Waterbury House

Link

Now this is what I like to see in on-line real estate. Pictures! This is the same company that had the 7 mile road house listed so I still don't understand why that house didn't have a photo gallery like this.

This house was up for sale a couple of years ago and I really wanted to see it then. Lets say in a parallel universe I didn't have children (I refuse to send my children to Charles City to school, I can judge, I went there) and I didn't have this strong adversion to living in town . This would be my house. I love it. LOVE it. But I couldn't talk Tim into "wasting" the Realtors time. But would it really be a waste? Why couldn't I have a city and a country house? He doesn't say it but that is really what he is afraid of. We have a tendency to buy things we look at. Stupid commercial building.

So if any of you out there have mind bending control powers or voodoo or something like that point it at Tim and use them to convince him to take me to see the house this time. I'll take the camera, maybe I could even get away with the video camera. How cool would that be! And you know I would share the spoils with you all. Hey, that makes me think. I could take video of Tim doing something like picking his nose or scratching his bum and threaten to post it on YouTube unless he gives me an "alternative" video. Hehe! Sometimes it's good to be evil.

A Silly Girlie Post

So I was catching up on my houseblog reading last night when I came upon a post on the Devil Queen about housebloggers who blog no more (don't be giving this blog that look, yes I know I am one of those he's talking about). It was about this guy who is giving up remodeling because he is going to become a male model. Of course I have to check that out, because I happen to like good looking men. And if this good looking man is doing remodeling work I might have to pick up this here ream of paper to fan myself a bit. My!

So I click on the link and before the page has a chance to load (I have dial up) Tim comes in from mowing. I reluctantly gave up on waiting to go spend time with my husband, who I married because he is so good looking and does remodeling work for me. So really it wasn't a loss.

But now today I get the page loaded and guess who he has on his blog roll??? Little old me. A male model finds the print version of myself interesting! I'm all tittering and blushing alone in my computer room. Man, I wish I had combed my hair this morning!

And so you don't think I'm completely shallow I'm starting with his first post and reading in chronological order, not trolling for pictures like I really want to, hehe. I must say so far it is a very good read, I'm sorry to have found it so late, and that he won't be posting any more.

And if he gets a chance away from that new exciting life to read this little old post I must say even though I don't have any idea what you look like you will still be my go to guy for all modeling jobs here at the farmhouse. Who knows I could be secretly writing one of those sultry women's romance novels. Yes, I could be, you don't really know what I'm doing with the time I'm not blogging anymore. And I could need a male model to photograph for the front cover. I can see it now, "The Farm Wife's Secret" or maybe "Love In The Time Of Remodeling".

His blog is: Nate's Fargo Fixer-Upper .

Front Door/Back Door

Kelli over at Sugar Creek Farm tagged her readers the other day on pictures of your front and back doors. How perfect for you other housebloggers. So if you haven't done it yet, your it!

The front door opens up onto the porch we rebuilt a few years ago. As you can see we have most of the painting done on it, but we need to door the floor yet. So far it's been a good thing we haven't because it's become a place to run saws so we don't have a mess in the now finished portions of the house.

Once we have a warm weekend when I am not so busy I will clean off the wood scraps you see and give it a good sweeping. Then I will venture out into the play house and retrieve our porch furniture.

The swing was just put back up last week. Last year Molly was terrified of the thing. This year is no different. She cried until we took her out. Hoping to inspire her to give it another try the best way we know how we placed Elsie in it. She loved it! Tim had her swinging as high as his head and she was shrieking and giggling. She's going to be my wild child.

This shot is out the back door to the left. I didn't want to open the door all the way because the cats were trying to escape and it's not cat chasing weather (when is it ever?).

It's hard to see, but where there is no grass is our pile of dirt that we have been using to landscape and fill in the last few years. I can't wait to be done with it and get rid of the weedy mess.

The little cream colored structure is Molly's play house. I don't think I've done a post on it yet. You'll have to wait until later this spring when we get it moved on to the pad we poured.

If I had taken the picture directly out the door you would have seen the spot where one day, hopefully, there will be a garage. Then this door, and the mudroom will get much more use as this will be the primary door the family uses. Someday I hope to have a lovely winding sidewalk to the garage and a herb/cutting garden planted around it.

As you can tell by the pictures it is raining here. Want to know why? Well because I chose today to pick up the trees forever plants. Yes, I'm having flash backs to Halloween when it seems to rain every year and mom always made me wear a coat over my costume. What's the point then?!? When I got up this morning I thought maybe I could get away with planting in what looked like a gentle mist, but by the time the girls and I got going it was a all out rain shower. So I stuck the plants in the wet hay covering the foundation of the playhouse, and will wait for the next sunny day.

