She's Moving!

I'm holding my breath & crossing my fingers, she said she's moving next week. I'll do whatever I can to help her on her way. I mean, I'm not co-signing or paying for anything, but I'll help her move her shit to her new residence.
Monday & Tuesday are the big days. yippee.
She's got 2 places, one is $800 for a bedroom in a shared home, the woman has a day care & kids are there all day and into the evening.
Second place is with a married couple and is a bit cheaper. She hasn't been to see it yet & isn't sure of the location.
I told her the handyman will be here February 3rd & she's got to be out before then.

Good & Bad News

Good News First:

We had the handyman over the other day to give us info on putting in a new bathroom upstairs; 

he said he can totally do all we want, for $65 per hour. He said what we're asking for will take about three 8 hour days so... about $1720 after tax.

Here is a very rough drawing of what its like now. I've never liked the Jack & Jill bathroom 

but its better than none & better than walking down the hall.

What we've been doing previously to having a room mate was our bed was in this room & our clothes were in the other room & we would go downstairs to shower & get dressed. We did that so the person sleeping wouldn't get woken up by the noise of the person getting ready for work.

The current bedroom measures 13.5 X 14.5 and the bathroom is 12.5 X 5, 

there are about 4 feet on either side of the window and the closets are 2 feet deep.

The future bedroom will measure 13.5 X 9.5 and the new bathroom will be 12.5 X 5, 

we'll need to install a smaller window and remove one closet.

We'll use the door & frame that goes from this room to the current bathroom & put it on the right, into the new opening made when we take out one closet. The remaining closet is still huge.

We're going to put in a new double vanity in the old bath & matching single in the new, both are getting rubber waterproof click in flooring & both get new toilets and fans.

See the green wall in the original bathroom? If its not a supporting wall, I'd like to remove it completely. All it does is hide the toilet from the sink area & it won't be needed. Removing it will make the bathroom bigger and provide a space for a dirty clothes hamper & scales.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And Now The Bad News:

Our Septic Design guy told us we can't upgrade our gravity system & would HAVE to put in a completely new pump system at a cost of about $24,000.

That's OK, we didn't want to ruin the lawn and now we can concentrate on the bathrooms.

His name is Frank, a friend of a friend. He quoted us $1,400 for the design & permits, ALL the other companies I spoke with wanted $4,000-$6,000 for the same things. One of the companies was rude to me in an email so she's not getting my money. 

Well, neither is Frank, he's not charging us anything at all.

Drone

A friend brought his drone over today and did a preliminary video of our farm

He got several videos and many photos

The horses weren't impressed with the buzzing and ran for the hills

Mostly we were looking to see what it currently looks like and what we need to do to improve it looks. Theres still some cleaning up and putting things away but for the most part, it looks pretty good.

The machine itself was much smaller than what I thought it would be

Here he is, doing his thing

Photo taken from the back of the property towards the front

Too bad the so dry out now

The bright sunlight was drowning out a lot of the color

When he comes back, we're planning on it being in the early morning so the sunshine is on the front of the house. I also want to know when it will be beforehand so I can make sore the barn is clean. He flew the drove through the barn! twice!

In other news, I have purchased additional plane tickets for our trip:

 London -  Carcassonne, France $35.01

Dinard, France - Dublin, Ireland $63.27

Dublin - Newcastle, England $38.94

Then I realized Michelle & guy aren't planning on going to Ireland so I cancelled that leg of the trip.

 We'll be staying in France for the first week and will see MUCH more of it. South for 2 days, then middle eastern section, Paris (Mona Lisa!!)

We will go to Omaha Beach, where Lans grandpa was at during the war and then back down to Carcassonne to fly back to Stansted, England, $43.84.

Returning the rental car to Carcassonne airport and having it for a week costs less than having it for 3 days & returning to Dinard airport and negates the expenses of the cancelled plane tickets.

I'm not actually cancelling the plane tickets, we'll just not use them unless we decide we'd rather go to Ireland. But they drive on the wrong side of the street there & we'd crash.

More Soren

We've done some more fun stuff

Here is a farm kid licking the salt block

Watching fireworks on Independence Day

We took the bikes out to Banner Forest again & this is him by the old VW van

We took a visit to the Bug Museum, where he got to touch this Boa Constrictor

We've done a few other things also. Every day I make sure he gets outside for an hour of fresh air, his mom takes him to the park once in a while and last week there were a couple other boys that came over and played with him. I wish we had a boy closer to home.

Soren

Soren is 7 1/2 years old and he is staying here for the summer. 

He is my great nephew, grandson of my twin brother.

His mom has to work a lot so I get to spend massive amounts of time with him.

I'm trying to make this a memorable time and Lan & I both hope he leaves here happy and with great stories to tell. 

Here I had him help groom the horses. Every day he enjoys helping to turn the horses out to pasture and its now his job to turn the chickens out and give them their scratch.

