Moving to the Mad City

A quick post today: I completed (mostly) my move to the Mad City, or Madison, WI. as you non-natives might call it. Mad Town is a great place to be and I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to know that I'm not going to miss Packers games because the Vikings games have precedence on air-time in Minnesota, and I'm glad to be back in Brewers country so I can see how the boys in blue are playing.

We bought a small house in a suburb of Madison. It's a good house--lots of potential. We kind of had our hands tied when we bought the place, though. It was the best house we could afford. It's not a bad place...now.

People: Clean your homes. That's all I can ask. Don't be country bumpkins and live in filth. It's a house, it's an investment. If you take care of it and leave it in better shape than it was when you moved in, you'll make money on it.

When we took possession of our new domicile, the first thing I did was to buy twenty Renuzit Super Odor-Killer air freshners to get rid of the weird smell of this place. Granted, other peoples' homes never smell like your home. It takes some time to get "your" smell into the house so you can become accustomed to your living conditions, but I needed to get the weird water-stink out of this place. I also emptied two Odor-Killer spray cans in the basement. It helped a lot.

On Wednesday, I bought a bunch of paint and supplies. My best buddy Ryan came up to give me a hand. You can always tell who your best friends are--because they show up for things like this.

Ry and I gutted the master bedroom and the bedroom my daughter will use. We ripped out all the trim, the carpets, carpet pads, and strips of carpet tacking. After that, we used cover-stain to spray up the stains on the floors so the odor wouldn't leak through. Then, we painted the ceilings and the walls. After that, we called it a day.

On Thursday, I did some electrical work (almost killed myself!) and added a second coat of paint to the walls. Then, I laid carpet in the two bedrooms. After that, I gutted the living room and the hallway of trim. Thankfully, the people we bought the house from had laid a decent hardwood floor in order to sell the house, and they had done the kitchen, so that was taken care of, but the walls were stained and painted with the most horrible pale blue shade you've ever seen. I spent most of Friday painting the hall and the living room. I chose a beautiful tan color from Sherwin-Williams' color deck called "Tamarind." It works beautifully with the floor and will work very well with the trim...once I get around to installing the trim. I added a really nice area rug from Menard's to accent the room and when I left Friday night, the house had gone from being unliveable to a place where I felt okay about putting my child.

Saturday, I rented the worst hoopdie truck from U-Haul that I've ever seen. It was a beast...I may write about that tank later, but I have time issues right now. We loaded the stuff from our storage locker and moved to the new home. For the first time in a month, I was able to lounge on my couch and sleep in my bed. Not a bad day...just a ton of work.

I resolve that the next time I move, I will be rich enough to pay a company to move for me.

Work continues on "The Seven." It goes slowly because of my unsettledness in the past month, but I promise to complete it soon. I hope.

Thanks to all who keep emailing me and bugging me to write more.

--Sean