Shouting out to you from our new home in Wichita Falls, TX!

It's looking like a rainy Spring here - which is great considering we are coming out of a 10-year drought! In fact, the city has strict watering regulations - we are not supposed to water the lawn from 10 am-7 pm. Per the city, we are also required to have an automatic shut-off valve on our spray head for the hose.

As we make our gardening plans, we will have to remember we are not in Oregon anymore! What we want most are cherry trees - which will surely be attacked by birds. We will have to have lugubrious bird netting, and even then...but Kevin is determined since no one else is brave enough to grow them here.

March 12th - Change of Address

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March 15th, 2021 - Water is on and the toilet flushes! 😄

However scary the toilet may be...

This toilet is scary as shit! Especially without light...apparently, there IS a bathroom window, but it has been covered up by the shower lining (or paneling maybe).

Note on Electricity

There is still no electricity to the house, but we have an electrician scheduled to come out on the 29th and bring it up to code. From there we can discern the state of the inside wiring. I heard from the neighbor that the original 1940's wiring was cloth-covered. Also, there are only 2 electrical outlets per room - If we wanted to add more to the concrete structure, we would have to do additional wiring, perhaps across the ceiling. Once we get the electrical box updated and the electrical wire strung from the pole to the house, we will be able to see what works and what doesn't and go from there.

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Improvement 4

Roof repair is complete.
A total of 3 packs of shingles, a bucket of plastic cap nails, a bucket of roofing nails, and 2 sheets of plywood were used. I believe there was some tar paper left on the property to use. Also, the neighbor had an extra piece of plywood lying around. It rained today, the day after Kevin completed the roof repair, so we will check for leaks and make sure it's rain-tight. Apparently, there is a small hole on the backside of the roof, too.

Roof progression pics

TA-DA!! 🥳

Pretty sure that took a week. Especially since one of us has to mind the toddler while the other one works, and hold down a job.

Expense Reciepts

TOTAL $378.36

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Improvement 5

Yard clean up - both sides of the street-side fence are trimmed up.
Even though we trimmed up the hackberry trees lining the fence, we plan to remove almost all the trees in the line so we can repair the fence. We have discussed ideas about reusing the old chainlink fence, including using it as a frame to pour a cement rock wall, but that's a future task.

Yes, we are camping out - because we want to...and also so we can tend the fire, as we burn the brush.

Brush pile

Trimmed around the gate, regaining gate access. We hope the pomegranite tree isn't completely dead...

The before picture of limbs taking over the back roof.

The after picture.

Seriously, what is up with the wiring?

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Improvement 6

Curb appeal

Kevin edged the curb for appeal.

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Improvement 7

Back fence repair

Cut out the wysteria overtaking the back fence roll, unrolled the fence and bungied it together to keep the kid from running into the alleyway. The tree there has plowed over the chainlink.

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Upcoming Updates (before pictures)

Kitchen

• [ ] sink faucet replacement
  For now the faucet has a leak when turned on, due to old seal, so we are replacing it until we get a new sink.

Underneath the kitchen sink (gross!)

• [ ] replace double-sided stainless sink with a newer, deeper one
• [ ] replace cabinets with stainless steel (restaurant quality) racks
  I hate cabinet doors. I want to see what I have on the kitchen shelves, all at once, so I can plan meals more efficiently. Additionally, we want to have stainless steel everything in our kitchen because Kevin brews his own mead
• [ ] get a gas stove
• [ ] get a fridge
• [ ] clean
• [ ] repaint
• [ ] redo window
• [ ] replace broken window in kitchen door

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Bathroom

• [ ] Pull out rusted cabinet and sink
• [ ] replace sink, preferrably a pedestal sink
• [ ] replace water heater
• [ ] remove water heater closet, floor is damaged from a leak
• [ ] install showerhead
• [ ] replace hot water knob for shower

• [ ] clean
• [ ] repaint
• [ ] eventually, cut hole in shower lining to regain our bathroom window

Additionally

In case you wondered how I made this post fancy...

Cheers from Kevin and Robyn - Bob, Leif and Bobby say Hi!!!! 🤠

So far the neighbors have been friendly and inviting. Folks are excited to see repairs happening to this old place.