Old Map Site

Thanks Gary,

So I was catching up on my regular houseblogs and I came across this link on This Old Crack House. It takes you to a site where you can see old maps of your area. Granted the ones they have don't go far enough back to give me any information I didn't already have (however I did learn the old school house down the road that was tore down that Gladys Cable went to was Number 4). But it's still fun to look.

The site is: Historic Map Works.

Real Estate Listing

On my last post it was noted the sad lack of detail that went into the realtor's on-line ad of the home. So I decided to do a little comparison shopping to see if that's just how the Realtors in this area worked. So here are some cool houses from competing Realtors for your viewing pleasure.

Parson Real Estate- Cool virtual tour, lots more details
http://parsonrealestate.com/list/res/B1/index.shtml

New Age is pretty low on the info too, and annoyingly they have a more picture button that doesn't have more pictures for the one i wanted to see
http://www.newage-realty.com/listingdisplay.php

Cedar Valley- lots more details and a nicely organized photo page.
http://www.cedarvalleyiowarealty.com/index.cfm?fa=listings.view&listingid=41016&propertytypeid=1

The house being sold by Cedar Valley is why it would be nice to have more photos up. I like the way it looked on the outside, but once I looked at the photos of the inside I knew it was a house I would never be interested in.

This is the first time I've really looked at houses on line. When we bought our first house we saw it in the local paper. Plus, back then we didn't have a lot of choice because our spending range was so limited.

Before we found this house we went with the approach of if we drove by something we like we'd find out who owned it and then take a look inside. Sometimes we'd use a realtor sometimes we wouldn't. After awhile it got out we were looking for a fixer-upper and Realtors started calling us. I've been meaning to do a post on the houses we looked at before we found this place. Especially since some of them are close to falling down now.

Seven Mile Road House

Seven Mile Road House

I've been driving by this house since before I could drive. It's been for sale now for awhile (I just keep forgetting to post about it). I think it is so beautiful. And it's set back far enough I don't think you'd notice you're on a fairly busy highway. I was all excited to look it up because I've always wondered what it might look like inside, but the realtor seems to think nature photos and bird tracks will sell the house better. I don't know how listing homes works, maybe they don't show inside shots if it's not vacant. Or maybe the inside is really, really hideous. But I can't really picture that because it's so well-kept on the outside.

Trees Forever

Our town sells trees and other landscaping plants at very reduced rates every spring. It is wonderful!

Our first year participating we bought all of our windbreak trees. Our second year we replaced trees that got flooded out and bought a couple of crab apples for the front lawn. Oh, and a willow tree that Tim mowed over like a month after we planted it. Our third year we bought a maple and some bushes for landscaping around the house a long with a replacement for one of the crab apples.

This year I am getting fruit. I wanted so much more but I went a little crazy and spent $65 dollars. Hey, you can't eat crab apples so I don't think that's money wasted. I got 8 rhubarb plants (I love rhubarb), 8 raspberries and 8 black berries, and 4 each of a concord grape and then another type more suitable for eating off the vine.

Why do I love this program? Because for what I pay for these plants if they die I don't have major guilt.

New And Improved Cute Little Farm House...

Now With Door Bell.

Yes, that's right, we you visit us you can now ring the doorbell and we will answer if home. Well, if we are home and want to see you that is. Just kidding!

Yes, it's been a hardship not having a doorbell in a house that is 3x as long as many of the houses around here. More than once I've been up in the laundry room and caught the glimpse of a car driving out of the drive way. Which is a disappointment. Though, if I was logical about it I would realize that the car was probably a vacuum salesman or something. Everyone we know knows the door bell doesn't work and walks right in and yells up the stairs.

The actual door bells and wiring have been installed for quite awhile now. The problem was I couldn't find a door bell I liked. I was briefly excited when Rejuvenation came out with door bells, but none of them really tipped my trigger either. So I asked the electrician if we could just install the insides of one and I'd build a box to go over it (You should have seen the face of my electrician when I was telling him this, you could tell he was thinking, "I sure am glad I'm not married to you!"). Which he did. So now I just have to go see my step-dad about getting something made. He has a woodworking shop and a carving machine that I think I might use. Although it might take me a while to decided on a pattern!

Along with the doorbell we now have the downstairs bathroom, dining room, and all the upstairs wired. They even put the fan and ceiling fixture in the downstairs bathroom for me. They offered to put the wall sconce in too, but I explained to him that I hadn't found one I liked. And at this point I think his wife owes me for showing how difficult "some women" can be.

