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

Cleaning Out - By Force

Gross. A few months ago we realized we had a mouse in our pantry. Once I got in there and started cleaning it up it became more clear that it seemed like a mouse family! YUCK.

I've spared you complete exposure of the damage, but here are a few less offensive shots.

If there was food in a bag or box it was devoured - bagel chips, bird seed, cheap cat food for the stray cats that come over.

It was pretty unorganized anyway, but come on.

I had to pull out & sanitize everything - our flower vases, all of our small appliances, even the box that I keep quick access candles and our house flags in! I pulled up the liner and got some contact paper at Target to replace it. It was far too disgusting to just wipe down. While I had it empty, I put out rat poison to make sure they weren't coming back. After a few days of having everything pulled out and ensuring that the mouse/mice had their fill of poison (1 box of that green stuff and one block of it later)....






.... I santized the wood shelves and put down the new contact paper. I wasn't very good at that. Check out the huge 'bubble'. Oh well.



Once I had the contact paper down, I did another few days of emptiness and did the mouse poop check. All Clear. Then I put it all back nice and organized. Now it's defunked and clean but now I'm weary of putting anything in bags (or boxes in there). I also pulled out the "pest deterent" from Sharper Image and plugged that in. It is supposed to make the noises that deter mice and other pests from coming in. Not sure it works, but I'm okay hearing that squeeky little noise. And it's a converation piece when friends come over and ask about the werid little noise.

Much better. And I also had a little time for spray painting the ugly to make it nicer.