Key

We have the keys, the keys to our new home.  We spent part of the evening over there last night to really look it over and start planning for what needed to be done to get it into shape for us.  It needs a really good cleaning, some paint, and curtains for several of the windows.  I need to put up new blinds in my craft room, and clean the ones in the guest room (they're nice wood ones).  The large vertical blinds in the den are missing a couple of slats, so those will need to be replaced.  The stove and refrigerator need to be cleaned.  It needs a shower curtain and a rug or set of rugs for the bathroom.

We discovered that the spare bedroom has a nice wood floor -- it had been covered with a rug when we first looked at the house.  This makes me wonder if the whole house has nice wood floors under that carpet?  Well, I'm not going to rip out the carpet until it's time to replace it. 

Someone, possibly the seller's realtor, left a bottle of nice wine and two wine glasses in the refrigerator for us to find.  That was really sweet.  The realtor is a former student of mine, and it would be just like him to do that.

...a few days later...

The Emperor had another one of those weather headaches, so I went over to the new house by myself and cleaned the stove last night.  I got it a lot cleaner than I thought I would, although it could do with another round of de-greasing in the oven.   I put some of the stove parts in the dishwasher and ran them through a cycle, at the same time figuring out how the dishwasher works.  I bought some rolls of shelf paper for kitchen drawers.  I opened windows in every room to let fresh air blow through.  Before I can do a lot more, though, I need to go over there with the vacuum cleaner and its hose attachment.  I'll probably take the Dirt Devil, too, for cupboards.

Last night I announced to the Emperor that we needed to have a "serious" conversation about color -- I wanted to pick out the color we are going to paint the bedroom with.  I'd pretty much decided on a very pale shade of cornflower blue, with a slightly darker shade of the same for the half-bathroom.  The Emperor agreed, so now it's just a matter of getting the paint and getting it done.

Close examination of the main bathroom revealed that whoever put the tile on the wall didn't use grout to finish it.  They just stuck the tile on the mastic and called it good, and even left some of the mastic without any tile covering it.  I added a bathroom re-do to the list of stuff we want to do "in the future, eventually."  It goes on there with "peel the paneling off the wall in the den" and "replace the kitchen floor."  We'll save some money up, and when we've got the energy and the time, we'll do a project.  For now, we'll live with it.

Sis came home from the hospital the same day we closed on our house.  She's not completely wheelchair bound; she can do some limited things to take care of herself but has to spend most of her time in the chair.  Her sweet dachshund was very glad to get her home!  Bro in Law will be home in a few days, so she will only be mostly on her own for a few of them.

It's time to stir up some breakfast and go get the Emperor out of bed.  I don't have any school work to do, and I want to go get our house cleaned so we can start moving things over there.