Finally Residing In Winlock.

It's been a month since my last post....and what a month its been! We finally closed on our Winlock property on March 8th and moved the majority of our belongings here on the 9th. We were originally supposed to close on the 28th and have a week to clean the new house and make any needed repairs before moving on the 9th. But fate intervened and we had some last minute hoops to jump through which delayed our closing. That is par for the course. Nothing about purchasing this property has been easy. Was it worth it? Hell yeah!

We headed down to Winlock the day we closed. My intention was to scrub it before we moved. The previous owners were not clean people, to put it mildly. In fact the interior of the home looked (and smelled) like it had been used as a kennel. Dog hair everywhere. A layer of filth on every surface, and badly stained (and smelly) carpets were still installed in 2 of the rooms. This worked to our advantage. I'm sure this is the main reason the house remained unsold for so many months. Well that, and the really poor  photographs provided by the listing agent. We wound up getting this lovely 1930's schoolhouse, with a full basement, on an acre, for the bargain price of $87,000. Definitely worth all the hassle. But I digress. We headed down after closing, ready to commence with the scrubbing, only to discover that a pipe in the well house had burst during the last hard freeze. It took all day for my husband and our poor, long suffering  realtor to get the pipe fixed and the water running.

Moving day arrived and we rounded up some young muscle, thanks to our son-in-law's friends. They quickly loaded up the furniture and boxes and off we headed for our new digs. By the time we got everything unloaded it was getting late and I was tired. We discovered that we had left our bedding behind in Tacoma. My husband went back for it while I zonked out in a recliner. That was my introduction to my new house. Left along in a stinky house, at night, exhausted with nowhere to lie down. I was feeling a bit blue....until I heard the trains. 3 or 4 of them passed by while I was waiting for my husband to return. And every time one passed, I smiled. The tracks are just far enough away to still be heard from inside the house. It is lovely.

Sunday morning we discovered that the hot water tank wasn't working. My husband made the first (of many) trips into town to the True Value Hardware Store. Winlock's hardware store is legendary. It is located on both sides of the street and if they don't have it...they'll get it. And quick. Once the new heating element was installed in the water heater it works just fine. Finally I could begin cleaning.

I began with the kitchen. This what it looked like when I began.

The floor hadn't been mopped in 9 years. I had to use a scrub brush and lots of Mr. Clean.

BEFORE

 

AFTER

 

And here are some pictures of the kitchen after I moved the fridge over next to the stove and added some of my own storage cabinets (which just happen to match the existing cabinets).

 

 

 The kitchen is a work in progress. It is still morphing. Here I've added curtains and my wine bottle collection to the windows.

 

Preparing to make myself some fried rice in my new kitchen.

Next I needed to clean the nasty range, inside and out. And replace the largest burner. I also installed new drip pans. I couldn't get all the burnt on crud from around that largest burner but I am no longer afraid to cook in and on this range. Eventually it will be replaced by a propane range and this one will move to my canning kitchen, outside.

That's enough of an update for now. I still have more to share about how my animals made the transition but that will be for the next post. I am loving every day here. I am a very fortunate woman to have been able to make my dream of moving to the country a reality.