DUFF STUFF: July 2007

New bike and more shots of kids

Kitchen transformaton is finished

After a couple of months and many different plans, I have finally finished remodeling the kitchen. I tried to get someone to do the cabinet doors after I stripped the laminate and painted but no one called back or in the case of the one person that came out they never called back with an estimate. I finally decided to just order the doors on-line and install them myself. I'm very glad I did . I got unpainted wood doors . I painted them and then put on the hinges and they went up quite nicely.

The end of OccasionCameras.com

On Thursday I switched over our shopping cart and all of our automated messages to reflect our Einsteinstoolbox.com microscope business. This effectively ends our selling wedding cameras on our web site. We have been selling the last of our stock for the last two months and we are sold out of almost all of our models. Now I will sell of the last couple hundred camera on eBay and that will really be the end. The web site still exists for past customers if they need to contact us. Even with the advertising turned off we will probably get 30-50 visitors a day to the site so I have added Google advertising to the front page so that we can earn some money by advertising on the site.

We had been selling wedding cameras since 2001. We started on eBay for the first year before creating our web site. We had a little over 6000 orders on our web site and around another 1000 orders on eBay. That comes out to almost 3 orders a day over the lifespan of the business.

Visit From Grandpa and Grandma Duff

2 Years Later.....

Two years after painting most of the house, I've finally gotten around to painting the very top. Of course the need to put our house on the market next week might have a little something to do with the motivation to climb the big ladder.

Hot Summer Days

The kids are enjoying our need to green up the lawn to sell the house. Hours of running around in the sprinkler have been great on these summer days.

Hanging at the Willsons

Saturday afternoon we headed over the to the Willsons for a cookout. The weather and food were great. The kids got to ride bikes, play with legos and play croquet (well sort of). Elijah isn't exactly sure what you do with these mallet things but they sure look fun.

Our offer has been accepted

Today I looked at the house in the morning and made an offer. I fully expected there to be a counter offer from the bank (this is a foreclosed home) but to our great surprise the Realtor called us this evening and said the bank accepted our price. Apparently we were over the other bidder or the other bidder had dropped out. I sign the legal agreement to purchase tomorrow. The closing date will be set for August 6th. A lot of work to do now! Our house needs much work before we can get it on the market. The new house won't need much work at all other than some new light fixtures and upper cabinets in the kitchen.

Below are more pictures. I'm putting small pictures here but if you click on them you can see large (really too large) pictures.

Master bedroom over the garage. That's Paco to the right checking the place out. Entrance is to the right of the windows. There is a walk in closet to the right of Paco. The bathroom door is just as you enter the room.

Looking from the probably boys room at the closet and out through the door to the landing area and stairs.

"Landing area" on the second floor. Enough space for an office area or school space or even the TV spot.

Looking from the dining area into the breakfast area at the end of the kitchen. The half bath is to the left and is between the dining area and the kitchen.