Moving Day

This has been the longest month ever, but it finally happened – WE MOVED!! This week has been a whirlwind. Friday we closed on the old house, Tuesday we closed on the new house, Thursday we moved and in between – there was a whole lot of packing. Here's a photo of the Uhaul parked in front of our brand new home.

After bringing four loads of boxes to the house on Karen & Al's pick-up truck, we were shocked when we still couldn't fit everything in the Uhaul. I wish I got a photo of how stuffed the truck was. Here is a photo of it partly unloaded. It was literally packed front to back and floor to ceiling.

The funny thing is that all this stuff still doesn't fill our new house. You know what that means? SHOPPING!!!

SOLD!

I feel like it is official now that the sign is up!!

You will never guess who our buyer is..........

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...only the best, BEST MAN ever!!!

You can imagine all of Ted's lofty ideas about what he is going to do with the place. Some of my favorite are:

1- Turning the office into a bar/game room
2- "Are these columns load bearing? They have got to go!"
3- Filling a guest room with balls so people can just jump in (like Chuck E. Cheese)
4- Having his father replace all the cabinets
5- Turning the entire second floor into a casino and allowing golfers to come and gamble in the middle of their rounds. (This was an elaborate plan that including putting a sign in the backyard along with painting lines in the grass for golf carts.)

I could go on and on. My response is always, "Ted, I can not wait to see how you improve the place." With a smile, of course.

House Update

Our new home is officially sitting, ready and waiting for us to move in. We have had no offers on our current house and little to no traffic. With an Open House every Sunday for the last two weeks and gearing up for another one this coming Sunday – life has been hectic. I will not lie, it has been an extremely frustrated process. I always try to be optimistic and look on the bright side of things, but I am starting to unravel from staging my house for so long. How do people do this when they have kids? I can't imagine...

I can't help but sit here and think of all the things I need to get (but can't afford) for our new house. For instance:

Kitchen Island:

Faux Wood Blinds:

A Beautiful Patio Set:

Just to name a few...

Our First Walk-thru

Today we had our first walk through of the house. This was our opportunity to point out any imperfections in the house that we'd like to have fixed before our closing. Our field manager also showed us a lot of the cool features of our new home.

They finally painted our front door!! It looks so sharp in black!!

Surprise!! They put up a metal fence on the other side of the house. I guess because of the retaining wall, they are required to put up a fence for safety reasons. I was holding out for solid wood fences, but these are free so I guess I can't complain.

Did you notice the sod in the last photo? Funny how they lay down dead sod huh? Whatever...

The screens are finally up on the porch and check out our cute little white door!

Last, but not least, here is an excellent view of the hardwood floors. I am SO, SO happy with them!!! You can also see our new snazzy oven!

Garage Door & Landscaping

Do you see it? Isn't it purdy?

Our garage door... I really do love it with the window and the handles. It finishes the house off perfectly. Who would've known that a garage door would make me smile so much?!

They've also done some landscaping, which looks really nice. Hopefully I don't kill all this stuff... yikes!!

We even got two trees in the front yard. Our field manager says he thinks they are maple trees, but we like'em whatever they are.

Shaggy Carpet

I was so anxious to see the rest of the hardwood floors that I came back to the house again this week. Unfortunately, they have covered the whole floor with white paper, so I can't really see it. Total bummer!! On the other hand, I did get to see the new carpet they installed. Andrew put up a big fight to have this "shaggier" type carpet. I will admit that it looks (and feels) awesome, but I could've lived with regular old carpet. Ruthie is going to be in heaven pulling at it!

I haven't really showed you the closets in the master suite yet. They are off the master bathroom and admittedly, a bit ridiculous.

My closet:

Andrew's closet:

Master Bathroom:

Some shots of the hardwoods in the Powder Room and Coat Closet. I love them, they are perfect!

Close-ups of our brand new stainless steel appliances. We have been waiting SOOOO long for a new microwave... ours is tiny and ancient. We can't wait until we can start using this big beautiful one!

Is that floor right?

After seeing that little bit of hardwood floor in the bathroom, I wasn't convinced that it looked right. I thought it was going to look more rustic with more variation in color. I wrote a note to our field manager and he said it was probably just because it is such a small sample and with more floor down that it will probably look closer to what we saw in the design center. He told us to stop by the following day because they would be installing the rest of the hardwood floors.

He was right, they look fantastic. See the workers in action:

The garage door and opener are also installed. I am so anxious to see the door down, but Andrew yelled at me when I almost asked if we could put it down. Until next time...