Little Critters: Part 2

As you recall, we had a brief house guest that decided to make the attic in our carriage house his final resting place. This past Friday, our friendly neighborhood heat inspector confirmed our suspicions: we were (not proud) owners of a dead raccoon.

Determined to keep the smell from permeating the walls and other areas of the building, Josh and my Dad embarked on a quest to remove our furry friend using nothing but a face mask, snow shovel and leaf bag from Menards.

There are no words that can accurately describe the scene at our home just a few short days ago. As such, I tried to document their journey in photos (this was despite having to leaving the premise several times due to the smell and proceeding to gag like Dee in that one episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia").

 

 

 

Closing Time

Nothing with this house purchase has been easy as we documented last month. Despite having all of our paperwork turned in a couple weeks ago, we've been dealing with a couple tricky conditions. My personal favorite was figuring out how to process the title for a home that:

1) Is currently owned by Bank of America, who ...

2) ... made U.S. Bank the trustee of the property, who ...

3) ... assigned Power of Attorney to Wells Fargo.

Suddenly I understand why we had a housing crisis and why banks aren't trusted! 

So while Ashley and I have been nervously awaiting these loose ends to be tied, we were getting subtle warnings from our lender that the closing just might be delayed. And based on the trials and tribulations of the last 90 days, why wouldn't it!?! 

However, we finally received the email we've been eagerly waiting for and we're FINALLY good to go! Wish us luck tomorrow, because it's closing time!

The Wheelbarrow

It was a crazy weekend here at the Williams house. The most exciting part: we are now aunt and uncle to a beautiful baby girl, Sydney Marie!!!

(I didn’t get a chance to see her at the hospital, but we’re hoping to make a trip out to see our niece next weekend. However, this is probably a good thing since I’m petrified of babies in general. I have this ridiculous fear that I will pick them up and their still squishy heads will fall off and roll across the floor).

We made our first official “new house” purchase this weekend: a wheelbarrow. You know you’re an adult when buying yard equipment is a big event. Kind of like getting a new vacuum for Christmas and being as giddy as an eleven year old girl who got a Justin Bieber bedspread.

As we sat in the outdoor section of the local Home Depot I asked Josh, “Are you sure this will fit in the car.”

“Of course,” he smiled as we rolled our new purchase to the check out.

We got to the car and opened the trunk. Not even halfway and the thing gets stuck.

So we open the door to the back seat and slid the metal contraption inside. Now the door wouldn’t shut because of the handles.

“Well, we’re only a few miles from the house...,”

Somehow, the next sentence or two convinced me to crawl in the backseat with our new purchase and hold the car door shut as we drove over to our place. 

 
I now understand what a dog feels like when he walks around with one of those medical cones with everyone staring at you, openly laughing while feeling bad for taking pleasure in your misfortune. That was us.

I think we need a bigger car.

Me and my orange friend.

Little Critters

As a kid, one of my favorite parts of holidays was the day we got to take out the giant box of Christmas books (in case you weren’t aware, my obsession with books and reading started at a very early age). One of my favorites was called “The Biggest Most Beautiful Christmas Tree.” The story chronicles the residents of a great fir tree in the forest and their quest to decorate their tree so Santa can find them. Brooke and I adored all the characters, from Mr. and Mrs. Fieldmouse, to Old Gray Acorn (the squirrel), to the chipmunk children (Nina and Nutley) and wished our dear friends from the story could one day live with us!

Aunt Mim, you are my favorite!

25 years later, it seems God finally got around to answering my prayer.

Last weekend, Josh and I stopped at the house to drop off our second hand treasures and take inventory of all the projects that needed to be completed. We got up into the man cave (which is quite awesome and will have its own post soon) when we noticed a sound above us no homeowner ever wants to hear:

******* scratch scratch- scamper scamper scamper *******

Upon walking outside to the back of the carriage house, we see that the previous owners left a gaping hole between the roof and the siding. Either we have a very fat squirrel or a petite raccoon. And with the cool weather we've been having, a warm, protected and unoccupied roof is like a free stay at the Ritz Carlton for woodland creatures.

