Picture Tour Of The Rental Side

Well Leah is officially all moved out of the rental side of the duplex! She left it in really nice condition and actually left us a few goodies (a microwave, a vacuum and lots of cat toys inside and a weed whacker, card table and big ladder in the garage.)

 This is our garbage pile - can you believe it! We have a trash pick-up scheduled this week, thank goodness!

Below are the pictures of the inside. It's very similar to our half, it has just been updated with newer carpet, newer flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms and better counter tops and cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom.

You walk in to a small landing area and can go upstairs or into the living room, the same way is it on our side:

This is the dining area that opens into the kitchen:

Here's the kitchen:

There are sliding glass doors that lead out to the patio on this side also:

On this side the patio is paved with brick, it's a really nice outdoor hang out area. We want to do something similar with our side, only with stone instead of brick.

Downstairs bathroom around the corner from the kitchen:

The same two big pantries that we have, and the entry to the basement:

The basement, this is the wardrobe Leah had installed for extra clothes and shoes:

Now some pictures of the upstairs:

 She has a pretty chandelier at the top of the stairs, I may steal this if I decide I want it for our dining room! I can't decide if it fits our decor or not.

The upstairs bathroom:

A much nicer light fixture than we have upstairs! (The funky lights on the chains).

It has the same linen closet and laundry shoot that we have upstairs:

The same size bedrooms and closets, just with much better carpet (except ours is now hardwood usptairs!)

As you can tell she really did a nice job picking out new flooring and fixtures for her side. This gives us hope for what our side will look like when we're finished with it!

Kittens!

RJ made a fun little discovery today over at the duplex...

Kittens!

 They are right outside the basement window on the rental side. There is only two left in the littler - I'm sure it started out bigger. 

This is the mom, she wasn't happy we were messing with her kittens:

 They are still really young - they don't even have their eyes open!

We put them in a box with a towel and are going to let them stay in the garage which is safer than outside. We would take them in but we think at this point they still need their mom. I am afraid she may move them tonight - RJ says that's "her prerogative", I guess he is right! 

Tonight we went to Lowes and picked out our new flooring - we have it all ordered and will pick it up tomorrow. Before we do, we need to go to Giant Eagle to get a bunch of Lowes gift cards - can't beat the fuel perks!

Taping for the bedroom stripe / Lindsay's table

Tonight we finally got the stripe drawn in the bedroom with the leveler. The inside of the stripe will be fuscia. 

Funny thing about this picture below.. we were using the self timer on my camera.. about 2 seconds until it went off RJ said: "are we looking at the camera or the wall?" and at first I said "camera" then changed my mind and said: "wall!" - this is us laughing as we turned our heads really quickly..

We're not really having that much fun taping for our stripe. In fact it was pretty tedious! 

RJ also worked on removing some more of the tack boards upstairs. He took vacation days on Thursday and Friday so we can get a lot of work done then. Unfortunately this is a busy time for me work-wise right now - we have all of our spring classes starting next week so I'll be juggling getting those supplies ready for the instructors and meeting with them. RJ may be on his own for some for some of that time.

We have gotten some good responses from our ad about the rental half - we have 4 appointments scheduled for people to come look at it toward the end of this week.

Tonight we also moved a table from the condo over so we could use it to have dinner when we were working late.

This is a really special table - it was Lindsay's when she was at SMU in her apartment! The ends fold up - we've been using it folded up as a decorative table against the wall. We may end up using it for our dining room table for awhile. It definitely works for now. 

As you can see we have quite a few color samples on the wall. The original idea was to do two shades of orange with a chair rail in the middle.. now we're thinking maybe two shades of green with a chair rail in the middle.

I forgot to grab the tuna so we didn't set the traps like we had planned on doing tonight.

RJ was so funny.. he said: "I'm afraid we're just going to keep on catching Matilda.." I said: "Matilda? Did you pick one you want to keep too?" He said: "No, I thought that was that friendly one you liked?" 

Matilda.. Tabitha.. I guess he was close.

Progress - no more carpet!

So this weekend we made some good progress! Friday I went over in the late afternoon to get some work done before our double date with Renee and Tyler. I was also going to be showing our half to a family very interested in renting. In my online ad I said it wouldn't be available to view until later this week (when the former owner moves out of the rental half).. they said they were very anxious and loved it from the pictures and asked if there was any way they could see it before then. I told them they could come look around our side for a sense of the layout and at least see the yard. They loved it and asked: "when are you accepting applications?". We have a lot of people scheduled to come by later this week or this weekend, so it's great we'll have a lot of options for potential renters. I actually got an email from a young guy who is playing for the Akron Aero's this season - he and two teammates need a place to rent just for the season. It wouldn't be ideal because 1) they would leave after September and 2) 3 young guys may not be ideal renters. If it was one.. maybe.. but 3 bachelors? You never know. Although it would be kind of fun to have some Aero's next door and as I asked RJ: "but what if they're really cute!?".. He didn't agree.

Anyway - back to the progress! On Friday I forgot my paint clothes.. so had to make do with some pants RJ had left laying around.

Surprisingly comfortable.. I may have to borrow his jeans more often!

Earlier in the week I had to do some spackling in my office - the previous owner had a wallpaper border up and when they took it down it left some damage to the wall. We were very thankful we weren't the ones who had to take down the border!

So I got started sanding down the spackle.. but without protective eye-wear and a mask I didn't last very long.

Friday wasn't very productive because we took a break for a double date and I had to be up very early the next day for a conference. 

Saturday morning my dad met RJ over at the duplex to help rip out all of the carpet. I wish I could have been there to get some pictures of this! Dad also made lunch and let us borrow a utility broom and dustpan to sweep up the staples and nails - he is awesome!!

This is what the floors look like without all that orange carpet:

Downstairs, living room/dining room area:

Upstairs, in the bedroom:

My office:

RJ's office:

They are really in pretty good shape except for in RJ's office. What's really strange is that there isn't hardwood in the hallway upstairs.. just in the bedrooms.

On Sunday RJ worked on getting the tack-board (I think that's what he called it anyway..) up from the floors. See his shnazzy new tool belt and knee pads?

And I swept up all the nails, stales and debris - it took forever! 

I also borrowed some goggles and a make-shift mask so I could work on sanding down the spackle.

Earlier on Sunday I ran into my friend Joyce at the gym. We worked in the same office for a few years and she was always trapping feral cats and getting them fixed - which is a great thing to do - there are so many of them out there. I told her about the cat colony living outside our duplex and she said we could borrow her traps. Later that afternoon I went to her house to pick them up and learn how to use them.

There are 9 (maybe 10 now.. I think we spotted a new one yesterday) cats who hang out around the duplex and wander the neighborhood. Leah (the former owner) has been feeding them so they are always hanging around looking for more food. Needless to say this is not OK. It would be one thing if there were 1 or 2 and they were friendly.. but they are feral. She thinks two of them are pregnant which is really not OK! We are going to trap them and drop them off at a shelter to be fixed and hopefully adopted. There is one friendly one I have named Tabitha - Leah told me that she had her fixed so I convinced RJ she should get to stay. We'll let her hang out for a few weeks and maybe try to find her another home. 

We both have things going on tonight but tomorrow we are meeting right after work to get more work done. I packed a suitcase full of food, some dishes and some silverware so we can start having dinner over there a few nights a week.

More updates soon!