This is where the "Piggy" door was:
We also replaced the front security door:
The old:
The new:
Jack also stopped by to see the new door:
Here are some shots from Tom and Bettys house:
When moving here I wanted to keep our electric bill as low as possible. I envisioned using a clothes line to dry clothes. And we did.....for a while.
Who knew a pair of my underware could take up so much space! When I imagined a clothes line in my head, my underware only took up a few inches at most! Well that just wasn't the case.
Not having a dryer became bothersome. In addition to the taking up of space, the clothes line was in the garage, your clothes felt like sand paper. No need to sand our feet anymore, our socks could do it for us! Got an itch on your back? Put a shirt on! You may end up bleeding, but your itch will be gone!
There was no vent for the dryer, so I made one.
The start of the hole for the dryer vent. You'd be suprised how easy it was to go through about 18" of brick and mortar.
Pasing through the wall.
The completed project.
Its far from perfect, but it does the job.
This is the bathroom we were afraid to use in the begining. Its looking pretty good now.
a reason to like the bank bail outs. We got our loan through First Option Motgage. Our loan was quickly bought up by Bank of America, who then sold the loan to Country Wide. As you may recall, both of these banks were "capitalized" by the U.S. government. Our first payment is due in July of 2009. As I write this, it is June 26th, 2009. Having not received a payment book yet, we called our mortgage oficer. He said, not knowing Bank of America had already sold our loan, to call Bank of America. Upon calling them, we were told to call Country Wide. Neither bank of America nor Country Wide, had any record of my name, SSN, or my adress and then each denied any knowledge of me, my SSN, or my house,
I often joked to my dad about the bank deciding they didn't want any money from us. His response was always "Yeah right!".
post is to highlight the work that Nancy did at our house.
Below is a picture of the window sills when we bought the house:
Nancy scraped and brushed the sills to prep them for repairs:
Then, having no experience with cement or mortar, proceeded to repair them!
This is what the repaired sills look like now:
Nancy did an incredible job!! They are not all complete yet, but we have a good start on them now. 
It makes a huge impact on the way the house looks.
Thanks Nancy!!!
Karen and I had a very busy weekend. Friday I made repairs to my "Handy Man" component tester that I use at work.
Some of the soldering needed to be repaired.
I'm happy to say it works fine now.
Here is Paulie wishing he could get out.
Tom and Betty replaced some outside lights at their house. They gave us the old ones.
Although white looked nice at their house, it wouldnt look right at ours.
So I set out to buy a can of black spray paint. After a good cleaning, I painted the lights.
They came out pretty nice I think.
Although the "bare bulb" look has grown on me, Karen and Betty didn't much care for it.
So I did the only thing a dutiful homeowner could, I put Tom to work!!
The end result:
We also emptied our storage unit on Saturday. 3 vehicles filled to the brim. We were up until 1:30AM putting stuff away, or atleast out of sight!
The garage is still a mess though.
As always, when we went to Death Valley with Brian, I was sure to have all of my camera gear together. I made sure all of my lens were in my bag, put my memory card in the camera, put my battery on charge.
The only problem was that I LEFT my battery on charge! Luckily, when we were leaving from picking Tom up, Betty came running out and handed Tom his point and shoot camera, otherwise we would have had no pictures.
This is the Amish table we got at a local thrift store.
Nancy has begun to repair our window sills. I'll post before and after pics tomorrow.The ones that she has done so far, despite some cracking, look great. Considering none of us have much experience with cement, its going well.
We bought some paint to paint the sills, and wooden headers on the house, but it is too light. Looks more pink than anything. We are going to try to get it darkened up a bit.
been a while since I last posted. We have been very busy these days. Between helping Betty and Tom to move in, trying to get our house in order, and my new drive to work there is very little time left for other things that I enjoy like photography and blogging. Over time, as we get settled in more, that should improve.
They say that you get used to the drive from Pahrump to Las Vegas and I must agree. The drive really does not bother me. For most of it there is little to no traffic, and the scenery can't be beat.
We have gotten to the point where most everything in the house is functional. It is not the way we would like it, but it is functional. All of the "fires" have been put out. Our main objective now is to empty our storage unit and get our "stuff" put away. That in itself is a daunting task!
One conclusion that we have came to is that one of the previous owners engaged in illegal activities in this house. I won't go into all of the details, but when all of the pieces of the puzzle are put together, the conclusion is inescapable.
After moving Betty and Tom in we took Brian to Death Valley.
I'm the good looking one with the hat and sunglasses on:)
Here we are pointing out Zabriski's Point to a tourist. Tom is a little confused about it's location!
Me and Brian at Artists Pallet.
A Raven waiting for some food.
Brian exploring the Devils Golf Course.
Me and Brian enjoying Bad Water.
This coyote was along the side of the road begging for food. They DO NOT like pretzels.
Here Brian is pointing to a structure at the Ashford Mill ruins.
Here is Nancy making "Cup Kalkas" or something like that. They are great, especially when fried in the morning.
Here Brian is showing of an antique pistol.
Here Tom is showing off his smile!
Here I am sitting at Bettys house.
Karen and Betty talking to Gideon from next door.
Betty and Toms front room.
Here is Carly after being woken from her beauty sleep!
Our dinning room area after a new load from the storage unit. Everytime we get it sorted out and looking nice, we bring another load over and mess it all up!
Betty working out in our yard.