My New Blog

I've decided to start a new blog for my non-houseblog related musings.

Beyond the Cute Little Farm House

With BFF's Like This Who Needs Enemies

Notice the covers feature 16 year old girls... hint, hint

So today in the mail we recieve these lovely publications from my college friends Janette and Nathan. And all I can say is just you wait until Nathan has his midlife crisis. You think it's funny now, but he too will someday wish to be young again. And you know what, Nathan has never had that shiny new sports car, now has he. A few hundred for a cell phone bill is nothing compaired to a car.

But now that I think of it Tim has had that shiny expensive new vechicle, and a cell phone addiction. -sigh- OK, I loose.

If you look in the back of one of these things they have a short listing of other DUMMIES books you can purchase. I was curious if they had any sort of home improvement book. I did not see one of those but they did have a "Exercise Balls For Dummies" listed. Now for some reason I find that hestiricaly funny. I think it's because the ball is plural.

TTFN (ta-ta for now according to the book)

ugly waterlew

"Urban decay in a small Iowa town"



That statement pretty well sums up this page I found on Flickr. Really cool photos from around the Waterloo area. I just don't know if I agree with the "ugly houses" part :)

Bed and Breakfast For Sale

Would you like to own the place where Tim purposed to me? Tim sure would, but unfortunately we don't have an extra $399,000 laying around.



Govern Farms and Homes

Iowa Falls, IA

Yesterday afternoon my mom and I traveled to Iowa Falls. It's around 50 miles southwest of Greene, and I had never been. We didn't get much of a chance to look around town, but I am definitely going to have to head back with my camera (I tried taking shots with the cell phone, but the pictures really suck so I'm not going to even try to post them). They have some amazing architecture both on their Main Street area and in the residential areas. Also it looked like they had some really cool Main Street businesses.

Aaron, Jeannie, and Mike In Real Life

So the original plan for last Sunday was to leave the kids with my mom and head on over to Iowa City to meet Mike of Foxcroft and Aaron and Jeannie of House In Progress. Aaron and Jeannie were guest speakers at Mike's Iowa City Friends of Historic Preservation annual meeting.

Well, mom called and she wondered if she could back out because they were working on putting stone up on the wall of their kitchen. She did a kitchen addition on the house about two years ago and the wall hadn't been finished yet. Their goal is to have it done by the supper bowl party they are supposed to be hosting. I told her I was fine with that. We understand major projects before parties totally. Plus, living so close to so many family we don't have problems finding sitters.

So Molly was going to Tim's folks for the night and Elsa was going along for the ride to Iowa City and then going to hang out with my sister. That was until Molly got the plague. OK, not quite the plague, but some sort of head cold. If you remember from a previous post we had gone to a play date with a friend that developed RSV so I was seriously worried she'd hit the high temps that Elle did. We made it through the night with no problem, but I didn't want to make the in-laws responsible if anything went wrong. So Tim was unwelcoming volunteered to stay home while Elsa and I headed out in the cold.

Tim was very unhappy with this arrangement, I think he had even read up on what was happening on the two blogs so he could stay current with the conversation. But he, being a good husband, also realized that now days I have very little outside adult contact and that this meeting meant a lot to me after following these people for around five years now.

I had a wonderful time. Mary (my sister) and I ate at a wonderful bakery next to the library and then headed over for the meeting. She and Elsa hung out in the children's area while I attended the meeting. It was so wonderful to see a like-minded group of people come together to accomplish so many great things for their city, really inspiring. And Aaron and Jeannie gave a wonderful talk. It was fun the see the beginnings of what would become their wonderful site, and to see them share some of their wealth of knowledge. I would recommend them highly to any other group looking for speakers. I even won a book! More on that in another post though.

My only regret was it seemed like there wasn't enough time to chat. I was sure Aaron and Jeannie were anxious to get on the road and I had to get Elsa so Mary could make it to work on time. Of course, before I left we had to stop for a gelloto, because you can't find that in my neck of the woods.

On the way home I called Tim to report that I was on my way and find out supper plans. He asked, kind of snidely, "So was it worth the 5 hour drive?" Yes, it defiantly was.

wwjbd

or What Would James Bond Do

So of course the morning I do a post on how the furnace hasn't gone out it goes out that evening, and doesn't stay lit. So last night Tim gets home, eats, and then gets suited up to do battle in the cold. In the mean time I'm cleaning up after supper when his phone vibrates. I pick it up and say, "That's funny it didn't ring, I was standing here the whole time." I then turn around and continue wiping. A couple of seconds later I turn back and see him poking at the phone with his hand over the screen. "Are you texting?" I asked in an amazed voice.

