August come and gone

Hi all

Well, the last month we’ve been a hive of activity over here at Casa de Kerr. And we have pictures to prove it!

There is the new car, of course. That was about a month ago now but it took two weeks to get all the work finished up on it. We got a 2005 Mini Cooper S, and PK wanted all the boy racer bits added in, so we got the John Cooper Works kit installed. It also started out with a white top, with white mirror caps. Not being big on eggs, I wanted the top and mirrors painted black. We also had black racing stripes installed on the bonnet and boot. Lovely! It’s not great on mileage now that it has 220 horsepower, but that little noise it makes as the air filter kicks in at 4,000 RPM – awesome! (Apparently that little noise is the sound that the engine makes as it gulps down money.)







We also finally got the house painted. No more nasty yellow house! We are now the more stately Craftsman colors of green, brown and red. Alright, so the red is a little bright but it’s still better than that yellow. We are thinking about taking the red down a notch or two as it’s very full on. Not sure. Comments welcome.

The painting crew, Meyer Painting and Contracting, were amazing. They took 9 days to prepare, prime and paint the house. It would have taken us months. And they did a fantastic job – the outside of the house is tidier than when they started (I mean the yard, not just the paint job). I keep coming home and thinking “this can’t be our house!” Too cool!

1st coat of primer – still stripping the paint from the chimney:







New Paint:






We also bought a new old stove from a friend. It’s probably from the 1940’s or 50’s but definitely feels better than our old gas range. It’s a Wedgewood and runs great. PK managed to light the pilots without blowing the house up, but we did have a pervading smell of gas that was mystifying. Our lovely neighbor Abby was over for a visit and showed us that there was yet another pilot light for the oven (we have an oven and a broiler or roasting oven). Sure enough, it wasn’t lit so that was fun. Good thing the gas didn’t build up or we’d have a nice little explosion in the kitchen. Of course, the cats were still alive so that was a good sign – they can act like our canaries in the mines.



With the house looking so good from the outside, we got all fired up and decided to go buy some new furniture for the living and dining rooms. We needed a coffee table, a dining table and chairs and something to store all our mountains of DVDs. Fifteen hundred dollars later we had a new coffee table, dining table and benches and we’ve got a rain check on the DVD cabinet. Oh the joys of credit in America – we got it all on a store credit card with no interest and no payments for 6 months. Of course, if you don’t pay it all up in that 6 months they will ding you with the compounded interest as soon as you get to 6 months and one day. No wonder people over here have credit issues.





PK has been working on running cabling for the multi-media cabinet. He also managed to give himself a black eye in the process (darn those pesky drills that slip and punch you!) Wish I’d taken a photo to show you, it was fairly impressive. I’ve been telling everyone I did it. He can fill you in on the other stuff he has been doing, like framing the doors in the living room, stripping the paint off the chimney, installing new locks on the front door and having various things stained.

It’s Labor weekend and the weather has been stinking hot. This is supposed to be the official end of Summer but I think someone forgot to tell her that. Seriously, it’s been hot since bloody May, can we just get on to Autumn already? Bring on Halloween, that’s my favorite time of year.

Oooh, and if anyone wants to buy a 91 Mazda Miata, convertible, red (goes faster!), automatic then drop us a line. It was my daily transport vehicle and it goes well. It’s up for $2500.00 but we’re flexible.