A Lot Changes in a Year

A few days old

   My last post was announcing my 5th pregnancy. At the end of this month, we will celebrate one year with our precious Luna Moon. 

Big girl. Always eating.

   A few months after she was born, we moved to Arizona, to be closer to my family, especially my dad. Sadly, only 3 months after arriving, we had to say good-bye for the last time. We are grateful that we got to visit with him a few times, the last just a week before he died in an accident. 

Taurus and Grandpa, riding the train in Phoenix

   We have since purchased a house. We are in the Sonoran Desert, halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. We are in a very tiny, a few miles from a very small city. We have been renting a house 5 miles from the one we now own. We were fortunate to have help from my cousin in purchasing a foreclosure free and clear. We are now rehabbing it in order to move in this week. The house will need continuing work which we will do while living in it.

It's not pretty, but it's ours.

This whole experience has been quite an adventure. Lots of ups and downs. The next few months will be a challenge, settling into our new neighborhood, doing the work of making this house our home, and finding our place in this big, wide open desert.

The view from our front door.

The thing about buying a fixer

Here's the thing I didn't think of when we bought this house. It seems obvious now, but at the time, it just never crossed my mind.

We looked at the house, all of it's flaws. We said, "Yes, we can fix this. Yes, we can live with that. It will take a while, but we can do it."

What I didn't think of is that while we work, ever so slowly, on one project after another...the house continues to deteriorate. The list gets longer and longer and longer.

I took out the yucky shower doors and hung a curtain. Yay. Huge improvement. Now the wooden molding at the base of the tub is rotten.

Ew. It's actually not as disgusting as I feared. I've been putting this off for a while. Like...a year. I finally worked up the courage to yank that stuff off of there. It was on there GOOD. Somebody likes their silicone caulk. At least I think it was caulk. It was like caulk, but gooier. Much gooier.

I'll scrub it up tonight and replace it with this.

                                   

We took down the old broken trellis. Uh-oh. The bottom 2-3 feet of the shed is rotten. Gonna have to replace that.

But isn't my little pond cute? I planted lettuce, cabbage and herbs, but they didn't come up. I may very well be the world's worst gardener. I keep trying. I'll pick up some new seeds and try again. Perseverence. That's what I'm all about.

A hurricane rolled though. The roof leaked. The laundry room wall crumbled. It's fixed and repainted now. That was 2 weekends, right there.

My husband, D, replaced the old ceiling tile. How nice. The roof leaked again (guess that patch didn't hold) and the new ceiling tile fell in. Now we're (and by we, I mean D, because I'm too short, even with the ladder and, well, it's icky up there) taking out the ceiling tile and refinishing the wood ceiling.

The roof has now been patched properly.

Isn't that wall paper hideous? That was on the original list. You can see, most of it is down now. That last chunk is lingering still.

Don't get me started on the flat-black-painted-tile on the lower walls. Clearly, this kitchen was not intended for actual food preparation.

D put an AC unit in the spare room. Now the wall beneath it is started to mildew. Sigh. That room needed new paint anyway.

I so underestimated this whole house-fixing-up adventure. I have never dreamed of fixing up a house.

I love old houses. I love the character. Every door in our house is a different size. They have working skeleton key locks. The light fixtures are brass with etched glass. I love that.

But I never wanted to be the one to do the work. I wanted to buy a newly renovated old house.

I have hobbies. I like to paint and make curtains. But ripping out rotting wood? Not a part of my plan. No. Not really.

But you know what I learned about houses? They aren't cheap. Unless you do the work yourself. And so, here we are.

The whole business makes me tired.