It's official ...the house is ours !

All the i's are crossed and the t's are dotted. The house is now in our hands. Mike went ahead and moved his stuff in from storage. We meet our neighbors and they have 4 boys, two the same age and grade as Katy and Gabe. They are already fast friends and the kids wore so worn out from playing outside with them they feel asleep on the way home last night. I really like their mom - she seems very down to earth but protective.

I am already starting to learn a few things about home ownership and renovation. We had our first contractor come out. He wad great, gave wonderful ideas but I am sure we will never hire him because he was very expensive. But, right now I am just researching. Same way I did with real estate and that is one reason we got such a good deal.

First, renovating can be as expensive as building new. I found out a lot of the cost in renovating is the demolishing of all the really tacky stuff in your house. So, my new fashion accessories for spring will be a hammer, a strong putty knife, work gloves and a mask. Down the horrible drop ceiling, off will come the ugly brown paneling, out with the old half ass kitchen in the basement. (The photos you see here are of our basement) If we can do the work ourselves then that will save us lots of cash. Any company visiting will be required to take down at least one wall of paneling. ....just joking.

Pool room in basement now....


What we want the pool room to look like (and we would keep our "not as fancy" pool table)

Second, buy your countertops, cabinets, appliances from a direct wholesalers. Yes, this will be a pain in the ass to go pick up but it will also save us lots of cash.

What the basement kitchen looks like now...

An idea of what we want that area to look like...no stoves !

Third, once again Craigslist is are friend. It is amazing what people on Craigslist will take for free. Do we need to throw away the old ceiling tiles or 25 year old fridge ? Hell no ! People will gladly come to our house and take these things.

Main room in basement now....(and there is space behind me)

We want to separate that space to an extra room -- that can be bedroom, exercise area or what ever we want to do with it.

I am sure there will be many more lessons and ideas coming in. I have a company that specializes in basements coming in this morning. Another one I am sure we will not hire but I get so many ideas when they come over. :)

So I will leave you with this for the night.......

"Whatever you want in life, you must give up something to get it. The greater the value, the greater the sacrifice required of you. Everything has a price. There's a price to pay if you want to make things better, and a price to pay for just leaving things as they are. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily."

This must have been talking about renovating the basement !!