David and Susi’s Blog

We have been busy this weekend with installing the flooring in our new temporary kitchen that is being built in the basement, just off of our Master Bedroom Suite. We needed to lay down that floor – which is the “recycled” laminate flooring out of our dining room – and paint the walls that weekend, because Robert wants to install the “recycled” cabinets out of my former kitchen on Monday. The time frame was pretty tight, but we made it – although David had a hard time with his paint sprayer!

The floor looks really nice and although the concrete foundation is not really straight, it works great in that little space. It was the best, cheapest and easiest solution at that point.

In regards of the paint: that was kind of funny. David and I went to the closest Walmart store to purchase a gallon of paint. I had already something in mind – kind of a slightly greenish wall color, so I picked several swatches from the shelf that I thought would work. David made his choice and, of course, his swatches tended more into the real beige area (as always LooooL) Well, to make the long story short, we finally decided on one color and I guess it was the right choice. Hopefully the guy there who had to mix the color up doesn’t remember this crazy couple, running through the isles, discussing which color to pick LooooL

I think this little kitchen will be very nice and a perfect solution for the upcoming months and also for the future – how many houses do have two kitchens? This “recycling” project should pump up that value of our house…..

Tags: House by David
No Comments »

This is a video of my wonderful husband playing with his new toy that he got last Christmas. The saying that there is a kid in every man is true – for sure! Look at the video and you will know what I am talking about. It was so wonderful for me to watch David unpacking his present and setting the train up – I love that joyful look in his eyes and in his face!

David had to unpack and to install (only part of) the train on the remaining kitchen floor as space is very limited since we started the house renovation project. The train was later removed under the Christmas tree where it stayed for a while – surprisingly without any “insuries” caused by our babies.

Now it is packed up again, waiting for probably next Christmas. David had a very nice train many years ago (which he unfortunately doesn’t own anymore due to previous circumstances) that he loved very much. I want him to have a train set again, a set that can be added on – so anyone who wants to surprise him (for birthday, Christmas or just because) it’s an HO scale

Tags: David by Susi
No Comments »

This is a video of two of our babies enjoying their favorite “Blankie”.

We still can’t figure out why these little guys are still so attached to their fake fur blanket.  The only thing that we can guess, is that they had been separated from their mommy before they were really ready to stop nursing.  These little guys are just too cute!

Tags: Cats by David
No Comments »

When will life slow down for us?????

David and I just started to enjoy living in our house alone for the very first time, we enjoyed that we had so much room now, we loved the evenings in the living room, watched the babies playing and chased them away from our Christmas tree

Two weeks before Christmas Robert, our former contractor who had built us our incredible master suite downstairs, stopped by asking us if we had some work for him or knew somebody he could possibly work for. To help him out we decided that we should take care of the front door and the storm door, replacing both as they turned out to become some trouble. We also told Robert to look at some funny bumps in the wall next to the door. To make the long story short – we ended up building the whole original, old, two story part of the house completely new from the inside out. When Robert started to remove the drywall next and above the door it turned out that the previous owners covered all the structural damages in the house behind the drywall. We had to go a step further and removed also the ceiling in the living room and found even more bad news……

The house was absolutely not safe and we still wonder that it didn’t collapse or somebody didn’t fall through the floors! Since then the whole house, except for the new addition (and even part of that has to be redone) is a complete workzone, the basement, the laundry room, the bathroom in the main floor and of course also our bedroom downstairs are packed with all the things and furniture we have, the kitchen will have to be removed into the basement as well …… it is a complete mess!
What really drives us crazy is, that we will not have much chance to get any of the money back that we have to put into that house in order to make it safe and livable. Although the structural issues are clear and documented (despite the fact that the previous owners didn’t disclose all that when we closed on the house and the housing inspector ignored signs of these issues), nobody got hurt – so a lawsuit would have taken a loooooooong time, cost us a lot of money and in the best scenario we probably only would have gotten a portion of the whole remodeling and construction costs back by agreeing to a settlement. Considering that we would have had to also pay the attorney, we wouldn’t have gained a lot….. Life can be so unfair and cruel!

This is a video of Robert our Contractor, tearing out the drop ceiling in the living room – a few days after we discovered the whole disaster.

This structure all had to be removed, so that the next layer of the onion could be peeled off–the original 100+ year old Tongue and Groove siding material which had at one time been the living room ceiling.

Tags: House by David
No Comments »