The Berry Patch

I can’t remember if I ever posted a picture of the deck on the little house, if I did I can’t find it now. But for the sake of getting a post up tonight I’ll forgo the ‘before’ picture since it’s not handy. Just imagine the ‘after’ picture without the railing, we built the base last fall. Good deal.

This is how we left it last night:

And this is how we left it tonight. I LOVE it!!!! It’s incredibly sturdy and well-built and it really makes the house look nice and more complete.

We have to make another run to the hardware store for more lumber and nails in order to finish up the railing on the stairs and the bit right next to the house (on the left). We already have the lattice to go around the bottom when we’re ready for it. Then probably over the summer I’ll stain & finish it all. Good times ahead!

… at the little house. The girl that came and looked at it never came back to complete her application. Thanks for the $15!! We’ve had a few appointments since then, a no-show and someone that canceled because they found another house to rent. Le sigh.

I think I would feel better about renting it out if it were completely finished on the outside. I guess if someone scoops it up before then I’ll just consider it a bonus. It would be nice to get someone in there and have another source of income. Nothing to do but wait.

Today was our first showing of the little house! Mr. Huckleberry has been in charge of screening the phone calls and setting up appointments so I figured he should be the one to show it and give them the application & all that good stuff. I guess she really liked the house and she filled out an application except only half way. {Thank you Mr. H} So as of right now I can’t do anything with it- she has to come up to Job 1º tomorrow to fill out the rest and provide some more information. We’ll see….. I’ll keep you posted!

Now here comes the really scary part for me… I’m in charge of all of the paperwork- checking credentials, writing up the lease, and making sure we have all of our ducks in a row. And they have to be PERFECT! If so much as a tail feather is ruffled, we really leave ourselves in a vulnerable position, the law favors tenants and there is no question about it. Landlords have to have their shit together. I am going to do the one thing I always kick myself for not doing half the time- TAKE NOTES ON EVERYTHING! It is so invaluable- you can’t go back in time people! This causes problems! Paperwork is going to be my middle name.

Last month we joined our county’s local landlord association and so far have gone to two meetings. This organization is incredible and it’s definitely worth the money, if anyone is a landlord I highly recommend they look into their local associations. Because I feel like making a list of how much I love them….

* They provide past eviction records and access to the list of cases currently in court
* I can do background/criminal checks & credit reports via fax through their office
* I’ve already received an entire binder full of various forms I can and have used
* They fight for landlord rights in congress
* They practically demand(!) you go through your first eviction proceeding working hand in hand with them, so you do it right (god forbid)
* There is pretty much always someone available to answer any question you may have
* The monthly meetings feature guest speakers discussing various areas of expertise
* There is a monthly newsletter, which is really more like a magazine, chock full of information
* The list goes on and on and on…

Except, the best part… There is an annual 10-day cruise!!!!! We JUST missed it this year- we couldn’t have afforded it anyway, but still, a cruise! I really want to go next year. Of course, it depends on how it coincides with the wedding…

In a nutshell, I am SO glad we were pointed in their direction. Mr. H’s mom’s travel buddies (??) own an apartment complex in Ohio and have already given us some good advice, including the fact that there is even an organization like this. I can just imagine how pissed I’d be if 10 years from now I found out it existed and I hadn’t known about it all along. Gah.

Aspen siding, that is.

Mr. Huckleberry is my hero. For the past week he has been working on putting up the vinyl siding on the little house, all the while outside in the freezing cold, rain, snow, wind, {insert nasty weather event here}. I would have shriveled up and died by the end of the first day. I’m thankful for my busy schedule which has at least been a legitimate excuse for my lack of participation.

Obligatory ‘before’ shot. (On my way to work.)



When I got home… pink!



I really only have 2 or 3 opportunities during the week to be home during daylight hours so my apologies for the quality.. it was getting dark!



This is the latest picture I have; the house is about 95% sided now and will be wrapped up tomorrow!!

Technically, there is still a rather decent-sized list of things to do but fortunately they’re all fairly small. I’m pretty sure I remember hearing Mr. H speculate that we should be able to rent the little house out by Wednesday, and when I say Wednesday I mean today. I’m thinking it will be more like the end of next week, knowing us. But you didn’t hear that from me. I’m not making any guestimates because I swear they jinx us.

Case in point: we originally thought we’d be done 11 months ago!

Mr. Huckleberry’s dad called today to let us know he has someone he can refer to rent the little house. Gulp.

It’s not finished. Surprised? The plan was to put up vinyl siding this Thanksgiving weekend, but I need to make some phone calls first to see if that’s actually doable. There are still a few small things to wrap up, all of which could potentially be finished off in a solid evening of work which includes drying time. We also need to swap out water heaters, we have access to a newer, better one - so why not?

I think I remember hearing this lady wasn’t planning on moving anywhere until the beginning of December or so, which would give us a little bit of time. I think we should go for it, have him send her our way, and that should give us the motivation we need to get it done. I definitely want to get it rented out for the winter mainly so we don’t have to pay to heat the house all season and to help with our heating bill (and other bills of course!)…

The siding and downspouts will be Aspen while all of the trim, gutters and soffits will be Herringbone, the whitish color.

For months now I’ve been scouring house colors and I haven’t seen very many quite like this; I haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I’m hoping that once we have a decent amount of siding up the Aspen will look greener and not quite so gray. I like the fact that it won’t be just another beige house with maroon or navy trim. The earthy green should coordinate nicely with the blue we’re putting on our house… some day.

Well, we won’t know how the colors turn out for at least a week or two. Probably closer to two knowing us. We have some serious wood chopping to do to get ready for the winter. Anything substantial gets accomplished on the weekends and we have a quite a few projects we need to wrap up!

The window guy!

Once I got my face right up in all of the windows’ business I realized he didn’t do such a good job after all. I’ll post before and after pics once they come out and clean up this mess.

There was a whole lot of nastiness hiding behind those shutters. This is after we had already swept the house off the first time.

I have one window left to prep before I can start priming them with Kilz. I’ll also prime the wood trim Mr. H is furring out around the windows, you can see that in the first picture (the two small windows, he still has to do the door & picture window). Once we pick out the siding & accent color- which should be soon, I have the color sample pieces here [oh the agony!!]- I’ll paint the trim accordingly.