Kristin Laura

We spent the majority of our day working on the guest room flooring.  An early morning trip into Coeur d’Alene (CDA from now on because it’s easier to type) for more flooring and assorted supplies at Home Depot.  You can’t go into town without a trip to Home Depot to buy and/or return stuff. Yesterday we pulled up all the carpet, pad and tack strip and filled the holes in the floor of the guest room.  This morning we rolled out contact adhesive around the perimeter of the room and closet.  Then we just started slapping down the vinyl planks.  The center of the room was done in no time, but cutting the planks for the ends, edges and doorways took a few hours.  It looks much better than the original gray indoor/outdoor that was there originally.  We will paint and install new base boards when we return in March. Empty with indoor/outdoor carpet Contact adhesive applied New flooring Today I noticed that I would walk from room to room ...

There were so many other blog titles that went through my mind today while tearing out carpet, such as “Carpet is Disgusting”, “I Know Where All the Dead Skin Cells Go”, “What the Hell Were These People Doing on Their Carpet?  Sacrificing Animals?”  We have been tearing out carpet for two days, and it is gross.  We are going to install 3,000 square feet of “luxury vinyl flooring” that looks like gray weathered planks.  It is waterproof and nearly indestructible.  No more dead skin cells filtering into the carpet pad.  I see a Roomba in my future. The debris pile is growing Vinyl flooring acclimating before installation Toilet replacement was one of the first projects on the list.  Shawn was not going to use another man’s throne, especially one with a wooden (ick) toilet seat. Dethroned This house has about a million doors, and half of them don’t shut or lock properly.  Shawn replaced the doorknob on the garage door so it would c...

On December 30, 2017, we closed on our new house in Idaho.  We sent 2 out of 3 PODs worth of our stuff to Idaho in the first week of January, and now we are spending a week in Idaho.  We had great plans of arriving on Saturday afternoon and having a few hours to unpack our bed and necessities before sundown.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  Our flight from Sacramento to Spokane was delayed an hour and a half.  The sun was going down as we raced from the airport to Home Depot to get a couple lamps, an extension cord and a snow shovel before heading to our new house in Worley, Idaho. There was a tiny bit of light left when we drove up the driveway.  Our new neighbor, Kyle, stopped by and gave us the lowdown on how he had plowed our driveway for the delivery of our PODs.  Kyle was very nice and we truly appreciated his efforts.   Kyle is a busy guy this time of year as he has a trapline that needs to be tended to every 72 hours.  Unfortunately, ...

After three rainy days on our Washington-Idaho house hunting adventure, I was convinced it wasn't going to happen.  Many houses and properties checked off a few of the boxes on our wish list, but I need a house that will satisfy the majority of my housing desires and Shawn's land requirements.  Sunday the sun came out and the first house we visited gave me that "this is the one feeling". Beautiful views of farms and forest 18+ acres of pasture and timber Big windows Deck Attached garage Workshop Updated kitchen and baths Daylight basement Room for guests Today we made an offer, and after a bit of back and forth it was just accepted.  Come Spring we will be retiring and moving to Worley, Idaho.  Here are a few pictures of our soon to be home.

While we finished up day 3 of house hunting with a couple potentials, I wasn’t getting that excited feeling.  Today we headed south of Coeur d’Alene to look at 3 properties.  The first two were in Worley, population 257.  A quick 20 minute drive from CDA and we were in a valley of gently rolling fields surrounded by ridges covered in pine. House #1 – 14995 W Frost Road, Worley, ID The front of the 18-acre property is covered in long grass with a few trees and the drive gently slopes up to a house with huge windows and a deck overlooking the valley.  The main floor of the house has a nice open floor plan with the kitchen, living and dining room facing the floor-to-ceiling windows.  The master bedroom and bath are on the main floor too with doors leading to the deck.  There is a daylight walkout basement with a sitting room, bathroom, and 3 more rooms.  Unlike many of the house we’ve looked at, this one has a two-car attached garage.  I would th...