This Old House
So--a few of you may have heard by now, but we bought a HOUSE. There aren't enough exclamation points to properly convey my immense excitement over this development!
Anyway--we have a lease on our current home until December, and while our landlord is a great guy, he did say that I would need to find a renter to replace us in order to be released from our lease.
Yesterday I put this series of photos on Craigslist and within an hour, I had a call, had showed it and they were applying for it!
I thought I'd keep the pictures for posterity's sake--I really do love this little house...
I got "Minnesota is Heaven Volume III" in the mail from Blurb and I want these pictures to be in Volume IV.
New front room carpet and new roman shades.
The playroom, oddly split by the stairs, for some reason...
The rest of the playroom
The boys will have separate rooms in the new house--a very important thing for my almost-9-year-old. He gets the third floor all to himself!
Yes, even bathrooms get in on the photo session--hey, we spend a lot of time in there!
My new dryer, which arrived on Friday--hooked it up all by myself. Yeah!
My beds' symmetry is thrown off by Hans' missing pillow. For that reason alone, I want him to come home. And bring his pillow! ; )
So--about this new house. Do I have pictures? No. I have one not-so-good picture of the exterior. If I showed you the interior pictures that I shot on Thursday, you would all collectively gasp. It's a holy mess. I suppose my Dad, Phil and Sarah would be able to "see" what's going on, because it's down to the studs everywhere with new plumbing sticking out all over, new wiring and new duct runs. I looked at it on Thursday and fell in love, even in the mess--a 1920 brick Colonial that has endured more than a few years of neglect. Anyway, I put money down on it on Friday. When they are done with construction (please God by closing on 4/30), we will have three floors of beautiful brand new-ness while retaining some of the original character of the house. Because we are coming into the process fairly early on, we will get to choose some things like cabinets and tile, wall paint colors--as you can imagine, I am excited beyond belief. I've already spent way too much time searching "1920s lighting fixtures" on eBay. My contractor is going to LOVE me!
In the end, we get an old house with a brand new interior, all new appliances and mechanical systems, plumbing and wiring. We qualified for a VA loan, so we don't even have to touch our "house" nest egg, and the price was right. Oh, and we get to stay in Larchmont, so the kids will continue on in their school. I love this neighborhood and I'm overjoyed to be able to put down some shallow roots and stay for however long the Navy will let us. I know all of you are saying "But what happens when you have to leave?". Well, depending on how long we have stayed and what the housing market is like, we'll either sell or rent it out. There's always high demand for rentals in Larchmont due to its proximity to the base, the best public school in Norfolk and its family-friendliness.
So, we still have to work the landscaping a little...anyone want to come out and help us put up some fencing and pull up some overgrown shrubs?! Free room and board to takers. Free BEER!
I'm excited to have you all follow us along on this process. I'll be in there as much as I can without becoming tiresome, so I'll take lots of pictures from start to finish. I'm going on Monday to meet with the realtor and the contractor to talk over some ideas.
Oh yeah, and my husband is gone...bless his trusting soul. He certainly didn't expect to get underway for a couple of weeks and come home to find I'd bought a house!
More news to come...
