Living in Lamar

I think it will be interesting to post my initial impressions of my new city and then see how they evolve over time.

Lamar is windy and dusty with vast horizons.  The winter weather is really wonderful so far - it's just frosty enough to feel like winter ~down in the 20's at night~  for the most part it gets up into the mid 50's during the day -  so far it has lived up to it's "300 days of sunshine"!!!

The people are super nice - most of our neighbors have introduced themselves, offered help or supplies in renovating and encouraged us in our efforts.

It is a small town of about 8,000 people - about double the size of Dover-Foxcroft, ME.  Our altitude is 3,622 - not mile high like Denver but when I baked a cake there was definitely something I should have done differently!  A lot of truckers come through here going north to Denver and south to Amarillo.  We have a BIG truck stop and lots of motels right near the cross section of 50 and 287.

There is some variety in restaurants - we have the typical fast food - except no Dunkin Donuts or coffee shop! What is up with that.......!!!!!  We have very good Thai, Chinese, Mexican (both authentic and "Taco Johns" which is a better version of Taco Bell), and let's not forget the Cow Palace which is American food (when my husband ordered Tofu, which was on the menu, the waitress had never heard of it and when she checked they were "all out").  Hmmmm.

There is a little bit of yoga...one class a week at the community center and a Tuesday night class starting in a couple weeks at the yoga ranch.  I plan to look into teaching soon.....

There are a lot of cattle, and therefore a lot of people that make their living on cattle. These are modern cowgals and boys and they've been riding horses all their lives.  The girl that cuts my hair starts her day on the ranch - this month is calving time! (I do miss Sheila and she was a horse rider too so this works for me) I admire this and I also plan to ride a horse here in not too long.

There is a movie theater and we have two new movies every week! It's an old carefully renovated gem!  Plan to see lots of movies there.

One oddness is the cat  population.  "Gone Wild" would not be an understatement.  The cats are everywhere...no matter what street you drive down there is one climbing out of the sewer as you turn the corner or crossing the street right in front of you - they are everywhere.

I am happy so far - we have my brother and family in Denver so that adequately balances our need for the city life and it's AWESOME being closer to family than I ever have been in my adult life.

Kitchen - Before and New Windows

The top picture is the kitchen when we bought the house. (Unfortunately I only took one "before" picture) This kitchen was put in by the second owner. 

The original kitchen had two small windows over the sink but when the second owner renovated they took the two windows out and replaced with one center window. In this second picture you can see the frames for the original two windows

The third pic is the wall that had the stove after the cabinets were removed.  They weren't in great condition so we removed and tossed them - we have a local carpenter building new ones.  The original kitchen cabinets are down in the basement!  They are not quite functional enough for the new kitchen but I will use them for something!

This is what just one window looks like from the outside - wait until you see it with three....coming soon!

The Coal Plant

http://www.wildearthguardians.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7977&news_iv_ctrl=1229


I got a little nervous when I randomly ran across several articles about the "in town" coal plant which is only two blocks from our house!   We were told it was not currently operating but we were not told that it was shut down literally two months before we bought our house.
After checking with several sources it seems unlikely that it will become reinstated.  When in operation neighbors had complained about being awakened with godawful noises and a horrible, toxic stench  - a local environmental group took them to court and it appears it was determined that it was not a feasible plan.  I almost ditched the re-model before it even started!

The Woodwork

 We found out we are the third owners of the house.  The woodwork is all original and has never been painted. There are a lot of built ins as you can see.  The only real damage to the woodwork is the abundant amount of hardware that was used in the window frames to install curtain rods, blinds, hooks for who knows what....

 The fireplace is not that attractive in it's current state but we are thinking painting either a white wash or terracotta color.  The upstairs currently does not have any heat except this cute little gas heater - certainly not up to code.

These pictures were taken before we unloaded all the tools and started tramping around and taking things apart....it definitely follows the rule of "it will be worse before it is better"