Winnebago house is pending

Tues. May 19th - Josie's 10th bday. She chose Lou's Drive-in for dinner. She said her hot dog was delicious. There had been a second look by a buyer the day before, and we were told that an offer was imminent. I got the call while having a tenderloin. This person wanted to close by June 8 or 11th, and was this possible. We called my dad and Dan to see if it was humanly possible to finish by then. Probably if we took vacation for the next 2 weeks. We called the realtor and told her June 22nd. That would give us ~30 days.



We got an offer on Tues. night and made a counter. It was countered and we countered again. We were counseled by our realtors that this was a very good offer. Cash, no bank to deal w/, and she wasn't asking for a bunch of stuff. Thurs. they countered again w/ 96% of the asking price, which we were told was good for this economy. We took it and signed the papers on Fri. am. Now we are really in a time constraint to get things done by June 22. So our house was on the market May 1st and had an offer May 19th. Pretty good for a buyer's market.

Thurs. Rolling Acres Edison performed at the Courthouse. Jackie had 4 pieces of art hung up.
This is her shading project w/ a picture of Shelby.

Orchestra played first, then we had lunch from the pushcarts. Yummy sweet n sour.

Sat. we drove to ISU to drop Josie off at the Elementary Honors Day, then Tami, the kids and I went to the Miller Park Zoo. It is a nice little zoo and it was a beautiful day. We went to Eastland Mall for lunch and shopping, then back to CVA for the concert.

Josie was in the singing group. They learn songs for ~2 1/2 hrs and then put on a concert. It is amazing what kids can learn in a short amount of time. There was singing, dancing, drumming, xylophones, and recorders.

There were a lot of Northmoor Edison kids invited to this event. Ms. Fletcher, the music teacher, is one of the organizers.

I forgot to take a pic of the tile after it was finished. Our bathroom turned out beautiful (costly). This is our tub. There is a sign up for this once we move in.

Can't wait to try out the shower. The glass tiles are awesome. We need a door. I have issues w/ clear glass though. I like shower curtains.

Steve, Erik and Dad worked Sat. on the wood floor in the dining room. On Sunday, there were Dad, Steve, Tami and I. Erik was there for a while, but his back was killing him, so he went to be w/ the kids. We unpacked all the cabinets, and Dad and I started setting the base cabinets. Steve and Tami finished what they could of the wood floors w/ the hammer nail gun. Mon. Dad and I finished the kitchen base cabinets - now we are ready for the counter guys to measure. We set the master bath vanities. Steve and I put up the 3 pocket doors.

We had Josie's family bday party Sunday night w/ our final cookout in our old house. I can't wait to entertain in the new house.

We are taking Friday off to do some more work. We are going to work on the bathrooms, so the plumber can come in. We have 4 more doors to hang. Maybe we will get a couple wall cabinets hung.

wood floors

Dad's friends from the lumberyard helped us Sat. put down the wood floors. Billy is doing the nailing and Andy was cutting and placing boards. I rented this powernailer. Fun to use!


I cut the bottoms of the door frames off, so the floor would fit under it. We rented a special saw to do this. It was fun too. The great room floor is done. It took forever. I think we started ~ 10 am and finished around 4:30. I am a little sore today. I talked to dad after their golf game and they are sore too.

Steve and I worked on the hallway between the girls rooms on Sunday. Our friend Jerry came and helped for a couple hours. He is very handy and a great help. We spent ~ 5 hrs to get the hallway done. Not our strong suit. It was like putting a puzzle together. We're going to have to rent the powernailer again next weekend to finish the foyer and dining room. Since it is a 3 day weekend, we hope to finish the floors and hanging the doors. Possibly bring some cabinets in.

This is Jackie's concert from last Thurs. Sorry it is sideways. I was looking between two people in front of me.

Another showing tomorrow from 3:30-4:30. I hope somebody likes our house soon!!

Doors

Fred the excavator came and did the final grade. He pushed the dirt up to the driveway and sidewalks.

Here's the laundry. The main bath below has the same tile. I'm glad we went w/ the silver grout.

This is the rubber liner that goes in before the concrete shower floor.

The large mound of dirt is gone from the back yard. No more "king of the hill".

Sat. after walking close to 4 miles, I helped Dad and Steve put in 8 of the doors. This is the entry closet. The doors look great. I'm glad I didn't have to stain and clear coat all 15 of them. LS did it.

This is our bedroom door. We need to go get the handles from Menards.

Grandma helped paint Sat. afternoon. Steve finished it up Sun. afternoon. We still have a lot of touching up to do. Most of the 5 gal. of Sand Dune was used for the Master bedroom. We don't have enough to do the closets.

While Steve finished painting our bedroom, I started staining windows. It took > 2 hrs. for me to get it done. I think the rest will go faster, because I learned some tricks while I was staining.

We have had 6 showings so far. No nibbles. I'm tired of trying to keep the house show ready. Plus I need to keep running home to put pets away, then let them back out.

Sat. we are going to work on the wood floors, and maybe doors.

Tile

Tile guys have been working furiously. They started Sun. and laid the cement board. Dan delivered the tile early Monday. This is Monday night. I can't wait to see it finished! We were over at the new house for an hour hanging out while our house was being shown. They liked the house, but didn't like the drop off in the yard. We loved the ravine behind us. No neighbors.

I hope it isn't too dark. They grouted Tues. and did the laundry room. Steve went over since he was off.

This is the beginnings of the laundry room.

Tues. was our last Northmoor-Edison Spring Musical called "Stay Tuned". It was theme songs from tv shows. The fourth graders sang Hey Hey We're the Monkees, Laverne and Shirley theme song, Wonder Years theme song, and Happy Days theme song. The performance was awesome. The two music teachers do a fantastic job w/ the students. Each grade performs 3-4 songs and the choir sings in between while the grades are switching back stage. They even get some of the teachers to dress up and perform. I got a little misty when the kindergarteners started, because I remember when my kids were that age. It goes by so quickly. I'm going to really miss Northmoor-Edison. I wish it was a K-8 school. Josie wore her Great Grandpa's Pabst bowling shirt and saddle shoes. She looked adorable. I'm uploading some of the videos from the concert if you would like to check it out.

Maybe we'll be finished in June

We've been busily painting. All the rooms are done, but the master bed and bath. We do have the color picked out now, so maybe they will get done this weekend.

Dan put the concrete column caps on the brickwork. Now we need to order the tapered columns that go on top. That is another job Dad and I are doing. This will probably be one of the last things.

We are thinking about putting slate around the fireplace and then pieces of trim. The slate has a variety of colors. The small ones have some metallic looking pieces in it.

Here is a 1/3 of the trim. It looks good as floor boards. We are running out of places to put it, so it is in the master bdrm.

I was checking out the tile we picked for the master bath. We added a sm. glass border in the shower and around the bath. I can't wait to see how it looks. The tile guy might start the end of next week. Everything is all picked out. We went to Leeway yesterday and picked out grout colors. I haven't seen the final cost yet, but at this point I don't care as long as it gets done.

Josie took this picture of the robin that built her nest really close to the house. She flies away whenever Shelby goes out the sliding doors.