Another one bites the dust

Well yesterday another house bit the dust in our neighborhood. This time it went up in flames and huge flames at that.

As you can see this baby was engulfed and from what I hear it went up in a matter of minutes. This hosue was a few blocks down from mine and it was on 8th street, which is a commercial area. It was in pretty bad shape, because the owner had neglected it over the years. The police say they think it was arson. Hmmm I wonder who would want to set an old dilapidated house on fire that was insured??? Answers anyone?? But anyways we loose another old beauty in Springfield and gain another empty lot that will be used as a trash dump. Sad to see but that's what seems to happen here. A moment of silence please.

Buying a Second House

With the housing market crashing down and looking like it has bottomed out. Me and my wife have been thinking about maybe trying to buy a second house. No, we're not trying to bloat about it, but we came to a conclusion that we need a bigger house. Our current house is about 1600 square feet, 3 rooms and 1 bathroom. We have 6 dogs, 4 cats and a brand new baby, as you can tell it's a little cramped in here. We have been keeping an eye on the house prices here in Jacksonville and have seen some houses that are 2800 square feet selling for under $100,000.00! We bought ours for $150,000.00 darnit!! Our plan is to try to buy a bigger home and then rent out our current house until the economy gets better then sell it. I don't know how many of you out there have thought about this or have even done this, but I wanted to know what your thoughts were on this as I'm sure many people are thinking the same way, with low home prices and low interest rates.

Audrey turned One month!

I wanted to try to get this online on her exact one month birthday, but was not able to because we were in Tampa for the annual Sewing Expo. My wife loves to sew for her etsy shop, so because she had to go through all that pain to give birth to my first child, I thought I'd repay her by taking her to Sewing Expo. I believe we are even now. Anyways, I made a little pin thingy out of scrap pieces of fabric from my wife's supplies and we took pictures of Audrey in our hotel room.

I have to admit she seems to know the camera quite well and takes some very good shots. Needless to say seconds after the last shots were taking to threw up all over everything she is wearing.

Why you dirty rat!

Ever read about some housebloggers blogging that they find cool interesting things behind a wall they were tearing out? Like finding some old newspapers from the 20's, or maybe a letter from the original homeowners writing to their future residents, or maybe even some money! Well I was tearing out a wall for my wife's new craft room and this is what I found.

Yup that's right folks, I found a mummified rat! It was actually quite awesome to find, because it felt like little Egypt inside my house. What looks like happened was that this poor rat had made a nest inside the wall by our back chimney. Unfortunately for the rat a ton of plaster had fallen on top of him. Needless to say he didn't make it.

Baby Audrey is here!

On January 19, 2010 at 11:49 pm, baby Audrey was born. She weighed in at 7 pounds 10 ounces. I swear God makes em beautiful.

Baby Bumps... oh yea and the room too

Well it's been nine month now and my wife started from here

And now we are here

Still no baby, I believe we are now 8 days past due and I think this baby is waiting till it gets to 80 degrees. I swear she gets the weather channel in there. I don't know why she is so stubborn her room went from this

To this!  Maybe I should have painted the room pink?

We got this vintage crib off of craigslist in Georgia, we had to drive 40 minutes into the boonies to find this place. The 2 pictures above the crib are finds from a few years ago. They are nursery rhyme prints of 'Little Miss Muffet" and "Goosey, Goosey, Gander".

We bought this shag rug from Marshall's. It actually matches the trim and ceiling color. The blue trunk and rocking horse were finds from a local antique store, Southern Crossing Antiques.

We're number 1

Well not really, but my neighborhood made Southern Livings 'Best Comeback Neighborhood'. Pretty cool, huh? Hopefully this will change the minds of most Jacksonvillians. Most everyone in the burbs believes my neighborhood to be rat infest, crime ridden and basically a big homeless shelter. Now it's not perfect by no means, but we're getting there. I think this will finally shed some light on Springfield. Thanks a lot Southern Living!

Tool Deals!!!

Lowes is selling an 18 volt combo kit for $39. This kit includes an orbital jigsaw, 1.2 2-speed drill/driver, multi-finish sander and pivoting-head flashlight, plus a couple bits and sandpaper. This is an awesome deal for anyone looking for a present for that diy-selfer. I believe it goes on sale in stores on the 17th, but you can order it today and pick up in stores today.

Insulation question

I am redoing the walls in the downstairs room and have a question for everyone. But first here is the situation. I have torn out the plaster walls in the room and know that insulation is a good idea, but what kind of insulation should I use? Since my house is built in 1909 I'm sure the requirements for this type of house is much different than a newly built house. Should I use kraft paper face insulation, just regular unfaced insulation, should I use a vapor barrier? I have read many different ideas on what is good and bad. I know my siding lets in air for circulation and I live in Florida which is always humid, so I have read that a vapor barrier may not be good, because it could trap moisture, but would the kraft faced paper do the same? Would it be smart just to use the unfaced insulation? You'd think something like this would be straight forward, but I have been finding out with old houses, nothing is.

Painted Subfloor

I've been working on the downstairs room for my wife, so that she can finally have her craft room to make all her etsy stuff. The problem I have been having is what to do with the floors. I had to rip out the original heart pine floors that were there because they were all rotten. I put a plywood subfloor on top of the original long plank subfloors, but then found out that any flooring I put on top would not match the height of the adjacent rooms floor. My only solution was that I would just have to put a threshold that would go from the higher height to the lower height of the original floors until I saw this.

