Unwelcome House Guests

Last Friday we had intentions of doing nothing after work.  When M got home he went into his closet to change and I hear "Hey come here..."

Why hello unwelcome houseguests...where exactly are you coming from?  I grab the laundry and throw it in the washer for 2 heavy duty cycles and the executive decision is made to tear out the carpet and baseboards.  So I get to work supervising and the real fun begins.

Ultimately it looked like they were coming in from the corner of the floor but once we tore everything out and cleaned it up, they were all gone and we haven't really seen any since the invasion.   For now we have a tiny rug in there until we figure out what to do with the space.  Since the wall against his closet is exterior and there was a "vine garden" outside we decided to tear that out and see if we can find the source.  It was on our project list because the trellis set up was falling over and the vines looked dead.

Unfortunately I did not take many pictures because as a new blogger, I forgot.  There wasn't much step by step to this project - we just tore out the three trellis set-ups, pulled up the metal stakes (which was difficult and one snapped hitting M in the head - he's ok!), dug out the root balls and raked all of the dead stuff up.  We do need to till and try to seed some grass but it is too hot right now so maybe in a month or two.  We also did not find the source of the ants but I spread Amdro fire ant grains every where so I need to see if they are working yet.  Doesn't that look so much better?

Downsizing and Downgrading

When we moved we were lucky enough to have a corporate relocation.  I'm telling you, the only way to move is having someone else do it for you!  Don't get me wrong, we pulled our weight and did several moves for me to come out first and move all of the things they would not pack.  Anyway, it took them two days to pack our stuff and load it up for temporary storage.  When it was time to deliver everything to our new house, I thought I recognized one of the guys from our move out here and sure enough, I was right!  When he came into the house he said "Woah!  Downgrade!"  I totally agree with him...but it won't look like this forever!  It was funny because the more trips they made inside, all of the guys were offering ideas on how to fix it up so even they were excited for the potential.  That is the biggest reason we bought this house - so much potential.

Here are some photos of the house the day we got the keys.  These photos are iPhone pictures so apologies for the quality...I still am trying to figure out blogging before I work on my photography skills!

We've Moved!

When we moved to Midland it was a bit of a shock to the system.  I went to Texas Tech so I expected Midland to be like Lubbock...oh no.  When we came out here to do our house hunting trip we were shocked at how small Midland is - you can get from the north to south side of town in 15-20 minutes.  We are less than 10 minutes from our offices which is awesome considering I had a 30-40 minute commute to go ten miles back in DFW.  The only downside to Midland is that everyone is out here so for a small town there are way too many people - you can wait up to two hours to get a table somewhere for dinner.  Even still, I think moving out here was the right decision for us given the options presented.  

When we lived in Dallas we lived in a 10 year old home, 3,000 sq ft, 4 bed/2.5 bath with a game room and an office, updated and great natural light.  Real estate in Midland is extremely expensive - you are talking upwards of $140/sq ft even for homes that are not new construction.  Our house in Dallas could have easily gone for $500k out here so that was out of the question for our budget.  We looked at close to 30 houses, made offers on 5 and finally ended up with the one we have now.  It was built in 1980, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths and after living in it for a few weeks...it has not been taken care of very well.  This house is going to require a full renovation - upgrading everything, paint, scraping the popcorn, new bathrooms/kitchen, the works!  One of the movers who did our move out here was part of the crew that unloaded our stuff in Midland and he said "Woah!  Major downgrade."  Yeah true but the space has potential and it is livable for now.  We are excited to make this place a home and take care of it for a change.  We are the 5th to 6th owners of this home.  

I started this blog to update our family and friends on our progress and to document it for ourselves.  We have never really done any kind of big renovations like this house needs so it's excited but scary all at the same time.  

Have you ever done any kind of renovations?  I love reading home/DIY blogs so we are hoping to do some DIY and utilize contractors for the big stuff - we know our limits!