Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Yup. We're breaking up. Separating because you don't meet my needs or expectation. I'm moving up and out. Me and Blogspot that is. Hope you don't think I'm talking about me and C. Silly. I've only been married for a year of our 100 year contract.

still smiling together

I've discovered WordPress. A little more work to set up, but much easier to use afterwards. And I can post bigger pictures. So big you can see my pores. Just Kidding. For you iPhone and Droid lovers, WP is much easier to view on mobile devices. Fully tested on a Droid. Let me know how it looks on your iPhone. Please visit and bookmark the new website:

http://nailpolishandpaint.wordpress.com/

I'll unveil the name behind the blog. But you might have already guessed, so I'll confirm your suspicions.

Craigslist App

Dear Craigslist Ad Poster,

Please do not use adjective like "beautiful" or "antique" when describing your worn down, cat hair covered, coffee stained arm chair. "Must see" does not mean that I must see the ugly crap you are trying to get rid of. It is NOT ok to use "vintage" to describe your 90s Zac Morris hand me downs. It IS ok to throw your things away. You've squeezed the last drop of usefulness out of your stuff. Thank you for wasting my time.

xoxo,
A

Actual craigslist listing: "'Vintage/Retro Sturgis Posture Chair/Task Chair/Armless Office Chair'--Armless task chair. The Sturgis Posture Chair made by the Sturgis Posture Chair Co. in Michigan. Is in great condition except the tear on the seat. Rolls very well."

really? does 'great' and 'tear' belong in the same sentence?

Tired of clicking on a craigslist post only to find that you've been deceived by a dubious craigslister? Well, there's an app for that. At least on Firefox. I've been using CLIP and so far so good. It takes a tad bit longer for the pages to load, but I'm still saving time by not clicking on each ad. Let me know if you use it and how you like it. Happy bargain hunting.

See you Monday. In case you haven't noticed a pattern, I don't post on the weekends. You're too busy to come here anyways, right?

Felt Up

We have to replace the felt on the pool table since there isn't enough slack to tighten it up when we reassemble it. Con: Pool felt is expensive. I wonder if I can sew together a few 25 cent felt squares to save money. Pro: I'm not fond of the color so I get to pick a new one. Thank goodness pool felt comes in more than that horrid forest green and wine. Here are a few of my choices:

stormy grey

calm camel

basic black

pretty in pink

C said I could pick any color, but he already vetoed the pink. But I vetoed the felt with a Raiders logo. So we're even. We're still deciding on which furniture will go in the pool room. Once we decide, then we can pick the felt color to go with the rest of the room.

Layout by the Pool

We can't wait to move into the house. Minor things (like closing escrow) haven't stopped us from thinking about where we're putting our stuff. We tried drawing the layout with pencil and paper, but it was too much work. We found this free site where you can create floor plans and add furniture. I found a new way to waste my time! We have to plan carefully to minimize the times we have to move this:

That's why we needed all of that space, in case you were wondering why 2 people needed such a big house. (Spoiler alert: No, we're not expecting to add anyone to our family anytime soon.) Plus we just own a lot of stuff. We combined 2 apartments into a 4 bedroom rental house. And then bought more furniture.

So we've been playing around with how to layout the pool table and the rest of the living room furniture. But mainly the pool table since it's too darn heavy to move around once it's set up.

like this?

how about this way?

in the other room?

You can even create 3D images of your room!

No, that website did not pay us to say nice things. We just think it's cool. What do you think? You still have time to vote (we're still in escrow). Leave a comment.

Spray It! Corner Shelf

During my weekly peruse of craigslist, I found this metal corner shelf. I knew my friend wanted a similar one so I picked it up for her. Since faux patina is not her style and paint fumes are bad for pregnant people, I also painted it for her. After a coat of spray primer and paint, it went from this:

don't mind the dead grass. it was like that when we got here. i swear.

