While we still don’t have much furniture, and no refrigerator or stove in the new house, I decided last week that I was going to move over here and use my house for an office while we are still here.

Doing this is accomplishing a couple of things for me. First, it is making me get up and get dressed earlier in the day. Second, it is making me feel more like I really do own this house. It does seem strange to be sitting here by myself in a half empty house, working away on the computer or on my sewing machine, but the more I come over here (just across the yard, really) the more I feel at home.And third, I am accomplishing so much more as far as my projects are concerned.

The hallway seems so huge

It has been nearly twelve years since we lived in an actual house. It feels strange to have so much room that is MINE. I mean, the kitchen area is bigger than our whole trailer. The freakin hallway is bigger than our trailer! While the house still echos from being so empty, I am learning the sounds it makes and starting to adjust to so much space.

The back porch now

This week, a contractor is coming to close in the back porch with real siding, putting in two new windows and a steel door so it will be more secure than this plastic paneling is. This is the last thing we are doing to the house before we leave for Arizona, and doing it will make me feel more comfortable going away and leaving my things in the house. When we get back this fall, we’ll have someone put in the sheet rock and make a laundry closet and pantry, and then the rest of the space will be my office. I can’t wait to see it all happen.

A 20 ton load of gravel for the driveway

The dump truck driver called about 9:00 a.m. to tell us he was on the way to the quarry to pick up a 20 ton load of gravel for the driveway. We ate breakfast, and drove over to the house to wait for him. He arrived in good time, but he couldn’t get the dump truck up the drive way. It was too soft and muddy, and his rear tires started spinning. He had to back the truck out of the driveway, while we tried to decide what to do. You can’t hardly return a 40,000 pound load of gravel. It was ours whether we could put it where we wanted it or not!

Gravelled driveway is beautiufl

We decided to have him back the truck up the driveway until he reached the mudhole, then start dumping the gravel out as he pulled back out. It created a beautiful gravel drive on the “good” part of the driveway, but this still left us with a rutted mudhole halfway to the back yard.

The mudhole. This is driveway hell

It was just about this point that I wanted to cry. My stomach turned to knots and I had to run to the bathroom really quickly. Fabgrandpa and I had to decide what to do about this. So far, we had spent a $650 and still couldn’t get up the driveway with our trailer. And we’re still paying rent at the campground. I was beginning to feel like I was in that  movie, “The Money Pit“, only it wasn’t a comedy.

After discussing the options with the dump truck driver, we decided to buy a load of slate. The driver, Mark, told us that slate is what loggers use to create a road in the forest when they are cutting trees and need to haul heavy equipment and log trailers out. It can be spread out and then you can drive on the same day, and the  more you drive on it, the harder it gets. That sounded good to us, so he left to go get the load, another $150 added to the total.

A pile of slate in the driveway

Mark had to back up the driveway again to the mudhole to dump this load of slate. He also told us the name of a a guy who is our new neighbor, who has a bobcat who can spread it and get it right. The guy we had hired on Saturday has a fulltime job during the week, so he was not available to do it until the weekend. So, we called the new guy, and he invited us over to his shop to look at his driveway that he had put slate on so we could see what it would look like when it was done.

We drove over there, and I was still feeling a little sick to my stomach at how this job was adding up to more and more expense. We met Toby, and talked with him for quite a while. He is so friendly and nice! When we asked him how much he would charge to do the grading on our driveway, he just looked at us like we were crazy, and said, “I can’t charge my neighbor for that!”

I feel like this new home purchase is in the exact right place. We have come into a really nice, friendly, caring neighborhood, where people look out for each other. I thought such a place no longer existed. When we got back in the truck to leave, I started crying, because I just couldn’t believe how nice this young man could be to us. He said he can get the slate spread out on Thursday, so now we are hoping we can get moved in by Friday. Keep your fingers crossed for us that this will do the trick.

The driveway had lots of ruts in it.

The driveway to our new house goes all the way around the back of the house in a semi-circle, with two entryways from the road. The one closest to the house is narrow–too narrow for the truck and trailer to get through. It is a close call for just the truck. The one at the lower end of the property also had two fence poles, making it difficult if not impossible to get the trailer in from that way. If the road had been a little bit wider so that we could swing out more, we could have made it, but it wasn’t.

The driveway in the back of the house

Because of all that, we had to hire a guy with a bobcat grader to come and do a little work on the driveway. The first thing he did was take down one of the fence posts and one section of the fence next to the road at the lower end of the driveway. I didn’t get a picture of that because he started before I got there with my camera. He did a great job and now you can’t even tell that there was a fence post there at all, and it gives us room to get the truck and trailer into the driveway without worrying about scraping the side of the trailer.

The work in progress

Blake, the grading guy, skimmed the topsoil from the back of the property to fill in the deep ruts and “squishy” places where we almost got the truck stuck a couple of times while coming up the driveway. Then he used the scraper blade to even it out and make it level.

