At last, another entry!

We have the keys!!! We are officially, totally, legally, completely, entirely, and financially in charge of the house. We had the "walk-through" with Jonathon, talked about all of the things yet to be done, he left "the box" with the garage door openers, gate openers, etc. A couple of days later Jeff met with Chris, the GC, wrote the LAST big check and we got "the keys". We now have 60 days to find anything that needs repairs, and we'll have another "walk-through" to go over that punch list. 

Our first 'order of business' was to put together our trailer full of shelving. The furniture from Ikea is amazing - the instructions are drawings only - no words - and NO extra parts at all. No extra screws, little wood dowels, bits, parts, etc. If one is left over, you know you messed up. Jeff is putting together all the big bookcases, the file cabinets, the glass cabinets, his office chair, and I am putting together the totally complex 12 drawer dresser and my unbelievably complex office chair. Well, not exactly complex.

The "Shop"

Check out the garage floor - it's really nice.

Pantry Cabinets and gridwall for pots and pans from ULine.

Jeff finished the gridwall yesterday - I'll take some pots down today to try it out! Photos to follow.

The shoe rack for the closet - not too complex!

Some of the garage shelves - 

Jeff measured and measured and measured for the shelves in the storage room. What the description didn't say is that the 8' shelf unit is really 8'1/2" and the 4' shelf is really 4'3/4". It worked, but barely. Check out the distance between the door and the wide shelf unit!

The drawers for the washer and dryer - they're front loaders and this will make them much more accessible. Jeff modified the top with a board.

I ordered the refrigerator for the pantry from us-appliance.com - free shipping and no sales tax. I ordered it on Monday, and it was here on Friday. The price was better than a more basic model at either Lowes or Best Buy. However, once again, the advertised measurements were slightly smaller than the real refrigerator. It was a very tight squeeze even with the other refrigerator handles removed.

The handle-less refrigerator

 Not much clearance!

Looks good!

On to the Ikea project - finished photos, hopefully! - in the next couple of days.

My chair sans rollers. I found some rollers with felt coverings but the insert was too wide for these chairs. Thankfully Jeff is very clever and drilled out the chair base so now they fit. 

The china cabinet from Ivy Cottage

 The dining room rug upside down.

Another Ivy Cottage purchase. 

Bedroom furniture

At least we have somewhere to sit!

The gas is now connected. The dials have a red light if the corresponding burner is lit.

The butcher block after I oiled and waxed it. 

The cart Jeff modified to fit in the pantry.

Bren and Marc gave us their old wine frig - thank you!

Our required Bradford Pear in bloom.

We took a break from the house and went to Charleston for Jeff's birthday, March 15th, with our friends, Anne & Joe. We started to fly there, but the weather was too iffy around Myrtle Beach. The flight program we use on our iPads, WingX, gives us weather updated every 5 minutes. We could tell the storm was moving west to east, so we turned around and drove to Charleston. A good time was had by all. 

More photos to follow in the next day or two. Our POD is going to be moved to the new house on Monday, so we're going to have a packing weekend. Our mail is being forwarded to the new house - 

6221 Motts Village Road, Wilmington, NC 28412

but so far it hasn't shown up. It turns out the transfer station is in Virginia so our mail gets delivered to our regular carrier, she forwards it to VA, and they send it back. No wonder the USPS is losing money!