The Eagle Has Landed!

Moving day! We loaded up the U-Haul to begin the long trek from Northeast Minneapolis to St. Anthony Village...all 9 blocks of it!

We had a few things yet to get in order before we could unpack the kitchen. It included making the insides of the cabinets go from this:

To this:

The outside of the cabinets needed a bit of TLC also. Using some amazing orange degreaser, we were able to scrub years of grease and gunk off to make them smooth and shiny once again!

While I was hard at work in the kitchen, Dustin was working on getting the wood floors in order.

Everyone remembers the pea green shag carpet, yes? Well, we had to say goodbye to it. Behold, our brand spanking new carpeting!

Well, that's the pad. Here's the carpet!!

Dustin cleaned out the garage so it is much more efficient!

We finally got to break out the grill and make some burgers! We've been waiting to use this for ages! The grill worked like a dream and the burgers were delicious!

Last weekend marked our first venture into a large home improvement project. When we had the house inspected, we were told that the insulation in our attic was at 3" or so (or an R-9 rating). The inpector went on to tell us that the standard R-value for the state of Minnesota is an R-49! We had a long way to go. Seeing as how the temperature is going down outdoors we decided to tackle the project asap.

It started with a trip to Home Depot for supplies:

70 bags of Green Fiber to be exact. It was right about this moment that Alisa began to feel a bit overwhelmed at the size of the project we were attempting right off the bat...

Woke up early on Saturday morning and suited up. We weren't sure what I'd encounter up there, so thinking fiberglass batts, I covered up entirely.

Once I'd climbed on up to the attic, we were pleasantly surprised to find not batts of fiberglass, but of spun wool instead! I was able to pare down my outfit quite a bit. I set to work locating "dead space" and sealing up any air leaks.

This was an 8 ft drop over the stairway that I almost stumbled into because it was covered with a batt! It's now been filled in with insulation. :)

This was also when I had the "What the heck?" moment of the afternoon when I unearthed this up there.

I wrapped up the air sealing portion of the project and we started in with the blowing of the insulation. While I was up in the attic laying down the cover of the cellulose, Stefan and Dustin were down below feeding the hopper.

Needless to say, it's a messy job, but someone had to do it!

12 hours of squatting, bending and kneeling can really tucker a person out. I felt like a 90 year old man for a few days afterward!

We slept wonderfully that night, without a need to turn on the furnace. We feel the first major project was a huge success!

Some of you have asked about the Thermador we speak of with deep affection. We hadn't gotten a picture of her up here yet. Here she is:

She is a beast, but we love her!!

Well, that pretty much catches everyone up to speed. We've settled in nicely, had our first fire the other night!

Smalls has certainly made himself at home!