To this:

i like my new home and accessories

Not bad for a $5 craigslist find and leftover spray paint. While I was busy working on this delivery for Suzy, she was busy delivering this:

you caught me without my shirt. how embarrassing.

Off the Market

There are quite a few farmer's markets in our neighborhood on the weekends. We recently went off to the market to pick up a few essentials.

cherry tomatoes

blackberries

strawberries

eggplant

mellons

a house

Yes, the sellers accepted one of our offers. Soon, we'll own what most American's already have: lifelong debt. Wish us luck!

Follow Me

look at those sad puppy dog eyes

Are you as sad as Murphy when you come here and find there aren't any new posts? Do you find the name of this blog hard to remember? Click on the "follow" icon to the right to solve your problems. Through the magic of Google, you will be alerted when there are new posts.

*no dogs were harmed during the production of this post. murphy is sad because he had to hang out with me for a few hours*

UPDATE: Apparently you still have to log into the blogger dashboard to see if there are new posts. Kind of a waste of time. I suggest you bring your puppy dog eyes here often or add me to your google reader.

House Hunters II

We conclude this edition of House Hunters with the buyer’s decision. Will they choose the diamond in the rough?

more vintage decor

We (meaning me) really wanted this one. BUT…there were several issues. During the open house we saw the roof report which said it needed a new roof ($30k). We completely missed the termite report which showed it had $40k worth of damage. At least another $10k in the little cosmetic upgrades needed to bring it from the 50s to the 90s. $90k sunk and it isn’t even close to our dream house?! Even if we wanted to make this a multi year renovation, we don’t have the capital to make these type of improvements. So we had to say good bye to this diamond in the rough. Programming note: this house was off the market 1 week from the open house.

How about the charming piece of sunshine?

wake up to lots of light

We (meaning C) really wanted this one. There were only minor issues with this place. The family room was converted to the master bedroom, so there was only 1 living area. We planned on converting it back to a living area, but the other bedrooms didn’t have bathrooms inside. And the closets were small with no room to expand. I NEED a walk in closet. Not to mention C need a place to put his stuff too. Not a deal breaker, but it made us think twice.

Can they afford the sleepy ranch?


We sort of liked this one. The kitchen layout wasn’t what we liked. And…that was it. But we didn’t have to have this house like the other places. It didn’t have anything that wowed us. Oh yeah, it was over our budget. Which is probably why we didn’t need it.

Well, the little piece of sunshine was off the market in 1 week so that was out of the question. Which left us with the sleepy ranch. We went back one more time and found that its lack of “personality” is what we needed. It wasn’t overwhelmingly someone else’s taste. And the overall layout was exactly what we were looking for: 3 beds, 2 living areas, 2.5 baths and a very large lot. Bonus: The sellers reduced the asking price and it stayed on the market (a whopping 4 weeks) long enough for us to put in an offer.

House Hunters

Welcome to this edition of House Hunters. Our buyers saw house #1 in the last episode and we're off to #2 and #3.

We didn't think it would be smart to buy (or attempt to) the first house we liked. So we kept looking to make sure that was the one we really wanted. Here's what we found.

#1 A little piece of sunshine (recap)

is the tree generating light?

High end kitchen appliances, huge master bedroom and a permitted studio in the back. How long will this stay on the market?

#2 Diamond in the rough

floral wallpaper *cringe*

there is another garden behind those bushes

The original 1950s owners were putting their well loved home for sale. For over $100k less than the other houses in the neighborhood. It had a lot of "potential". The bones of the house met our criteria. Three bedroom, 2.5 baths with 2 living areas and a large lot. C had a hard time seeing through vintage decor, but I had a vision for this place. Tear up the carpet to expose the hardwood floors. Knock down a few walls to open it up. Paint the paneled walls. With my determination and C's muscle, we could do a lot with this house. Can we pull off such a large renovation?

