Living Box Free!

It's been a bit over a week since I finally cleared out the guest bedroom. Now it's actually fit for guests (and some internet surfin' on the hub's part). Yippeee!  

In case you don't remember, it was our dumping ground for awhile there.

And it stayed that way for an embarrassing 5 months, even as I slowly unpacked the rest of the house and broke down boxes. But alas, the guest room's day had finally come since I was living in constant terror that someone would want to come for a visit or need a place to crash for the night.

Here's how it's looking now.

Oh, and remember this repainted bookcase?

Well, it finally found a home and got a wee bit styled.

The hubby's old college textbooks and our board games are on the bottom shelf. On the next shelf I corralled our pictures and old cards in the woven box, and added more of Ryan's books (poetry on the left, carpentry on the right). I tried to style it with our coin collection and a couple of his geodes.

Next is the sports shelf: mountain climbing books are on the left, scuba diving manuals are below the golf balls.

The top shelf holds his magazines, a few more books, a photo album of a trip to Alaska, a picture of us from our first year together (we look so young!), a map, and his jade collection.

I am no Emily Henderson when it comes to styling shelves, but I am getting better. Now Ryan just has to edit out what he doesn't want (like those college texbooks, scuba, and mountain climbing books), so the shelves can breathe a little more.

There is still much work to do in this room. It needs a fresh coat of paint, some night stands, curtains, and an organized desk...hrmm, hrmm Ryan, but at least it is fully functional...except for this, which I cleverly tried to hide in all the previous photos:

Just an extra door chilling in the room. Who keeps a door in their spare bedroom? Apparently we do. It's high time to find another home for it or Craigslist it. Just trying to keep it real.

What do you have lurking in your doorways and corners? How long did it take you to fully unpack your place the last time you moved? Fingers crossed that it was five months or more!

Unpacking...Three Months In

It's great to be back! Blogger, the site that hosts this blog among others, was down on Thursday and Friday, making it impossible to post. In fact, for awhile my Thursday post was deleted, but now that's back and Blogger is back, so we're in business.

Our friends moved around the corner a couple of weekends ago, and this weekend we popped over to check out their new place and bring them a little welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift. (Their house is beautiful, but much like ours, they have a lot that they want to do to it. It's been fun to swap DIY stories!)

Seeing their room (yes, they only have one) full of boxes reminded me that we still have a few too many rooms in states of unpacking, and it's really time to get rid of those remaining boxes. I mean, we have been here for 3 months now.

Do you all remember this corner?

 
Well, as of yesterday morning we were down to two boxes; one full of china, and one full of crystal and other glassware.

Now the boxes are gone and the china is all washed, put away, and ready to use.

So is all of our stemware.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find a spot I am happy with for the crystal, so I stashed it in a corner cabinet (with a lazy susan, no less), until I can find a better place to hopefully display it.

Now I just need to get rid of the horrible mini fridge that the hubs uses for his beer - it's a long story that deserves it's own post - and the dining room will be looking decent.

All In The Name of Progress

Things are clipping right along over here as we approach closing, so I thought it was time that I give an update on our progress.

We close in 10 days! Whew, a 25 day escrow sure does move fast! We passed all of the inspections - home, water, city, soil - as of last week. And the terrific news is that the house appraised at well over our accepted offer amount. So even though it feels like we will be in the red in ten days, really we will be in the black. Gotta remind myself of that when we starting writing out those mortgage payments.

Should the picture, courtesy of http://montrealrealestateblog.com/understanding-the-home-appraisal-process/, be the other way around?

We will be signing the papers with the title company at the end of this week, the property should be recorded by the middle of next week, and we can pick up the keys on Friday. Craziness! Just to add an extra layer of insanity, I will be in Southern California at a conference on the day we close, so the hubs is going to have to get keys.

That weekend, while all of you are doing this:

www.nfl.com

We will be doing this:

Image courtesy of Habitat for Humanity

Only picture Ryan and I.

Once the yard is ready to handle 200 pounds of fur and wagging tails we can move in. We are shooting for the weekend of the 12th. I don't know how the stars aligned for this one, but our slated moving weekend AND the following weekend are three day weekends for me. Thank you, dead presidents!

In packing news, I have three pretty sizable boxes packed. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it is all the kitchen items we won't need in the next three weeks, as well as all our china and about half our stemware. I was hoping to be farther along by this point, but meh, what can you do? I gotta keep my day job. I'll try to update with some pictures of our dining room where all the packing is going down. It looks like a tornado hit!

Lastly, our little rental has found new people to house. I am so happy that our first casa together has a new couple to love it as much as we did in our six + years here. And so the cycle continues...