Life at the Speed of Light

That title is what it feels like in my life right now. On June 10th we closed (on schedule!) on our new house, then we cleaned it FOR. TWO. DAYS, moved in on the 13th (with movers, , unpacked, cleaned The Old House, unpacked some more, then packed clothes and headed to Edisto Beach, SC for a week of vacation. We are back -- for almost a week. We leave this Friday for Emerald Isle, NC for the July 4th week.

Needless to say, there has not been much time for any type of projects. Those will come. One day.

But in the meantime, here are a few pictures of the clean empty new house. I thought I would take many more, but I was too exhausted to keep the camera in my mind! Luckily for us, my mom came up and stayed with us for a week - Sat. to Sat. to help us clean and unpack. That is the sole reason we are not still living out of boxes. Moms Rock. I came home from work on Friday to find our entire laundry/utility room cleaned and organized.

Masterbath

Masterbath

Master Bedroom

Living Room Looking in from Den

Kitchen

Kitchen

From my viewpoint, there is not a lot that needs to be done to this house. There are no obnoxious paint colors that are slapping us in the face. This is a nice change from The Old House. This time around we can change colors slowly as we start to decorate the rooms. After my next vacation (and perhaps some picture hanging), I will take some after shots of the rooms with furnishings. There are more 'before' shots but they are just bedrooms and kind of boring. I think they'll have more wow factor if I put them against the 'finished' room. Finished meaning "this is what we have to work with right now, but does not mean it's permanent."

I'll be back after our July 4th vacation!!

Massive News - An Update of Sorts

SOOO. We've been pretty busy at NW&TOH. If you read this post a few weeks ago, consider this an update. If you've not visited in a while, well I can't blame you as I've been pretty lame and weak in posting.

This picture should explain it all (or the post link above)!

That's right, The Old House is rented.

And in MORE news, we close on this beauty on June 10th!!
We're so excited and have so much to do. I will take pictures of the empty house when we get in there!

What She Said...

My friend Carol over at The Antique Texan wrote the most profound words. They moved me to share them here as well. Take a look here.

I just found out this AM about the death of bin laden and I was so happy. On the radio was much happiness in the report and it cut to the people outside the White House singing and chants of U-S-A! in the stands at the Phillies game. I haven't had much time to read articles on the major news sites today, but it is so concerning to me that there may be AMERICANS badmouthing any part of what went down. Have you forgotten the images of that day in September 10 years ago? If so you should go back and take a look. They are etched in my memories forever.

HUGE changes around "The Old House"?

If you've been a follower or have read my 'about me' blurb, you know that Mr. NW&TOH and I have been saving diligentily to buy our 'OUR House'. The [not so] Newlyweds are officially in the market!! With a down payment saved up and rental ads posted for 'The Old House', we are on our way to being homeowners, thrice (You did not think I could sell her did you? And his former house is also a rental.) The Old House and I have been together since 1998. I fell in love with her almost instantly, for various and sundry reasons, including...

...stained glass windows, ...her huge master bath,

...the creative artistic features added to some of the rooms,

the large rooms, high ceilings. But mostly, I could see the HUGE potential she had, even through ALL the work she needed. For now, the time has come for us to part ways at least as far as us living together. I hope she knows I will still be here to take care of her and I hope her our new tenants will love her and call her home the way I have for the last 13 years.

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

We (or in some cases "I") have looked at 9 houses in the past 2 months and will see 5 on Sunday. We've really liked 3 of them. We were not really prepared to make an offer on the 1st two we saw (hadn't pre-qualified & hadn't prepared our rental listing). We did make an offer on the last one we've seen together but we lowballed it (it'd been on the market for 85 days) and asked for closing costs. However, another offer came in when our did and we REFUSE to get into a bidding war in the this market.

I'm a little sad. The house had a pool and was in a great neighborhood but it had no garage and was 300 square feet smaller than our smallest SF criteria. Oh well. So about the only luck we've had is for the sellers. If you're a seller in the Richmond market, you should invite us to see your home. If we like it, it seems to sell before we can do anything about it.

On the other hand, if you know anyone in the Richmond area looking to rent, send them over here. Here are the websites where they can find the listing:


http://www.findmyroof.com/ad/82179

http://www.forrentbyowner.com/?showpage=/classifieds/detail/&i=514666

http://www.realrentals.com/house-for-rent/?list_id=052418474

http://richmond.craigslist.org/apa/2332325260.html