Home Sweet Home

It's official! We are homeowners. Late this afternoon we signed the papers and became owners of our very first home. We arrived at the home late today find this handy map of the keys from the sellers.


The sellers also left a copy of the original title for the property for our safe keeping. Those familiar with Amarillo will be curios to see that the original title was signed by Julian Bivins. (The home is in the Bivins neighborhood, so that makes sense). There are also a set of architectural drawings for the home. They are currently at a blueprint shop being copied.

Our original plan was to take care of a few relatively simple projects this weekend before we move in next week. (You can start to chuckle now if you know anything about home ownership.) Our goal was to paint the master bedroom, hallway, and living room this weekend. With this in mind we took some before pictures of the master bedroom.

The West Wall of the Master Bedroom

The East Wall of the Master Bedroom
Note the presence of the fabulous wallpaper *sarcasm*

The South Wall of the Master Bedroom

Before our trip to Lowe's we decided to try and remove the wallpaper on the East Wall to determine how difficult it would be to remove. The top layer peeled relatively easily (we removed all of the top layer in less than five minutes, heck - it was almost fun!) so we were able to plot the further supplies we would need to remove the wallpaper paste.

The East Wall with the top layer of wallpaper removed

Bryan is very proud of our rapid handiwork. This weekend will be stress free.

After our trip to Lowe's and a few more errands, we returned to our project in the master bedroom. It took quite some time to remove the outlet covers, old phone jack covers, antenna jack covers, the stash box, the curtain hardware and all the doorknobs. We decided that we were on such a roll that we should remove the wall heating unit while we were redoing the walls - so that we would be done with the master bedroom renovation.

Our decision to do things right, or not do them at all may come back to haunt us.

During this demo project we learned that when the heating unit was installed the previous owners installed a second layer of thin sheet rock, rather than fixing the wall the right way the first time. This explained why part of the trim was more covered in half of the room than the other. In our quest to do it right, we decided to fix the situation by removing the extra sheetrock and replacing the sheetrock so that it would all be one level.

During this demo project, we also learned that the exterior wall has ZERO insulation. That's right, ZERO. I know we are in Texas, but really? No insulation? That's a bit odd for me.

North Wall during demolition.

North wall during demolition
This is the wall that had the wall heater - Bryan will cap the gas line tomorrow. The box cutout was apparently a plumbing access at some point in the homes history, but no longer grants access to plumbing, so it will also be removed during this project and made to look like a regular wall.

At least the demo had the added benefit of allowing Bryan to release some of the tension that has built up in these past few days as we jumped through the final rings of fire to purchase our home.

There will be more adventures from our home on Bowie, this is the first of what I'm sure will be many home improvement blog postings. If you have suggestions, or want to help with our project - please - feel free!

Bryan and I look forward to many years of home ownership, and all that it entails. The projects may be many, but it is our house.