I really don’t want pictures of our ransacked house spread across the internet!
But we did install the bamboo floors and the windows I talked about, though if you compare the picture I posted (from Lumber Liquidators’ Website) to the actual floor, you can see the floor color is quite different. I’m not sure why that is, but when I complained to my husband, he said the sample in the store of our floors was almost the same as what we got.
Lesson learned: Don’t buy hardwood floors off the internet.
The bamboo floors in our living room.
Don’t get me wrong, they are beautiful floors. But they show everything – and I have two boys (and a little girl on the way in May), two cats and a husband.
I think we have a couple mice, too.
Needless to say, I am trying to teach the kids and reteach my husband to take off their shoes at the door! (I grew up in Minnesota where this is standard practice. Husband grew up in coastal North Carolina where it is common to leave the shoes on until you climb in bed at night.)
But we do love the floors (I think my husband loves them even more because they are darker!) and they are holding up very well. We were pleased at how easy they were to install, so I definitely recommend them – just make sure you see the color in person before you order!
We still have a lot to do, especially cosmetically. The windows are in, but we have to come up with the money to trim the sills still. We’ve spent that on other, more necessary repairs, like the leaky water spigot outside!
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I will admit, our electricity bill last month was $550! Not much better than the $600 electric bill I mentioned our neighbor had a past winter. This set off yet another flurry of draft-searching and we’ve changed the way we do a few things. My husband went under the house and repaired some of the venting that was dangling incorrectly and reinsulated a few things in order to improve efficiency, and I’m pretty sure the bedrooms are as air-tight as a house from 1905 can be!
The fact that this is one of the coldest winters on record really isn’t helping us! We did crunch some numbers, and realized that our winters in Ohio were no cheaper, but because of how we paid for it (usually up front for heating oil) we didn’t think of it as a monthly expense. Thankfully, last month the bill was $300 – half of this month’s bill. So I can expect that as long as it doesn’t keep acting like Ohio in Tennessee, we’ll see that this isn’t the norm!
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I could easily go on and on about our repairs, but those are the significant ones that actually pertain to this blog. As for the others, well, some like hanging shelves and pictures are truly cosmetic and just daily life. Others, like installing a HE washer and dryer set, a new fridge, and CFL bulbs, are certainly within the scope of my blog but just so very obvious. I don’t feel they are really worth mentioning.
Anyone want to come swing a hammer? LOL
Wee Essentials 