The Roby Family

The nursery is finished…sort of.  All the walls are painted, except the closet.  All the trim is painted, except the closet.  All the electrical is done, except a few switch plates and the closet light.  The crib is set up, but doesn’t have blankets in it…  You get the point, we are really, really close, but just not quite there.  Give us a few more nights and a weekend and we’ll be ready for showtime.  Until then, this sneak peek picture will have to suffice:

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The entry, stairwell and upstairs hall are all painted.  After seeing the “Lantern Light” while the painters were “cutting in” Jenny got really nervous it was too yellow.  Now that it is dry she feels good about it.  Personally, I really like it and can’t wait to get pictures, etc on the wall.  No sneak peeks at it tonight, but we’ll get pictures posted as soon as we can.

The HVAC system is installed and blowing fresh frigid air.  The crew has a few outstanding items to complete.  While they are working away in the basement finishing up the HVAC they are also going to install a new hot water heater.  We are taking advantage of having them on sight to upgrade our capacity and efficiency.

With spring time winding down and summer right around the corner.  I thought I’d post a few pictures of the once well-manicured grounds of the manor.  The neighbors tell us Mr. Speaker, the most recent gentleman of the house, was quite an avid landscaper.  He enjoyed being out in the yard tending to things and would trade plants with neighbors on a regular basis.  Once he passed, his wife paid a crew to mow the year and trim the hedges.  Unfortunately, they only did the bare minimum.  Many of the once beautiful bushes & trees are overgrown and have been infiltrated with weeds, vines & other noxious plants.  We’ve cleaned up a large crepe myrtle and set of bushes on the southwest corner of the property but that’s just scratching the surface.  I suspect we’ll hire a crew later this year or early next to come in clean out many of the old bushes and trees so we can start fresh with new landscaping.  Other than a gorgeous rose bush and a large iris bed no perennial flowers remain.  It’s hard to not have things in bloom year-round, as was the case at our old house, but we’ll eventually get there.  Here are a few pictures of the grounds and the view from the balcony off our master bedroom.

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I also put my new lawn mower to the test yesterday and for the first time mowed the entire lawn in one session.  It took me a good three hours but we’ll get that whittled down as I get used to the nuances of the mower and the lawn.

Lastly, the HVAC is cranking out cold air upstairs, the downstairs unit joins the party tomorrow.  The painters have two coats on all the trim and will hopefully finish the walls and ceilings tomorrow.  We’ll be sure to post pictures when they finish up.

If you didn’t know we have a little not so well kept secret.  Our house was coated in a color we not so affectionately refer to as “mintachio”?  We refer to this because at times is is mint and at times it is pistachio.  It is like hypercolor shirts, but much less cool.  The crazy thing is while researching colors we saw that a version of this color is making a comeback.  Let’s hope “Harvest Gold” isn’t next.

Well, today that color began to disappear.  (…cue angels singing…)  A two-man painting crew arrived today with the intent of covering all the mintachio in the entry, stairway & upstairs hall.  The trim will be painted a creamy antique white while the walls will become warm and buttery lantern light.  We do fear the warm & buttery could become Hannah Montana daisy yellow, but we’ll live with it, at least for the weekend.  It’s hard to capture the nastachio that is the mintachio but here are a few before pictures of the area:

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If you haven’t seen the beauty of the ‘tachio with own your eyes, don’t fret we got plenty left for you to gawk at on your next visit.

In other news, the rain pushed final completion of our HVAC system back a bit.  The upstairs will be complete Friday morning, with the downstairs complete Monday afternoon.  I can almost feel the fresh, cool air now.

At this point in the HVAC install there really isn’t much to show, but I guess when it’s all done there won’t be much to show.  Today the crew finished installing the second floor registers, attic ductwork and most of the HVAC unit itself.  Due to the rain today they couldn’t run the condenser & gas lines outside, but those will get done tomorrow.

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We’re still on track to be have fresh, cool air pumping thru these brand new ducts by Friday night.  Keep your fingers crossed the rain holds off so the exterior work is finished in time!

The painters had to cancel today and will start bright & early tomorrow morning.  I can’t wait to see the transformation once this high traffic area is painted.

Normally I wouldn’t get all jazzed about concrete, but today is different.  The pouring of this special concrete means the end of a nasty tangle of roots and stumps that occupied a space right inside the back gate.  With ends you must have beginnings (right?) and this beginning is a new, smooth, grey concrete slab that will soon be occupied by our new super-duper high efficiency air conditioning units.  Jeffer watched from a perch on the screen porch and couldn’t have enjoyed it more.  It hardened before we could get Jacob home from school to make hand prints in the concrete, but I’m sure there will be another chance.

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We’ve been blessed with a mild spring here in Tulsa so the house hasn’t been too hot, but we’re looking forward to cool, conditioned air this summer and warm air come winter.  The contractor hopes to be finished by Friday.

PS:  We went with “Lantern Light” for the walls in the entry way, stairwell & upstairs hall.  Here’s to hoping it is warm & buttery but not too yellow.  Painters start tomorrow.  We’ll post pictures when it’s finished.

Or something like that.  One of the pitfalls with buying an older fixer upper of a house is the inordinate amount of weedy trees & bushes you’ll find growing along fences and the foundation.  We’ve got our fair share of both.  Right along the back of the house is (was) a 25+ feet tall giant weed of a tree.  Who knows what kind of a tree (weed) it is (was) but it is now gone.  Since I allow friends to enjoy the frustrations of owning a chainsaw I chose to cut this one down by hand.

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I started by hanging out a few different windows to chop the top off.  With the buzzut complete I got the ladder out and worked on the middle section until I had two big sticks.  Finally I put my biceps & triceps to work and using a bow saw I cut that son of a weed down.  The back of the house certainly looks much better & cleaner.  More importantly it clears the way for concrete to be poured for our new AC units that will be installed in a few weeks.  Oh, and you see those two window AC units hanging there, ya those will be gone within the month.

Since I knew I needed to make a trip to the dump I decided to clear a bunch of other bushes out as well.  Our good friends, the Fosters, allowed us to borrow their trailer for the trip.  My one trip to the dump turned to four and an unscheduled vacation day.  No fun pictures of this action, but rest assured the manor is starting to have some sense of cleansing.