Ok, I know this makes me so totally uncool, but I believe that texting is best left to people who are not grown men. Something about it really turns me off. Picture someone who is the epitiamy of manhood, like James Bond, poking at his phone using stupid abbreviations. You can't right? I rest my case.

So back to our conversation. He shows me his screen. "wtf," I exclaim. "What are you a sixteen year old girl." "Your just jealous you don't know anyone who text messages," he replies.

Which is not true. Tom and Jen text message. For some reason I accept this. Maybe because when they started they were actually teenagers. Maybe because they are so darned cute because for some strange reason they seem to still want to talk to each other after being married for two+ years. I think of them as young and cute. I don't want to think of my husband as young and cute. I want him to be a tool wielding, furnace fixing machine. And this text messaging crap is interfering with both.

The phone vibrates again. "idk, what does that mean?" he asks. I feel a little better because if he doesn't know all the slang maybe he's just starting down this dark path and he can still be saved. "I don't know, maybe," I reply. He types away furiously for a bit and then heads down to the basement. I assume he is going to get tools, but after the minutes drag by I figure out he's down there texting where I can't see him. So the situation has gone from weird to creepy and no one is fixing the heat. -sigh-

James Bond wouldn't sit in his basement text messaging. And you know what, James Bond wouldn't come to bed smelling like burnt corn either. But I suppose I'm disappointing in ways too. I imagine Bond girls shave their legs more than once a month.

Corn Furnace Update

I'm sorry I said I hate contractors. That was a little extreme. Like I said there are a few that we couldn't live without and are very pleasant to work with. But unfortunately we have found that to be a very small number. For awhile we figured it was because we had made the mistake of not hiring the expensive contractor. This corn furnace has taught us that price does not a good experience make. We've come to the conclusion that for us doing the work ourselves has been much more rewarding than hiring it done. That being said if the furnace continues to not keep up we have decided that we will purchase another heating manifold and install it ourselves. So no, I don't hate contractors, I hate working with them.

I think like todd said in the last post it was a case of bad communication. The plumbers we had out to do the work seemed experienced in what they were doing, and were much better (honest?) in answering our questions. I wish that we could have dealt with them from the beginning instead of the owner/salesperson combo we talked to. So maybe that's a secret. You need to stick with smaller/local businesses. But then again that's bitten us in the butt too. And as for recommendations we learned how unfortunate those could be with our roof debacle. I don't know what the answer is. I just have to go on with the belief that people who mislead others are going to have to answer for that someday, and be happy in that knowledge.

Thank you matt for the offer of help. As of right now I'm hoping we won't need it. As for a cleaner we were told that we wouldn't need one with this system. Which was another reason why we bought it.

When the plumbers came back out they removed the solid auger we had been using and replaced it with a hallow one. They said they don't install solid ones on corn furnaces anymore and don't know how that one made it on our unit. -sigh- It seems to have made the difference. Tim had noted that even how it burns seems better and we haven't had a problem with it going out since. This is the longest it has consecutively run ever. My dad made a good observation. He said that the auger probably makes the difference because a hallow one wouldn't conduct heat as much as a solid one. The solid one was probably conducting the heat and causing condensation (which he had noticed outside the tube and thought was strange) which caused the feed to gum up.

The fact that it is now running after the replacement makes me feel better because these guys had my husband and I feeling like a couple of morons. They kept telling us how they had retired farmers who ran the thing with no problems and didn't understand why we had problems. Well, from what we can tell now it's because YOUR auger.

Other minor issues you should know if you are thinking about getting one. They are NOT maintenance free. The salesperson made it sound like you just had to clean out once a month or so and otherwise you didn't have to pay any attention to it. Wrong. We have to poke around at the fire twice a day. Tim does it first thing in the morning before leaving for work and then in the evening after supper. So don't expect to take an overnight away and it still be working when you return. That being said the technician we had out here said what the owner told us about having someone around to watch it constantly is a bunch of baloney. That people are able to leave there stoves and go to friends houses for play-dates and return to find them working. We've also found that you can't adjust the thermostat. I'm one of those people who loves it cold when the sleep. So I had a programmable thermostat that dropped way down at night and then warmed it self back up before I was up in the morning. We can't do that right now. In fact, if we mess with the thermostat setting at all it seems to lead to problems so we no longer touch it. I don't know if this we be better once we have the shed built and have a heaver load on the system. I'll have to let you know.

