Finally, at age 27, I decided it was time to quit throwing my money down the toilet by renting, and buy a house. It was a very short period of time from the time I decided I needed to buy a house and the time when the paper work was signed. I looked at 20 houses in a period of less than two weeks. Interestingly enough, this was the second house I looked at. I really liked it right away, but since I had not seen any houses except the first one I looked at I decided I had to look at a few more to get a grip of what was out there. I quickly came to realize that this house was the one for me, it stood out heads and shoulders above everything else I looked at.

The house was previously owned by a lady who lived there on her own. The inside of the house was extremely well taken care of, and everything was top notch. The "guy things" around the house were the only thing that required some attention. For example, the gutters on the house hadn't been cleaned in a long time, and had small trees growing in them. The house also needs to have the window trim painted and a couple other little things, but has a brand new roof, new septic system, and a fresh coat of paint on the siding.

I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. All the following pictures are thumbnailed and clicking on them will get you the bigger version.

Some other news:

New Kitchen! In 2002, we decided to redo the kitchen with cherry cabinets and a hardwood floor. With the whole ceiling gone, we decided we might as well put a skylight in! See the whole project by clicking here.

I insulated the garage so I can heat it and work in there. Minnesota winters are cold, and assembling an engine in a 10º garage is not my idea of fun. I'm using a natural gas fired Reznor 75,000 BTU hanging heater. Having heat in my garage has made a world of difference. Not only does it keep my tools from rusting, it also makes it pleasant to go out there and work on things. Pictures of the heater install can be found here. Also, I have spent the last few weekends prepping the house and painting it. It really turned out great, the house looks completely different. You can see the before and after shots below.

			Front view of my new place. Note all the nice trees. This is a very nice lot.
	A side view.
			Here's a shot from the back of the house. Pay particular attention to the lush crabgrass. The crabgrass in the backyard is due to the new septic system. It was just installed, and the previous owner did not replant grass. This is the result. You can also see the inspection pipes still sticking out of the ground.
	Here is the deck. It came with a natural gas BBQ that has seen lots of use already!
		Here are the three large pines in my back yard. More septic pipes. You can also see how far back my neighbors behind me are. I really have a lot of privacy here. And the further they are away the less they'll complain about my loud air compressor :)
	Here you can see the neighbors across the street. Their back yard ends in the Mississippi River, so you can see how close I am.
In the fall I started working on the backyard to get it back to a normal yard again. I cut down the septic pipes flush to the ground (after the new grass comes up, you won't be able to see them anymore) and cut all the crabgrass as low as my lawnmower would go. I then used a power rake to clean off most of the remainder of the crabgrass. Not shown is the inch of black dirt I spread before seeding. More pictures of the result of all the work will be coming this spring. I really despise doing this kind of work, but I hate crabgrass more and cutting it down was driving my allergies wild.
UPDATE: Here is what the yard looks like now. The side to the left of the deck is the thickest section of yard. The center is starting to come in nicely, even though it's slightly more spotty than the left side. The right side is a little thin yet. This is probably because it gets more sun than the rest of the back yard, and is therefore harder to keep watered.
The next 6 pictures are pictures of the house with the new color on there. I started out by pressure washing the entire house to get all the stuff off that's been accumulating for the last couple of years. The cedar front was stained using an oil stain, so it took a couple of coats of latex primer to get the stain to quit bleeding through.
The house was primed using Dutch Boy Duraweather latex primer, and painted with Dutch Boy Duraweather Satin finish paint. I shot the base color with a paint gun using a pressured paint tank. It worked pretty well, saving lots of time especially on the cedar on the front. The base color is "5b-3" or Sedona Dust. The trim color is "5b-6". Have no idea what it's called :) Notice the bushes around the house. They got "trimmed" a little. The house looks nothing like it used to. I'm pretty happy with the all around results.
		And a couple shots from the inside of the house. This is the kitchen, and the stairwell/entryway.

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