The Big Move

Yeah I know, the blog went on hiatus for 6 months.  But it's because I moved!  Finally!  So I took a break from the public eye, partly because it was a busy, hectic, stressful time and who wants to read about that? but also because it's a vulnerable time and on the heels of the ID theft issues I didn't want to announce I was moving and where until all the money and information stopped flying around.

Then the thought of picking this up again became overwhelming.  Where the heck do I start?  I'm 6 months and zillions of posts behind.  So much change, so much good stuff.  But I have to start somewhere so here goes.

In short we finally found a place that ticked most of the boxes and was reasonably priced.  However some serious structural issues came up at inspection and the owner, who had acted as his own contractor and was sure he knew all about building, refused to offer any money back to have them fixed.  This resulted in a lot of drama and excitement up to the wire because I got past the point of no return with selling my Boulder house and was in danger of ending up homeless.  This went on for several weeks as deadlines got pushed forward and I had to rent back my house which thankfully the buyer allowed us to do.  Except we couldn't exactly afford it but Jonny negotiated to have his work pay for him to stay a bit longer.  A lot of moving parts.  But finally it all came together and we only had to move once.  In the end the owner's realtor took the money to fix the structural issues out of her commission because I was absolutely serious about walking even if it meant being homeless.  With 2 dogs.

It was all worth it though because this is my new back yard.

The house is a bit bigger than we were hoping for but not too gigantic at 1900 s.f.  It was mostly in good condition but there was/is a lot of deferred maintenance that we have to deal with.  And some cosmetic things, like the super super creepy light switch thingies.

There were around a dozen of these at almost every light switch.  Not only were they super creepy to touch but the switch itself was deeply recessed in some of them so it was difficult to flip the switch.  I know, about as First World Problem as it gets but they had to go.  I ordered new switch plates from Amazon and after waiting for what seemed like forever, the geniuses sent me this.

I had to live with those creepy things for weeks before I finally got normal looking plates with a proper hole in them.  The struggle is real folks.

It also took about 6 weeks to get the upstairs shower working because the diverter from the tub spout to the shower didn't work and the fixtures were so ancient that it took 3 trips to Home Depot in Durango an hour away and then finally several hours on Amazon before I could find something that would work with the plumbing.

Golden Oldies

Now before somebody things I'm super snobby, I lived with almost these exact same fixtures in my old house for about 14 years before we finally renovated the bathroom about 4 years ago.  I just couldn't face it again and the faucet was broken anyway.  I finally found replacements that fit the plumbing that look identical but in brushed nickel.  Except for the shower head, I found something a little nicer but still not super fancy.  That was the one thing that didn't need to fit the old plumbing.  I also replaced the matching towel racks, toilet paper holder, etc.  I am still living with the creepy medicine cabinet that smells funny on the inside.

There was so much to do, I had to pick my battles.  The owners took every single window covering except the curtains on the 3 big windows in the living room.  Which was probably a good thing because they were using creepy, frilly, gauzy curtains that would have ended up in the landfill anyway.  Another trip to Home Depot, $675 and 9 hours of installation later I finally had blinds on the windows. 

Much of the deferred maintenance still needs to be done, such as getting the oven adjusted so it's not spewing carbon monoxide and finding someone to climb on the steep metal roof to screw in all the screws that have come loose, stuff like that.  But we have a guest bedroom set up.  And the contractor finally came today to deal with the structural repairs.  Turns out he does tile as well so I may have him come back and rip out the horrible plastic shell thingy in the bathroom and put in a proper bathtub and some tile.  Or maybe not.  He also builds barns and it turns out I have a mountain lion trotting right past my house on the way to the pond so I'll probably need a barn or loafing shed of some sorts if I'm going to have livestock.  There's a loafing shed on the property but it's on the verge of collapse.  More Hillbilly Engineering and I'm not sure it's worth throwing good money after bad to repair it.  But we'll see.

In the meantime I've been doing lots of hiking and biking and running from room to room looking at all the different views.  In the end I'd say this is worth it.

Rainbow over Mesa Verde National Park from my deck.