I'm guessing this site still works since I'm typing these words.  Hard to believe it has been around 4 months since I last posted anything here.  For the record, there have been at least TWO people who have approached me and asked me about this.  So, to those two people, thanks for caring.  Here's a blog post just for you!

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Between January and April, I worked with my father-in-law and rebuilt our privacy fence.  That's right.  It took over two months!  What I had originally thought would take a couple of weekends ended up taking 7 weekends!  Ouch!  Totally underestimated that, but so glad that it's done and it looks good, too.  It was good carpentry and construction eperience for a wannabe handy man such as myself.  I really enjoyed getting to spend quality time with Jan's dad as well as a few other friends that came over and pitched in from time to time.  Thanks to Gabrysch, Oliver, Kyle, Steve, and the lifeblood and architect, Tim!

Here are some pics showing some of the progress.  As you can tell, my backyard is pretty much shot now, which means an upcoming sod laying project.

I'm really pleased with the way it turned out and am proud of our work.  Looking back, I'm not exactly sure that I would do it again myself given that it turned out to be much harder than expected.  The hardest part turned out to be removing the existing posts.  They would usually snap off at the base or we would just run into some serious rock which the original concrete had settled into.  In the end though, we probably paid half of what the total would have been had I outsourced it. 

Here's to at least 10 years of having a sturdy dependable fence! 

 

I'm excited to say that we have finally arrived at moving week!  For those of you who only keep up with us through my blog (maybe 3 of you?) we bought a house about a mile up the road and we are really excited to move in this week!  We closed on our condo last Friday and are doing a lease back through this Saturday, thanks to our buyers.  We will close on the house on Thursday morning and then the move can officially begin.  I will try to post some pics of the new house over the next few weeks as we get settled.  We are excited to have a yard, trees, room to grow possibly, and room for a dog if the time is right.  Good times...come visit us!

After several months of praying and trying to determine if we were going to sell or lease out our condo we decided to put it on the market.  We spent a few weeks getting it ready by installing tile in the two bathrooms, touching up all paint areas including painting the baseboards (thanks to my wife), and cleaning the carpet.  It looks like it is all paying off because after only a short time on the market we have a contract in place for someone to buy it!  Praise God!

Now, we are starting to look at houses in this same area of Austin (southwest) and realize that this can be exciting but stressful at the same time.  We are hoping to find a house where we can spend the next 10 years and possibly do some growing (dog maybe?)  Just wanted to share our news!  I'll try to stay on top of updates as it looks closer to us finding a new home.

Today is the second day I've been at home sick.  I was feeling better it seemed yesterday afternoon, but around 5:00 I started feeling much worse and developed a 101.4 fever.  Today, I'm feeling better than I did last night, but nowhere near great and not enough to go in to work.  I was able to get quite a bit of work done from home yesterday but today I'm afraid I've got to focus on getting better.  Maybe blogging will make me feel better.  Anyway, this is just a rambling of a post so no need to bore you all any longer.  More fun stuff later.

So, Jan and I would really like to put some tile in our two bathrooms.  There has been much thought and discussion about this and we are still undecided on whether or not we will pursue this. 

Here's the facts: 

- We don't want to hire a contractor to do it because we don't want to sink that much money into the project.

- Since they are on a second level, it will be much more difficult (and possibly more expensive) if we do it because we might have to install some backer flooring for a more even surface.  This is assuming we do it ourselves.

- I've got a couple of friends (Rob and Jeff Chambers) that have offered to lend their hands to the project if we decide to do it.

- We currently have carpet in the bathrooms.

- My know-how is limited in this area.

- We don't want to pour much more money into this place because we don't plan on being here after the next couple of years. 

So, there's the facts that we're working with.  Does anyone out there have an opinion about what the Wilsons should do?  Should we tile or not?  If so, do we outsource or not?  I'd be especially interested to hear from those that have done this sort of thing before.  Thanks!