My TV news debut

Here is the story they ran last week. We shot it in front of our house.

Rocking the Yard, Day 1

Here is what our backyard looked like prior to 9 a.m. this morning (our yard is at the bottom - I realized I never took a pic of the yard because there wasn't much to show; but this will give you the general idea - a giant doggie sandbox)



I am still not used to the lack of grass around here. That being said, we tackled a big project today - starting to rock the yard. I felt bad because I had a meeting in Santa Fe so I wasn't able to help until almost 4 p.m. Brian and his friend did a fabulous job, and I was so surprised at how much they got done. We had 7 tons of rock delivered in front of our house at 9 a.m., and here's how the yard looked at 5:30.

We installed a decorative stone border across the back wall and in two half-circles at the corners. This will eventually be home to some trees, flowering plants and bushes (and maybe even a small vegetable garden).

KB is bailing on New Mexico...and homeowners

I recently posted on a local Albuquerque blog site about our builder (KB Home). They recently announced that they are leaving the state. Initially they said they would finish all projects, but they later clarified the statement to say they would finish the homes under contract. This leaves residents like us wondering:
1) How long will the empty lots remain empty?
2) What will be done to control the dust from those empty lots?
3) If and when the lots are sold to another builder, will that builder have to adhere to our community's design standards? Will they be in the same price bracket as our community to prevent negative effects on our home's value?

KB won't call anyone back - even the people running our homeowner's association. As you all know, KB was less than pleasant to deal with during our building (the crazy outlet that kept jumping all over the wall for four months, the A/C in the wrong place, a lack of mailbox for two months, etc. etc.) That being said, I'm not surprised they aren't very responsive now, but I feel like they owe their current homeowners some explanations and so far they haven't given us any.

Fast forward to today - guess my post generated some interest because I just got called by a local reporter and she's coming to the house tonight.

Keep your fingers crossed that it does something.

Some updates to the house

We've been slowly but steadily making changes here and there.

MASTER BATHROOM

Here are the new fixtures in the master bath. We replaced the lights and sink fixtures with these. The faucets were a steal-of-a deal at Lowe's. We found them on clearance and even negotiated the price (we had no idea they negotiated - but it's only on clearance stuff).

MASTER BEDROOM

And my favorite changes - the master bedroom. I've always wanted a red bedroom, and when we found this comforter set on clearance at Linens N' Things, we decided to go ahead and do it. We're planning on painting sometime soon as well.

Before:

After:

Even the dogs got a new bed. Of course, this is the last piece of bedding we'll be buying them for a while since they ate their old one.