New Floors, New Neighbors and Less Cats

What a great weekend! 

Lots of news and progress so this will be a wordy post!

We were over at the duplex pretty much the entire weekend, which was great. Friday and Saturday we got some painting done and RJ did some prep work for Sunday - new floor day! 

On Saturday RJ had a surprise for me. Remember the hover-round scooter Leah left in the garage? He charged it over night so we could try it out the next day..

It worked!

 I think we had a little too much fun riding it around the driveway. It has an oxygen tank attached so we think we can probably sell it!

Saturday we had a few showings of the rental half too - the first couple who came over absolutely loved it and we really liked them. They are probably in their mid-late 30's and are really laid back and friendly. They have a few young kids including a 10 month old - I was sold! We really liked them personality wise and chatted for awhile about the area (Jason, the husband, had grown up across the street!). We could see ourselves being friends with them and hanging out outside. They came over in the morning and a few hours later they came back ready to write a check for the deposit! There was one other guy (single and divorced with kids on the weekends) who wanted to come see it on Sunday, so we told them we needed to give him a shot too. He never called or came over on Sunday so on Sunday night we called Leslie and Jason and told them it was all theirs. They were soo excited - it made us really happy. They are set to move in May 1st so that is great for us! We think it will be fun to have some little ones around - maybe not as quiet, but more fun and lively. It was more important for us to pick a family we felt like we could be friendly with. So that is exciting!

On Sunday the big project of the day was installing the new floors we picked out from Lowes on Friday. We picked some good quality laminate - wood style. We talked to the flooring specialist at Lowes for awhile and he thought this was an excellent choice for us with renters in the future. It's very hard to damage, virtually un-scratchable and won't hold in smells and spills - unlike carpet!

On Sunday morning Renee and Tyler came over to help out. Luckily, Tyler has a bunch of fancy tools (like a huge table saw they used to cut the boards). Tyler and RJ worked on the floors while Renee and I painted and 'supervised'. It was soo great to have them - they are awesome!

The guys working on the floors.

 The first pieces:

One corner down!

After a few hours:

As you can see there isn't that much more to go before it's done which is exciting! RJ was totally in the groove and wanted to stay and finish it, but by 9pm I was ready to get home. They did such a good job!

While the guys were working on the floors Renee and I worked on painting my office. Here's Renee, my pretty little paint assistant!

Our job went pretty quick - with two rollers and two people it didn't take us too long. Lunch was part of our job, so we went to pick up some Chipotle burritos and a pizza for the guys. It was gorgeous outside, so we actually moved the setee out porch so we could enjoy the sun. It was lovely!

In the above pictures of the downstairs you probably noticed all of the paint samples up on the wall... that is how indecisive I am about what colors to put up downstairs. Renee helped me make the final decision and we went to Lowes to pick up the paint - so no turning back now! She got some fun shots from her iphone:

The light blue/gray tones for the living room and a sample of yellow for the kitchen:

I'd like to do a sunny yellow in the kitchen, with all these hues and tones how am I supposed to pick one? That's why I always get samples. 

You may be wondering about the cats... yep, we have been trapping. So far we've gotten 6 that have been distributed to various farms to become barn cats! After the first 6 the progress has slowed.. I think we got the stupid ones first and now the smarter ones are left.

 There are still a few left that hang around outside. Leah apparently took the two friendly ones that hung out around the front of the house, we haven't seen them in a few days. Definitely making good progress and moving them! 

Another big thing that happened this weekend was meeting the neighbors next door. On Sunday evening a few of them had some lawn chairs set up in the driveway - RJ had met one of them the day before, so she called him over to meet the rest of them. I went over to introduce myself and we all chatted for awhile. They are really friendly and laid back - very Portage Lakes. They told us some funny stories about Leah (like how she used to mow the lawn in high heels, such a character). One of the ladies, Leeann, is the outside maintenance and gardens manager for a local school district, so she offered to help us with our garden and give us some of her extra flowers. I will definitely be taking her up on that offer as we have a lot of yard work to do and I don't exactly know what I'm doing. They said that we were "their heroes" for taking care of the cat situation! Two of them have dogs we met, a lab mix and a Boston terrier. Harvie will be happy to have other dogs around. He has been so cute running around the yard and rolling around in the grass. 

Overall a really great weekend - next weekend we are moving in! That only leaves a few days left to finish the floors and painting.

We think we can do it - wish us luck!