Last week we went to Waterman Dock to look for the Orcas that were in the vicinity & while we didn't find them, he still made a monkey out of himself.

Soren likes Spiderman so when we went to the dollar store we picked up a Spiderman kite and he learned how to fly it. I should take him back down to the dock, it was perfectly windy there. Here, it would blow every different direction so he ended up running with it.

But it flies.

On Sunday, June 30, 2019

the might ferry M/V Hyak ran her last crossings Bremerton-Seattle so I made arrangements for us to go up into the wheelhouse and visit with Captain Steve. It was SO MUCH FUN and all of us got a chance to drive the ferry.

WE DROVE THE FERRY!!  

And Soren got to blow the horn.

This next photo is cool because just as Steve let go of the telegraph, Soren accidently moved it & a chime sounded, in the wheelhouse and in the engine room. We all gasped in surprise, Soren was scared & almost cried but Steve just communicated for them to disregard. Then we all laughed.

We got him a bike. 16" used, perfect. 

Lan built him a jump.

Then we got him a new bike and its perfecter.

Today he & I went out to Banner Forest and had a blast riding tails.

If we have enough warm sunny days, we can go for more rides in the 65 Mustang. 

We've got about 5-6 weeks until he goes back to Minnesota to live with dad for the school year. I wonder how many more really cool things we can do until then?

Kitchen Finished

We've been working on the kitchen for a couple months now and today it is 

FINISHED.

My brother helped install the range fan/vent yesterday

We saved $1,200 by putting the tiles up ourselves. 

See that little cabinet on the far side of the stove? 

It doesn't match but we needed that exact size and Habitat For Humanity had it 

& it looks pretty dang close to our other cabinets.

This is the view people will see when they are walking into the house.

This was the view 2 years ago

This is the first time I ever saw the kitchen

HGTV Shows

I was on FB last week and LIKED a post about a TV show

 selling homes in our area & they called me last week. 

This morning the realtor, Courtney McClasky called & set up a time for her to come out & see our farm and possibly film it for the show. 

She want's to film this week.

Um...

We aren't ready to film anything, the house is full of our junk.

The kitchen countertops are being tore out this week and new quarts being installed Friday and most of the house is dusty from this. 

The wall mount stove exhaust fan is in the box, needs to go up.

Plus just our junk, everywhere. I'd need a POD right this MINUTE to full with the crap.  

I don't even have boxes yet!

The outside is looking good because I had a gardener come over & weed the flowerbeds & put down beauty bark. Lans been working his ass off to get all the junk gotten rid of & burnt a huge pile of brush. He removed one wall of the old barn & its now an equipment shed. 

I do have a few new plant pots I borrowed from friends that I'm going to put plants in & use as curb appeal. Once the house sells I'm going to give the pots back with the flowers inside. 

IN OTHER NEWS: 

We put in an offer on the Montana farm but haven't heard back yet. I doubt the owner will accept it; he was asking $475, dropped it to $350k and we offered $320k, 

contingent on the inspection and our farm selling.

Thinking Of Moving

We've thinking of moving so spent a few days in Idaho looking at properties, saw about 15 of them.

Someone else bought this PERFECT FARM before we had a chance to see it.

But there is always this one

with this amazing barn that's got living quarters

This is the inside of the living part

The ladders both fold up

Through those red X doors is an amazing interior

Open them up and from the other side you see...

This. A French door

Which opens into this interior that's 

PERFECT 

for a wedding venue

just imagine little twinkle lights up there

In the living part there is this awesome farmhouse sink

And then there is the log house at the other end of the property

This is from the ground looking up at 2 of the 4 balconies

The living area

Up these stairs

Around the corner is the kitchen or bathroom area

This is the basement. Its tall and made of concrete so if the river floods 

it doesn't take out the entire house

from above, barn in the background

The Weiser River

More inside

Lan & my dad are going to go back over and do an in depth inspection, looking for rot and bugs. I saw signs of it/them.

What I like: 

Its along the Weiser River Trail

https://visitidaho.org/travel-tips/riding-weiser-river-trail/

where I could ride my bikes, ride a horse or drive a pony & cart, walk my dogs or run a ways.

Its 15 acres.

The barn is beautiful and dry, even though they are just getting ride of 4 feet of snow.

The house has potential.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What I don't like:

I'd have to quit my job.

Its very wet but it is right after 4 feet of snow.

Its going to need $50-$80k to get the house livable.

I'd have to quit my job.

Fences are all barbed wire, some parts falling down.

Barn really isn't suited for horses.

I'd have to quit my job.

Barn is a long way away from the house.

No garage for the Mustangs.

I'd have to quit my job.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I will definitely take Joey, Wifi & Gussy but don't know if I'd take Mack. If I do, he would be mine & I'd have to pay for all his veterinary, all his shoes, all his feed, all his ripped up blankets, all his hay. I'm thinking about calling Julie and asking for Sunshower back & taking her.