Home

We're home!! We're unpacked, settled and thoroughly enjoying our beautiful new home. Thank you to all of you, throughout the real estate process, who offered encouragement, support, a listening ear, and endless help as we struggled to sell our house and find this gem. And thank you as well to our parents and a couple of wonderful friends who helped us move in, put together the furniture, laugh, and get settled. We love our new house!

notice our cool deck!

plenty of room for a Subaru, three kayaks and a bike, and the yard stuff (and it's not leaning!)

my sweet yellow kitchen

the breakfast nook

the beautiful view out our front window

our bedroom (no more moose!)

the downstairs family room

the book nook in the family room

Trav's Green Room

Painting with Light

The house selling (and buying) process has been a joke for us. Not including the time we spent/wasted trying to sell and buy a new place last year, there've been weeks of emotional extremes, and we happily closed on both of our houses on Friday night, before this photo was taken.
So why is Travis painting in the dark? Funny thing. The dude who's buying our house is getting an FHA loan, and per government standards, there can be no chipped, cracked or peeling paint on any part of the exterior of the home, and we were unaware of this (we have a conventional loan) and no one bothered to alert us of this until, oh that's right, six hours before closing. We had to paint our entire garage, and touch up every painted portion of our house. It was a monumental undertaking in the time we had.
First off though, very big thanks to Cass for coming to the rescue and helping us! We owe you dinner at Porcupine, and beer. While we were slapping paint down late in the afternoon, the appraiser came to approve the paint and in turn, the entire loan, and we weren't quite finished so she said she'd be back Saturday between 11 and 1. We busted our asses, hurried to our closings at Kevin's office, grabbed dinner, stopped at Lowe's to order a new fridge for the new house (!) and buy more paint brushes, and then stopped at Steve and Linda's for illumination solutions (halogen lamps) and painted until the wee hour of 11 pm, so that when the appraiser came back, we'd be good to go.
Saturday morning comes and we find ourselves back outside, touching up any possible problem area, but at this point, we were out of brushes so I was dabbing paint on tiny places with my finger (seriously) and we were just feeling really desperate. 1 o'clock comes and goes and no appraiser, so Trav calls the buyer's agent (she's the only person we could reach on a Saturday) and she says, "Oh! The appraiser stopped by yesterday while you were at your closing and she approved everything." Great! So it turns out we painted in the dark for no reason! We were so very happy to be approved, but so mad that we wasted our whole night and most of Saturday painting. Oh well. Now as long as no other tragedies occur between now and Wednesday morning, we'll be sleeping in our new house that night. Wish us luck, send good house vibes, and most of all, thank you all for your continued support and prayers and well-wishes. I say this cautiously, but... WE DID IT!!