These are a couple pictures from Twice Remembered and she came up with a great solution. Just paint the subfloor!! What a great idea, and why did I never think about that. So I am going to email my wife and tell her if she likes this idea. I think she won't mind as anything is better than nothing. Although I was wondering if I should caulk the seems between the boards or would they contract and expand with the weather and push any filler out?

Squirrel vs. Hawk

As I was leaving the house today I got to see Round 1 of Squirrel vs. Hawk. I took these pictures and you can see the hawk sitting on the telephone wire with the squirrel pirched on top of the telephone pole. They sat like that for a few minutes then the squirrel made a break for it. Lucky for him he survived, but you never know what will happen in round 2.

33,000 Gallons!!!

Recently I checked my utility bill to see how much I have to pay. Normally I don't really look at the usage, just the amount because it is usually the same amount. I was shocked when I saw my bill was near $500. When I checked the usage I saw that my utility company JEA said I had used 33,000 gallons of water! I called them up and said that it had to be a mistake because with that much water I would surely have see it somewhere. Their response was "Sir, did you have any people come over during the month that may have taken showers?" I had to laugh because first no one had ever come to my house and second why would I let anyone take 33,000 gallons worth of a shower. Anyways I told them, "No" and asked for someone to come out and check the water meter again. That day when I came home I had a note on my door saying the 'waterman' had come by and say that there was a leak at the water meter and he had fixed it. He also said that the bill would be adjusted. Whewwww, that was a relief, of course trying to get the money back from them was another story as they would not give me a credit until the second month after to make sure there were no more leaks.

Now this is a Green Home

Anyone think they have a 'green' home? Read this article. 80% of the materials he uses to make these homes are salvaged from other construction or things he finds on the side of the road. Now this guy is thinking green. He also does it for a good cause, he makes them for low income families. Someone give this guy an award.

The Baby is a.....

Yesterday my wife and I went to the doctors to find out if we were having a future football player or a ballerina. As I said yesterday we asked to have the final word written on a piece of paper an put into an envelope. We decided to go to PF Changs to find out. I opened the envelope and was elated to find out that our baby is a GIRL! Well I guess my hopes of a future football player is out the door, but I'm so happy to find out that We're having a girl. So now comes the part where we have to find a name. My wife has already come up with about a gazillion different ones. I guess that will have to be another post.

Is it a boy or a girl?

Well today is the day (hopefully) that I find out if my baby is a boy or a girl. I'm hoping for a boy of course and my wife wants a girl. I think I have the edge because I had a weird dream that my baby was a boy, so I'm hoping I have future seeing tendencies. We wanted to make the revealing a special occasion, so my wife thought of a plan to ask the doctor not to tell us and instead to write it on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope for us. The plan is for us to go to a special place and eat dinner and open the envelope together so that it will be memorable. I thought it was a great idea, so when we go to the doctors today we are going to ask them to do this for us. Well wish us luck, well wish me luck that it's a boy!

Kicked out of your own home... Watch out for the banks

Now this is something I hope never happens to me. A lady comes home to find out that her house was auctioned off by her bank to someone else. I hope this lady sues for a bunch of money. Here's the link.

My Walking Screen Door

Well I came back home from work today, all elated because it was TGIF, to find that my bag of cat food was stolen. That's right CAT FOOD!!! This is the 3rd time that I have had a cat food nabbing, but that is not the whole story. I also found that my side fence door was a little open. I found that weird since I always lock the door, plus it has 2 locks on it just in case. I went to the back yard to find that my screen door decided to run away as well. I don't know what kind of people I am dealing with, but it is evidently one that is hungry for Friskies, but also needs a new screen door to look out of. Oh yea this person also decided to poke holes in my bird seed bags as well. But the jokes on you kid, I needed to fill my bird seed feeders anyway.

Yard Sale = Epic FAIL

Have you ever had one of those great ideas and have it turn out to be an epic fail? Well this weekend looks to be one of those days. My wife and I decided to get rid of our storage unit to save money for our soon to be baby and to save money. So I brought most of the stuff to the house earlier this week. But with all these boxes taking up space, what do we do? YARD SALE! So we decided to have one this weekend, starting today. So from 7-12 we had our first yard sale. We took everything out and set all up, bought signs and lemonade and sweet tea. Woke up early this morning and sat outside waiting for the droves of people to come our way. One hour goes by, ok that's fine it's real early, I'm sure they will come in a little bit. Two hours, maybe I should check the signs and see if they fell down. I go and check and see they are still up. Ok, finally in the third hour someone comes by. It's a neighborhood kid and he buys a M&M mug for $.50. Woohoo!!! our first sale. Now I knew this was the start of a good day. 12:00 comes by and I check to see how much we made. $6.50.... yep that's right $6.50. The dang signs cost more than that, not too mention not one person drank lemonade or sweet tea. Of course only 3 people came by anyways. EPIC FAIL! I know it was just the first day, but I figured I would make more than $1.30 per hour. Crap I think children in sweat shops make more than that. Oh well, just wondering if anyone else has had any similar stories.

Transformers!!!!

Just saw Transformers 2 at 12:01 this morning and thought it was awesome. Not much of a storyline, but action was jam packed. If you still play with your toys then go watch it.

Nail House

Never heard of the term 'nail house'? Me neither until I saw this post and then I knew exactly what nail houses were. If you have watched the Disney movie Up, then you will know. But anyways this is a pretty cool article on a few nail houses and how owners are unwilling to give up their homes to developers.