Cards I made recently

I made some cards to send to Grandma Murdock to send out to people. She seemed to really like the idea of having handmade cards.

Here are just a few.

Happy Anniversary...

to Andrea and Mark. (((((hugs)))))

Happy Birthday, Aaron!

Today is the birthday of our wonderful grandson, Aaron. He is 8 years old. I didn't take a picture of his birthday cake card before we sent it, so I can't post it.

He is talented, amusing and good looking. We love him very much.

Scout camp

This weekend the scouts from our ward camped in our new woods. It was pretty cold, so most of them eventually ended up in the house to sleep (we told them beforehand that they could do that).

The scouts want to come back in the spring and build us a fire pit, trails and such.

This week the rebuilding is supposed to begin.

We have been feeling a little low because the house trustee lady was mean to Dave yesterday when he tried to talk to her. They ruined our house and they aren't even sorry. (The trustee and the family of the old people who owned the house.) They hate us and think we're going to take undue advantage of them. We're going to be fair. We just want our house put back into livable condition.

Trustee lady thought we should have had someone just drag out the wet carpets and that's all. She can't seem to understand that the mold would have a) been unhealthy for us and 2) made our house worth less money. She thinks what we had done was a ripoff.

I can't stand the thought that there are people out there who don't like us. Guess I'll just have to deal with it, eh?

Wallpaper gone

I went out to the place (that's what we call our new house to distinguish between it and our current home) yesterday to make decisions about paint colors and to peel wallpaper. Stanley Steemer pulled off 98% of the wallpaper already, but I wanted to get rid of all the rest before the contractor comes to do the drywall and paint.

First I made final decisions about colors. I'm going to scan them in.

OK, one note. The blues aren't really blue, they are more oceanic. They are actually a little more green than blue. And the pink is tan. The green is prettier in real life. Anyway, a soft tan on most walls, white trim. Accent walls in Living Room and Dining Room are the one that says, "like Shenandoah Valley" on it. The entry is one shade darker.

The green is for my laundry room. It's already that color - Cricut green - and I like it. It amuses me.

The kitchen has me stumped at the moment.

The bathroom has me stumped as well. They didn't tear out the ugly gold floor and the fixtures are blue. They had this wallpaper on it but it's all gone now. It will show you the color of the tub, toilet, and sink. (Please see wallpaper sample, wherever this blog chooses to put it.)

Anyway, after running around taping paint chips here and there on the walls, I decided it was time to finish up that wallpaper. So I pulled and peeled and got it all down. It was mostly in the kitchen. Now my house is wallpaper free. I'm actually kind of thankful for the flood because I wanted all the wallpaper gone and now it is.

We are on our way. We have decided on paint, carpet, and wood floors. We still have to decide on vinyl, dishwasher, and colors for the kitchen. The contractor starts next week. We'll be in before you know it (by which I mean springtime??).

Creativity today

I made a few cards today. I won't post the one I made Andrea's family yet, so she can be surprised.

My birthday cake card got a mention in the Cricut newsletter, the CHIRP.
(blushing modestly)

Fun with color

Today is Conrad's birthday. I made him a birthday "cake" filled with money. He's really been interested in penguins lately, so I put a few on his cake. Conrad, if you're reading this, don't look at the picture!




Yesterday we went to the paint store to pick paint colors for our contractor to use on our new house. That was lots of fun. At first I was just going to have them paint all the walls "tender tan" and all the trim white. But then our imaginations got going and we picked out colors for accent walls.

The paint store lady, Diane, suggested I go to diamondvogel.com and try out their virtual painting software. There I uploaded my own pictures and "painted" them whatever colors I wanted. I enjoyed that. We haven't been able to find the perfect color for the kitchen yet. We were thinking (well, Dave was thinking) of an orange sherbet sort of color. But it seems too orange (duh) and neither of us are that fond of orange. I'm tired of blue. I kind of like plum but it is pretty dark.

We get to go pick carpet soon, too. It's going to be like a new house when it's done.

Brrr...

We went over to the house yesterday to talk to a contractor about doing the drywall work. The house was cold. Ah, the furnace has stopped working. Since it was below zero last night, we knew we couldn't leave it like that. We bought a propane heater to try to keep the house above freezing so that we didn't have a rerun of our whole problem.

We have a heating guy going over today to look at it.

But the good news is, the contractor can start next week to put up our walls.

Progress...

Today is Ammon's 11th birthday. Do you think he got his letter from Hogwarts?

This is the birthday cake card I made him. I hope he doesn't think the flowers are too girly.

It is a joy and priveledge to be his grandma.

I LOVE YOU AMMON!

Beginning and Middle, but not the End

I thought it might be fun to show a few before and middle pictures. "Before" pictures are from the open house before we bought the house. "Middle" pictures will show with water, and then some pictures of the removal results.

OK, this isn't really fun. This is kind of depressing. I have to remind myself that when it is done, it will be beautiful.

(I'm not too good at figuring out where the pictures are going to end up when I post. I'll work on that.)

The room with the fireplace is the living room. The mold picture is showing damage above the fireplace. Then there's a picture of the living room with the ceiling and that part of the wall removed.

The other two pictures, the room with the chair, and the very dark picture, are of the dining room. That is the same window in both pictures.

Oy.

We checked up on the new house

We went over and checked up on the new house and gathered all the curtains to wash. Nearly all of the carpet has been removed, and several sections of drywall. (Well, I guess it was really wetwall now.)

There's still a bunch of mold on the window casings, which will either be blasted away or ripped out, I suppose.

The plumbers were there, as well as a couple of contractors looking over the damaged walls and doors. I think the contractors were working on an estimate. The plumbers were working on the sinks, toilets, and dishwasher. They ended up removing the dishwasher. It's scrap metal now. The leak damaged the pump.

Amazing what a bit of water can do. We're looking at $20,000 to $30,000 worth of damage. My poor house.

At least it can all be fixed (or replaced). I remind myself that it will be nice when it's all fixed. Then we can move in. Yipee!

Good morning. More news on our house. Our insurance company informed us that not only are we not covered for the damage to the house because we didn't own it when the damage occurred, but they won't issue us a regular policy either. I'm afraid insurance companies have joined with the banks in NOT BEING OUR FRIENDS!

We're still trying to get insurance info from the sellers. Unfortunately, since we closed so late on the house (instead of Nov. 18) they are very hostile towards us.

Ah, well. Anyway, so far the wet, sopping, dripping, moldy carpets have been removed. The plumber has been and said there is no large plumbing damage. All this mess happened from leaks springing in the U traps under the sinks. Amazing.

On the bright side, we got a lot of sympathy at church yesterday.

Card: dream...reality

I made this for a friend's birthday. It's actually tri-fold, but I'm just showing the first two pages.

Mystery solved

Well, the mystery of the house that wouldn't open has been solved. Dave and I went over this morning and he got one of the back door storm doors open, opened the kitchen door, and discovered an inch of water on the floor. The pipes in the kitchen and bathrooms had burst and leaked. We had an inch upstairs and more than that downstairs, along with rain from the basement ceilings, mold on the carpets, walls, and windows, peeling wallpaper, and bumpy floors. And, of course, all the doors had SWOLLEN SHUT!

Eeek! We called our insurance agent and our friendly local Stanley Steemer, Jeff Holt. Jeff and his two helpers (his sons) came out and evaluated the damage, and we will probably see the insurance guy tomorrow.

So we won't be moving in for a few more weeks.

But we probably will get new carpets and flooring.

Anyway, it's beautiful out there and we are still glad we bought the property.