We followed a home home

Now we have a little place in Mesa to call our own. The weekend was busy, with us rushing to set up the house as much as week could before having to rush back to New Mexico on Monday night. The pictures are from the real estate listing; we haven't even had time to take any of our own, though perhaps a certain photo major could come up with a few, eventually.

Front view of home -- but when we bought it the front yard was rather unkempt. We are gradually making it tidy again.

We couldn't get around to everything, including setting up some repairs. But, on the plus side, we got insurance coverage, set up utility accounts, learned about City of Mesa recycling and waste management, installed a programmable thermostat/controller, installed a bunch of energy-conserving compact fluorescent light bulbs (including three-way and outdoor spotlight bulbs) got delivery and installation of a garage door opener, dishwasher, bed set, washer, and dryer. We also caught up on overdue watering and some garden trimming, sorting out waste and recycling bins, and bringing and buying various household furnishings.

Kitchen. It has since been improved with the addition of a decent dishwasher, though Gerald is welcome to wash dishes manually if he prefers that as being kinder to the environment.

Dining nook, located in the front of the house.


The home isn't huge, around 1470 square feet, but it is nicely designed as a retiree sort of home, with a nice master bedroom and much smaller secondary bedrooms.

Front entry

Work still to be done includes arranging for roof repairs and replacing the damaged, light-duty vinyl flooring in the bedrooms with a good laminate floor.

Great room


The home has some quirks, particularly a vast number of electric switches -- the home was built by an electrician according to a neighbor we met. Even the high-level "cat shelves" (plant shelves to people not owned by cats) have switched outlets.

Master bedroom

The neighborhood also has an interesting oddity that we'll have to learn about: flood irrigation delivered on a schedule from the Salt River Project.

View from great room (living area) forward toward kitchen and dining nook. If we took a picture now, it would show empty boxes that had been unpacked.

Part of master bathroom

We also have some other projects with which to keep busy, and promise that some of them will definitely have something to do with sailing.