Saturday, November 14, 2015

In between times

The last time I wrote, well over a year now, we were moving from our home in a house to a less than 700 square foot apartment in Williamsburg, VA.  Fast forward that year +, and we're back in a house.  Let's start with the apartment.

Long story made short, when you're signing a lease on an apartment and you find a mold clause, don't assume it's for something obvious like mold in the shower if you're not a big cleaner.  (What we assumed for the mold clause, and, if we're being honest, we usually had some light mold in our house we were moving out of in the shower.  We thought, no big deal.) However, what we learned is that the previous renter had been awful at cleaning and taking care of things that should have been taken care of that there was a scent that permeated the walls into the other surrounding apartments while she was living there.  ("How bad does it have to be to go through apartment walls?" I still wonder.)  Each month, I dealt with a new round of sinus infections until I went to an ENT who proposed operating on my sinuses with the possibility of damaging my eyes or my brain (you know, 'cause I never use those crazy things (note heavy sarcasm here)) I actually didn't burst out laughing at him when he suggested it, but took my friends advice that there was something in the apartment that was causing major issues with my sinuses.  The Hubbs and I took that as a sign that it was time to move out.

We were originally thinking of moving to a new apartment complex,  but the insane price of renting here (I understand high rent in major cities for premium space, but we're living in Williamsburg, VA for peets sake!)  is insane!  We were paying what our mortgage was for our house for half the square footage.  That's when we decided to look at buying here.

We looked at building new, (with tons of steps and two aging dogs (and heaven forbid type thoughts) we quickly came to our senses and went with a slightly older house) We found a great house at an affordable price, went through hell with a bad mortgage company, before having a wonderful experience with our 2nd mortgage company.  And are now in our 3rd month of living in a house again!

Magically, we live in a very quiet neighborhood with several other dog friendly people.  The house had fresh coats of paint (slightly off white) and new carpet as one of the added features when we moved in.  There's also a family of deer that like to wander through the back yard every morning.  We're back to having an office, a spare bedroom (aka, dog room) space for my sewing machine, a kitchen I can cook more than a sandwich in, and a screened in back porch.

We'll be showing you more pictures later, but, for right now, I leave you with a picture of Paul.