Wow - my last post was in January. Obviously, a lot has happened, but I will just touch on a few things. I got my real estate license and put our house on the market. It sold in less than 2 days! We had to come down from our asking price a little, which is expected, because they wanted to put a new roof on the house. So, we had to find a house to move into. It was really nice that I had my real estate license, because I could make appointments to see houses, and we didn't have to have anyone take us through - just me. We found a house that we thought would work for us, but the owner was going through bankruptcy so we weren't sure when we would be able to move in. Papers had to be signed by a judge, and it just depended on when it crossed his desk. So, we moved in with Ingrid and Jeff and family. It was almost an hour drive for Randy and I to get to work, so we hoped it wouldn't last long - hopefully only a few weeks. It ended up being about 2 months - but we survived! While we were staying with them, Randy had a safety conference in Nashville and I decided to go along so I could see old friends while he was in meetings. I took a few pictures of the houses that we used to live in:
This is the first house we lived in there - we were here more than 7 years.
We rented this house for about 6 months in between the other 2 houses.
We spent our last 3 years in Nashville in this house.
It was so fun to see old friends, see the houses we lived in, the church buildings that we attended, the schools that our children attended, see a lot of sites, and drive the roads that we used to drive. Then we flew back.
Finally - we were able to move into our new (to us!!) home. Here are some before and after pictures.
We put on a new roof, painted the upper siding, painted the foundation, took out 3 bushes in the front, took out the pavers by the front porch and added 2 small trees, stepping stones and mulch.
In the back we cleared out all the weeds from the flowerbeds, trimmed the rose bushes and straightened things up. There are some strawberry plants around the rose bushes that we will let grow - hopefully we'll get a lot in the spring.
On the west side there were 4 small bushes and one great big bush that we took out. Then we could see graffiti from long ago on the fence, so we touched up the paint where that was and where it was faded or peeling off. We'll plant tomatoes and radishes in the planter in the spring.
We painted the entryway. The door on the right goes into the garage.
In the living room we painted and replaced the carpeting - we couldn't get the pet smell out of the old carpet! :)
Originally the kitchen was pink, so we painted it green and recovered the cushions on the bar chairs that they left. We painted the wall with the refrigerator beige (it was off white).
We painted the dining room.
The extra bedroom (that they used as an office and left a desk, an end table and an old loveseat) we turned into our guest bedroom.
We painted the upstairs bathroom.
The master bedroom has a small room that I use as an office (with a walk-in closet) and the door by the bed goes to a deck and stairs to the backyard.
We put our exercise equipment and books downstairs. We have a utility room that is big enough to have as our storage room that we use for food storage. And Randy has his music studio down there. We also have a bathroom that I haven't done anything with yet.
And finally, the bedroom downstairs was painted and we have Randy's extra sculptures down there along with all his sculpture equipment.
I love this house. The rooms are mostly larger than in our last house and there's only 2 levels, so my knees are happy! We put a new air conditioner, water heater and furnace in since the old system just wasn't making it. It is the perfect size for us and the yard is smaller than at our last house - so I can still do yardwork, but it doesn't take me as long. The neighborhood is pretty quiet and the people around here and in our ward at church are wonderful.