#3 Quiet sleepy ranch

We weren't impressed with the pictures of this place on Redfin. But we were already out so we decided to take a peek. It was being shown by the same agent as the place we saw the previous week, so we were expecting more Photoshop enhancements. But we were surprised. The house was bigger than it looked in the pictures. The paneling was prettier than expected. And the tile in the kitchen wasn't as busy as we thought it would be. It was bright and well kept. Huh...we didn't expect this to be a contender since it was more than we wanted to pay. Would the sellers be willing to negotiate?

Stay tuned to see which (if any) we decide on.

Leave a comment: Which one do you like best? Should we make an offer on any of them?

Weekend Hobby

Whenever we're not busy, we like to go to open houses. One unusually quiet weekend we found 2 open houses we wanted to check out. Two might not sound like alot, but C is only interested in buying a house in a nieghborhood that is 1 square mile. We had originally agreed to look in the tri-city area, but his criteria kept getting more and more stringent until he decided that he only wanted to live in the area he grew up in. But I digress. Both of the houses we looked at were disappointments due to the magic of wide angle lenses and Photoshop.

doesn't it look like you could fit a pool table and 2 couches in here?

But we weren't really looking to buy a house, just seeing what was on the market. Not a big deal if we didn't like them. We don't even have an agent. Or a pre-approval. Oh well, we decided to go home. We passed another open house sign and decided to stop by. We started chatting with the agent about what we were looking for and he told us about another listing he was showing the next day. Sounded great, but C had to work and I had to go to the BBB. After a few phone calls, the owners graciously allowed us to stop by right then and there. We had no intentions of buying a house when we woke up that day, but owner gave us a personal tour and the house was such a good price and met all of our criteria.

updated kitchen

large living room with hardwood floors

in law house in the back

But we didn't have an agent. Or a pre-approval! Oh no...

The Never Ending Story

Fun fact: In Cusco, the rich live in the city and the poor live in the hills.

Are you sick of our Peruvian vacation yet? I'm not. We also squeezed in city tours of Cusco and Lima. Not impressed with Cusco. Probably because C had a severe case of food poisoning and altitude sickness. Here are the highlights:

cusco has the 3rd largest catholic cathedral in the world (according to our guide)

best $0.30 shoe shine Cs ever had. don't worry, we paid him $1.50

Lima was a little more interesting. We visited the Museo Larco and learned about the pre-Inca history. I would recommend it in lieu of the more traditional history museums in Lima. Another Lima experience was eating local delicacies such as a filet of cuy. Not as good as the traditional lomo saltaldo that I ate every night, but it tasted liked lechon.

plaza mayor: lima's main square

plaza mayor also has the presidential palace

We had a wonderful vacation and would highly recommend visiting Peru. The locals are friendly and helpful. It is full of history and countless places to visit. Ask me questions if you're interested in visiting.

Amazing Amazon

Madre de Dios River

Another must see in Peru is the Amazon jungle. We traveled down the Madre de Dios in a motorized canoe to Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica. The tour guide suggested that we pack smaller bags, but why change into smaller bags when someone else will carry them for you.

whoa...what do they have in here?

Inkaterra is a self sustaining jungle reserve which teaches biodiversity and conservation. It is kind of like a cruise where lodging, meals and excursions are included, but drinks and tips are extra. We LOVED everything about our stay. The food was five star! The service was excellent! The guides were extremely knowledgeable! Fun fact: Did you know that smushed termites are a natural mosquito repellent? The only slight inconvenience was our cabana didn't have air conditioning to combat the heat and humidity.

if i don't move maybe i won't sweat

We went on treks through the jungle, night tours down the river, walks in the canopy, and bird watching on the lake. We were supposed to do a few more excursions, but it rained a little. We saw tons of wildlife including monkeys, but it was too dark to catch a good picture of them.

woody wood pecker

dwarf cayman

mini frog

we treked through calf deep sludgy mud with flashlights

day 1: 2 sets of stairs from the boat

day 3: 1 set of stairs under water due to rain