We turned in our notice of intent to vacate the apartment, as of July 31 (we're required to submit the form 60-days in advance). We're not working at the house today, but will do some work around the apartment getting ready for their inspection. We're planning on celebrating out anniversary at a new (to us) restaurant down the road.
MLW & FSIL (Favorite Sister-In-Law) Ada, were at the house all week and have gotten the place livable: living room, master bedroom and the smaller spare bedroom are cleared of junk, though we are storing some items in the small room. The mattress in the MBR is in good shape so we'll just get bed linens and be able to camp out there on weekends. I think we'll have our prefered CATV + Internet access company give us a basic package at the house next week and I;ll actually be able to telecommute from that location.
Friday, we signed a contract to replace the two double-hung + picture window configurations in the living room, dining room, kitchen, and basement "big room." We're going from original wood single pane to composite double pane + heat shield. Other windows in the front and side were replaced a while back. We also just got a call that the storm doors are in and will be delivered next week. I guess we'll put them in the living room until the other doors are here and being installed.
I finally took a couple phone photos of the back yard. The cleared area in the middle was full of poisin ivy, Virginia creeper, and other assorted weeds. You can see some in the lower-left of the photo. I cut and pulled the poison ivy and other "stringy" crap, then mowed over the rest. It looks like some grass is starting to come back. There is still some hosta around the larger trees and I found two azaleas still living, which I'll transplant to the front of the house. You can see the larger shed here. It is rotting out along the bottom of the doors and side wall (Dad and I built it about 1978). The smaller one, just beyond it, is in better condition but is really too small: the lawn tractor barely fits. We'll eventually put in a larger one on the other side of the yard.
Finally, here is part of dad's HO model train layout. One of the cats liked to lay up there so much of the scenery, locomotives and railroad cars have been knocked over, but it doesn't look like any real damage. The building on the right is a model of the county courhouse he built from scratch. I'm still undecided on what to do with is - fix and use, scale it back and use, or keep some of the loco's and cars, and sell off the rest.
You can see some clutter in the shot - most of the house was like that, with paths to the rooms she used. There is still a lot of work to be done.
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