Supervising the work. That's the neighbor's dog.

It didn’t take long for this part of the work to be done, and it really improved the driveway a lot. Now we are waiting for a dump truck load of gravel to be delivered and spread out over this so that it won’t wash away, and we won’t get the trailer stuck when we tow it over to the house.

Driveway looking good!

For now, we are waiting for the rain to stop so the dump truck driver can get out there and get the gravel down. After that happens, we can finally move in!

Fabgrandpa with Blake, the bobcat guy.

Installing the RV electrical connection

Friday was another good day. Our good friend, Darrell, and his son came to install the electrical connection for the RV. He is a licensed electrician, so he definitely knew what he was doing. The entire process involved him checking in the breaker box inside the house to find a place to hook the wires.

Because of renovations made by previous owners, there were already four 220 volt connections coming out of the box–one for the Jennair range top; one for an electric stove; and two for dryer connections. Since we taking out the Jennair and having a gas stove installed, we could take out those two connections right off the bat. And we only need one dryer connection. However, there is one on the back porch and one in the kitchen. Right now, we are using the one in the kitchen for the dryer, until we get the back porch redone and made more secure.

So, Darrell sent his son under the house to find the wire to the Jennair and the stove connection. Then, he re-routed one of them to the outside of the house to use for the RV connection. All this took about three hours to accomplish. We now have a place to plug in the RV for power!

We have power!

The only thing left to do is to get a plastic “hood” or cover to put over the breaker box and we will be done with the electric connection. Now on to the driveway…

This week has been a good one towards getting moved in to our new house. We needed to have a sewer connection and an electrical connection for our RV so that we can live in it in the back yard while we take our time fixing up the house. We also did not want to buy all of the furniture we need and then leave for six months while we go back to work. So, finding the right people to do the work was first on our list of things to do.

The right people for the septic work

All American Septic was the right company for the job of adding a sewer connection. I had NO IDEA what all was involved in adding one. I don’t know what exactly I thought they would do, but it is a lot of work, and a lot of digging to get it done.

Digging up the sewer line

First, they had to find the septic tank by poking a metal rod into the ground in various places until they hit a solid slab. Then, they used a backhoe to dig up the existing sewer line from the house to the septic tank. Once that was done, they dug another trench from the existing line to the place where we wanted the sewer connection to be.

Placing the pipes

After all the digging was done, the plumber set to work placing the lines. He used a sort of epoxy glue to connect everything together, first the purple primer, then the glue, then stick the pipes and fittings together. After he set the sewer connection in place, he also moved the drain pipe for the washing machine. The previous owner of the house had the drain just pouring the water out into the yard. We had him attach it to where the water will go into the septic tank. He was finished doing all of that in about three hours, then used the backhoe to cover it all up. They did a fabulous job of it, and the yard looks good after it was all done.

The result of all that work was this sewer connection for our RV in our backyard. The next thing we need is an electric connection.

There she is! now we can hook up the RV (so can our friends!)

Changing the locks on the front door.

After we got the keys to the house, the first thing we needed to do was change the locks, because we were told that every real estate agent in west Georgia had a key to them. So, we went to Wal-Mart and bought a package of Brinks locks. You would think that a big security name like Brinks would be good quality, but think again. The very first lock we took out of the package, for the entry door knob regular lock, fell apart in my hands before we could get it to the door to install it! We had already taken the old lock out, so we had to put that one back in the door, and go to plan B.

The next day, we went to an Ace Hardware Store in Bremen, and bought some Kwikset Locks. I have always been told that Kwikset is the best for locks anyway. They cost the same amount as the Brinks ones, which I took back to the store for a refund. We managed to get the regular door knob and the deadbolt installed on the front door the second day. Then we started on the locks on the back door.

When we went to put the deadbolt lock in the hole where we took the original lock out, it didn’t fit! The hole was not big enough for the new lock. The original lock was seated flush to the door, but the new one had a piece that was supposed to fit inside the hole. Because we didn’t have anything to enlarge the hole with, we just put the old deadbolt back in, and left it for the next day.

Before we left, we decided to use some plastic tablecloths to cover the windows until we can get some curtains going on. A quick hit of a staple gun took care of that:

Plastic tablecloths make inexpensive window coverings while waiting for curtains.

Next day, we went back to the  hardware store, and bought a hasp. Fabgrandpa took about twenty minutes of filing the metal on the door to make the deadbolt lock fit. Finally, after three days, we were able to get all the locks changed. You’d think it would be a simple thing to do.

Next up, we looked under the kitchen sink, and found that the people who used to live there had cut the water supply line, probably to take out a water filter, when they moved out. So, back to the hardware store for a supply line for the water. We wouldn’t be able to turn the water on to the kitchen sink until that was fixed. Fabgrandpa is turning out to be quite handy!