We wished our new friend a happy stay but warned him that in two weeks, we would be evicting him if he did not find another suitable living arrangement (and by that, we meant in a tree in the yard or the nature preserve across the road). And this week, I had every intention of using this week’s blog post as an open letter to our squatter.

But all that changed yesterday afternoon. We brought our good friends, Corey and Monica to take a brief tour of the house (kudos to them for seeing the beauty in it since there is no heat, no water and spider webs in every corner you look at). When we made it out to the man cave, Corey asked if he could open the closet door. We laughed and said yes, but not to disturb our house guest inside.

Well, that door opened and holy hell, the smell emitting from that space was, how do I put it, other worldly.

WARNING- next section is not suitable to read before or immediately after eating.

It seems our forest friend got into some trouble and either tried to chew his way through the insulation or simply figured fiberglass cotton candy was a suitable dietary supplement. It appears that he lost control of his bowels and freakin’ died somewhere in the roof.

This is disgusting and yet, completely hilarious. I’m laughing as I write this because neither of us were actually shocked upon discovering a dead animal in our house. We are so immune to all the craziness this place keeps presenting to us that I am humanly incapable of being surprised anymore by our house.

So if anyone sees a Groupon for an exterminator or heavy-duty house cleaning service between now and the 25th of October, let me know.

There is no shame in Dumpster Diving

I need to take a minute to apologize to our dear readers. Ashley and I haven't been honest with you. We've got a deep, dark secret to tell and it isn't pretty. Here goes …

… we're not below dumpster diving. There, I said it. Are you happy now?

Perhaps it's because we're both first borns* and never had the luxury of receiving all the cool toys and clothes we didn't want anymore, but hand-me-downs are a bit of a foreign concept for we of the privileged progeny. Was playing with Micro Machines and X-Men figures really that bad, Abby? Was my vintage Joe Montana jersey that ill-fitting, Marie?

So imagine poor Ashley and I this weekend, when based on our siblings’ less-than-stellar commentary on the validity of “well loved,” we ventured into the realm of free, recycled goods. Would these goods have giant holes or scratches? Would paint be chipped and motors broken? How would we know? We always had to get the new stuff and boy was it rough.

Well you know what? Our sisters are a bunch of fibbers! Free hand-me-downs rock!

Ashley searching for our next treasure!

My co-worker, Joel, was downsizing from a house to an apartment and allowed us to take whatever we wanted from his garage, as long as we helped him move. When the garage door opened, we were welcomed to a veritable treasure trove of yard implements and power tools … a lawnmower, a snow blower, shovels, rakes, gardening equipment, power sanders, weed whip, extension cords, hoses and even a tree trimmer. It was a glorious bounty, fit for any young couple on a tight budget and we were the winners of this freebie bonanza! 

But our story doesn't end there … oh no. After dropping off our “new-to-us” toys and heading home, Ashley and I witnessed what can only be described as a golden beam of light piercing through the cool, crisp morning air. “Stop the minivan, Josh! Do you see? Do you see?” Ashley proclaimed. “Yes, my love. It is absolutely beautiful and it is free,” I responded.

There before us was a dining room table, discarded with nary a scratch. And as fate would have it, my mom lent us her minivan to pick-up all Joel’s lawn equipment and now we had a vehicle big enough to stake claim to this table constructed of fine craftsmanship and whatever sort of wood they make tables with in Malaysia.

Needless to say, we will never listen to our sisters ever again regarding their toils and hardships of being born after us. Free, recycled goods are awesome and saved us oodles of money we can now spend on wine … I mean … the laundry list of remodeling projects that is our house.

* Did you know first borns are smarter than their generally less intelligent younger siblings. No lie, science says so! Sorry Brooke, Marie and Abby ... we still are proud of you despite your limitations!

Why We Love our House: Westwood Hills Nature Preserve

We often get the question: if you call this your "Little House of Horrors," why are you so in love with the property? Well, like any good fixer-upper, we see a ton of potential in our house. It just needs A LOT of attention to reach that potential. But another reason we love the house, is it has several really neat qualities you simply don't find in just any old property. In what will be a reoccurring series, we'll lay out some of these unique traits ... mostly to remind our parents we have a method to our madness.