I Hate Contractors

Things are pretty glum around the farm house these days. We don't understand. Are all contractors jerks? I mean I think we are pretty good judges of character, we seem to have so many lovely friends and family. Then why are we incapable of picking a decent contractor? OK, not all of them have been horrible (we love you Wedeking Electric please come soon to wire the dining room), but it seems we get more bad apples than good.

For the last three days the furnace has not kept lit over 6 hours. Last week it worked fine for us. Tim would go out every night and stir the pot a bit and things were a nice and toasty 72 degrees. And when the weather turned so did our luck.

They sent a guy out yesterday. When Tim called last night Mick (the owner of the company) said that we had bad corn and just the slightest crack can cause the furnace not to work. Now isn't that something you should tell the customer before they purchase corn? Also, he was upset to find that I was not home. The girls and I had gone for 4 hours to a friends for a play date. I guess you are not supposed to leave the furnace. Isn't that something they should have told us? Now if someone said to you you can't leave the house for the furnace to work effectively would you buy the furnace? I think not.

So we got up this morning to our cold house and Tim called Mick again. He said that this is the last time he is sending a guy out for free and we just have to face the fact that we have a bad batch of corn. Now here's my solution. We will waste even more of our time (Tim was supposed to be a work hours ago, but he's here waiting for the contractor) draining the bin. We will then purchase "approved" corn from the contractor and then see if the damn thing works. Or I am seriously tempted to say to them take the damn furnace and the coil that you put in that is too small to heat the house and we'll just pay for the work plumbing the two together. Then we'll go to another contractor and start over again.

I am so tempted to e-mail the company a link to this post and a copy of my site stats. Let them know just how fast word of mouth can travel when you have a houseblog. I suppose I had better just settle down though.

Rath Administration Building Purchased

Exciting news. The Rath Administration building has been purchased to be renovated by Mako Waterloo Corporation. Read the article here.

Waste of Fricking Money

I want to call my husband and scream and yell. But I won't because I am a good wife.

They came Monday and installed the corn furnace the rest of the way and the last few days have been a constant battle with it. If it actually stays lit, it doesn't keep the house warm. I let the temperature fall to 63 and then I'd bump the propane on to catch it up so I don't know just how low the thing would fall before it would keep up.

Yesterday morning the contractor came out to start the fire because Tim had to get to work and we couldn't figure out why it would have gone out (he said it was feed that plugged the auger, but when Tim looked at it this morning after it went out again he said the auger is not sitting right and it's grinding the corn up into feed). I talked to him about it not keeping up and how maybe we need a bigger exchanger on the furnace. He told me that the exchanger was more than big enough for area this size in that "Don't be stupid" tone of voice. I wanted to make a nasty comment, but not only am I a nice wife, I am a good person so I just smiled sweetly at him bottling my anger deep, deep inside.

What really burns me is we used a really expensive contractor. And it's still not right. Arrrrrrrrg@!#$

Well today that anger is itching to get out. I need to get somethings tonight at the store and I just know Tim is going to make a fuss about price and not having any money. Well at least the camera case I plan on buying will work unlike that stupid corn furnace he bought. There I said it, and hopefully that will be enough and I won't have to have a complete melt down in the middle of the Target store.

I wish I had a time machine. I'd hop in it and travel back to October and forbid Tim from buying that stupid corn furnace. Instead I'd take the money and buy a Wii and the Guitar Hero game (I played it with my cousin last weekend and fell in love, I even dreamed about it last night, serious). Then if I was angry I'd just rock out until my anger subsided...

Slow Ride -da dum dumb, da dum dumb-

Take It Easy -da dum dumb, da dum dumb-

I'm In The Mood...

Corn Furnace Day Two

Well here's the furnace in it's new home. It's just sitting there now unattached because we don't have our bin that we purchased yet. The guy we bought it from called this morning and he still hasn't heard anything about it. They had sent it in to have some parts replaced so hopefully it will be a decent bin for quite awhile even though we bought it used. Now that I'm looking at that picture I wonder how close that is to the wedding tree... Not that I can do anything about it now.

Here's the new insert in the furnace. As you can see it still needs to be wired up. When they left yesterday afternoon they said they had a couple more hours of work left that they would finish when they came to tie the bin in.

Isn't all the new copper pretty?

Here's where it enters into the water heater.

On an unrelated subject it's now final. We are having the Brinkman Christmas this year. My Uncle Mark's family were the only ones not able to make it so we will have 33 people total. Our biggest party yet! So this afternoon we are headed out to Osage to the Mennonite Bulk Food Store to buy candy making supplies. And then up to Stacyville to visit the grandparents.