Gilbert, AZ

We took an unexpected trip to Gilbert this weekend. Joe and I were looking something up on the computer and he says "lets look at appliances at lowes" So we go to the website and see that they are having a huge Memorial Day sale on appliances. We see that we can get all new appliances for a great deal. This gets us thinking. To back up for a second, we never were considering getting new appliances until we found out about this roach problem. Roaches live in appliances because they like the heat they produce. When Joe went down the other weekend to put out some more roach stuff he took apart the appliances and found hundreds of roaches in them. EWEEEE! Then when we saw we could get a good deal on appliances plus interest free financing for 18 months we decided to go for it.

We headed to Gilbert on Sunday and stopped by the house to check it out. I hadn't been there since the renters just moved out so I wasn't sure what exactly to expect. There isn't any carpet in the house right now and the appliances were all taken out. Surprisingly this all made me feel a lot better about moving back into the house. It feels like we've stripped the house down and are going to be starting with a clean slate. We're purging the house of the assholes that rented it and their grossness and roach population. Once we move back in it will be nice and clean and new! The entire house, walls, doors, trim, cabinets, and ceiling, will be painted, nice new clean carpet pad and carpet, and roach free appliances. Yeay!

While we were there I went around opening cupboards. The last time I did this roaches were jumping out all over the place and it was so gross. This time no roaches jumped out at me! Yeay!

I took some pics so we can document the progress.

Front living room

Back living room

Master bedroom

Master bath

Playroom

Office

Hall

2nd bath

Carter's room

3rd bedroom - I was holding a squirmy and heavy one year old so not the best picture!

Kitchen - ugly cabinets! I've always hated these cabinets. Not only are they too small but they are ugly! They will be painted white. So excited for that. Then eventually we'll put in some grown up size cabinets.

Dining area

Backyard - no pics of our poor trees that didn't survive the frost very well and had to be trimmed way way back.

Carter had fun exploring the front of the house. Here he is with the garage door testing out the texture of the stucco.

Front walk

hmm the landscaper did a good job trimming these bushes!

It was a long drive, especially with a one year old, to buy appliances but I'm glad we did it. It turned out to be the trip I needed to get a new perspective on the house and change my feelings about moving back into it. Seeing the house stripped down to bare bones made me remember that it is still the house I once loved. And it will be the house I love again soon.

The next time I see the house it will have the new carpet and be totally painted and ready for us to move in! Poor Joe though... he will be down to the house a lot before then. With Carter it's really hard for both of us to go down and work on the house so almost all of the work falls on Joe. Poor guy. As if he isn't busy enough with work already. Thankfully we pushed back our move date so this helps some but it still isn't fun for him to go down every weekend and work on the house. I'm trying to do as much as I can, but unfortunately right now that is just most of the logistical stuff and scheduling people. We'll be so glad once we're moved back in and done with this mess. Don't rent your house! We're also hoping that by the time we move back in that we'll have finally sold the house in MN! I cannot tell you how much Joe and I hope that is true. We cannot wait to be normal people with 1 house payment and one set of house bills.