As the title of our blog suggests, our property is located on Westwood Hills Road, which as coincidence would have it, is across the street from the Westwood Hills Nature Preserve, a 160-acre natural area featuring marsh, woods and restored prairie. After living in St. Louis Park for five years, we didn't even know the place existed as it's fairly nondescript and hidden. If you're familiar with the St. Louis Park area, it's directly southeast of 169 and 394, behind all of those car dealerships.

Recently, we decided to check it out and were greatly surprised by what we found.

There is a huge lake in the center of the preserve where you
can rent canoes or kayaks and paddle around. 

Around the lake is a boardwalk trail approximately 1.5 miles long.
Ashley loves running on it because of the lack of people and the
fact she can look at beautiful scenery the entire jog. 

A ton of birds, ducks and geese stop here on their migratory
patterns. We walked right by them and they didn't even quack
at us. I guess we're not very imposing figures.

When we walk around the preserve, it is impossible not to
run into an abundance of wildlife including deer, frogs and ...

... the infamous wild turkeys! Who wants in on Thanksgiving
at the Williams on Westwood? 

There is also a nature center with tons and tons of family
programming that takes place on the grounds. Everything
from learning about bees and waterfowl, to art camp and a
Halloween trail. There's also a pretty sweet outdoor
playground complete with a rock-climbing area. 

We have been taking walks around the preserve a couple times a week and absolutely love it! Feel free to join us anytime and perhaps we'll find you Thanksgiving dinner as well!

Hat Lamps

Most people won’t admit it, but one of the fun parts about searching for a home is making assumptions about the current owners just by looking at the decorating inside. And let’s be honest, we secretly enjoy stumbling upon something so dreadful, we can’t help but point and laugh.

When I was in sixth grade, my parents gave Brooke and I the option to paint our rooms AND pick out a wallpaper border (whoa). My sister has always been the more practical, sensible twin; she picked an off white paint with a blue floral border.

(Side Note: my parents are notorious for painting every room in the house a different shade of off white. When they finally busted out a light tan for their bedroom a few years ago, I almost had a heart attack).

I am not so tame when it comes to experimenting with colors, so I chose mauve paint. When telling this story to my husband, he narrowed his eyebrows and asked, “what the hell is mauve?” At the time, I told him it’s a combination of pink and purple. In reality, it’s that dirty dark pink color every makeup company discontinued in the late 1980’s because it was so ugly.

To top if off, I picked a hunter green wallpaper border with, what else, ridiculously huge mauve peonies. And if that wasn’t bad enough, I was going through a phase where I LOVED alto saxophones. I had just started playing in the middle school band and was dedicating hours of my time memorizing Kenny G standards to play for my mom (ask my sister, I am not making any of this up).

And what do 12 year olds do when they love something? That’s right, they slap posters of every shape and size on the walls. Yes. I had saxophone posters placed in all corners of the room, with the 2’ x 3’ one affixed to my door. Who needs photos of Jonathan Taylor Thomas or Andrew Keegan when you have a gold saxophone lying across some draped black velvet (again, ask my sister, I am not making this up).

Looking back, I can only imagine what prospective buyers would have assumed about me. Most likely, they would have conjectured I was a retired color-blind music teacher whose wardrobe consisted of “dressy” pastel sweatshirts and bedazzled Keds.

So imagine Josh and I walking into the second bedroom on the main floor and seeing these. Brows were furrowed. Lips were pursed. Heads cocked slightly to the left in confusion.

At first, we assumed that these decorative accents were installed in place of a little girl’s headboard. Flanking the bed, perhaps this child, at one time, had a garden themed bedroom and these vintage straw hats were supposed to be charming. But then we got closer and realized it was so much worse than what we imagined. These were not just ugly hats affixed to the wall. These were hat LAMPS affixed to the wall.

I wish someone could have captured our faces as we pulled down on the small silver chain and the god-awful thing lit up. It was a cross between complete horror and childlike wonderment. Even our realtor was at a loss for words.

Maybe some mauve paint will help.