House buying can be fun or it can be a nightmare. I can attest that we looked high and low for the right place and think we found it. Last Thursday Pekka paid for our dream & forever home! As you can see from the front page photo, that little yellow house has a lot of potential. I think it’s a diamond in the rough..that will one day really shine. Others might not have the stamina to see a project like this through…or even start one! 😀 That’s okay, both Pekka and I are determined to make it happen.

We were doing yard work at a house that wasn’t even ours – lucky that everything worked out like we’d planned! whew!! Now that we have the keys to the place, we can get in there and clean out the ‘left-behinds.’

Here’s a few pictures of the MLS house listing… including KITCHEN, LIVING ROOM, BEDROOM

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After the previous owners had cleared out what they wanted, it still left us with quite a bit of stuff to get rid of. We spent a little time there tonight sorting through textiles – most of the items are going to recycling & second hand stores. Pekka will make the 1st of several deliveries tomorrow after work.

We need to get rid of all this stuff, so we can begin removing old flooring, cabinets, and some walls!  It looks like I might be spending a lot of time refurbishing the old windows to avoid the added expense of buying replacements…   Stripping and scraping old paint and cleaning hardware… oh the joys!

Our new kitchen cabinetry and appliances have already been ordered – and are awaiting our go-ahead for delivery… which means we must get the kitchen re-floored, new plumbing & electrical straightened out, and a window raised before we can give the go-ahead to the kitchen delivery guys.

In the meantime, Pekka has to coordinate with the local waterworks commission to tie-in to the city water & sewer line, arrange for the digging to set the lines, and work with the local plumber, so that all lines tie in with the house fixtures. Pekka is a busy guy, and going to become even more so as he’s required to do so much more of the technical details because I cannot speak Finnish worth a hoot. 😦

We gave some ideas about the kitchen flooring to the tile guys, and they’re now trying to figure out if it’s possible to create the multi-colored slate floor design scheme I had hoped for.  If it’s possible, I’d like to create something that looks like this… not sure if it will be possible to get this look with the products that are available here.

Tomorrow is another day. And it will be one of many that involve taking items to the recycling center. Tune in again for more news. Next time… pictures of the ‘weirdest’ things we inherited from Vanha Talo Suomi!