It’s been a while since I’ve updated everyone so let me do that now! I arrived in NoVA about 2.5 weeks ago and I hit the ground running! Within a couple of days I saw over 25 houses and even made an offer on two! The first house got 4 other offers the same day so ours was rejected and the 2nd house had a couple of offers, but ours was the best one! If all goes well, we will close by the end of the month. It will be nice to own a home again. It will also be nice that we will be able to settle down for a few years; Drew may even be able to retire here, so we’ll see.

Here are some pictures of the house. Aside from the first picture, these are pictures the owner took last spring when everything was in bloom.

The kitchen is a good size with plenty of storage space. If you look at the part of the wall sticking out in the bottom-right-hand corner, I would like to replace that part of the top and make it stick out further and throw a couple of stools under there. The counter tops are silestone and the fridge and the dishwasher are brand new. The stove is gas which I like.

Here is a shot of the living room. You can tell by the last few pictures how the living room, kitchen, and dining room all flow together. That is one thing I really liked about our house in Savannah. It was nice to be in the kitchen and be able to see and talk to everyone in the living room.

This is a shot of the dining room and one thing I liked the most about this house is the elevated ceilings and windows at the top. Most of the houses in our price range are much older (this is almost 50 years old) and have low ceilings so this makes everything feel more open.The room is a decent size as well with the sliding glass doors opening into the back yard.

Right outside of the dining room is the patio. It’s just a concrete slab which we will probably want to change eventually. Maybe we will build a deck or refinish the patio. It’s a nice landscaped area though and there are plenty of trees for shade. We’ll have to be on our lookout for patio furniture. Now won’t be the best time to buy because it will all be full price, but it would be nice to see be able to hangout in our backyard in the spring and summer!

The backyard is very mature and nicely landscaped. There is a level section of grass and beyond that is natural landscaping with some rock pathways to walk around. There are large trees and plenty of azaleas which will be really nice come spring. It should be a good yard for both the kids and the dogs.

Overall the house will be good for us; it has really good bones and is move-in ready. It is 3 bedrooms with 2.5 baths. There is a large portion of the basement which is finished. Right now it is all one large room but I would like to partition it so there is an office and a separate family room. The floors are all hard wood except for the basement which is tile. There is another part of the basement which isn’t finished but could be and turned into a guest room ideally. I’ll update everyone when we close on the house. Everything is moving on time so far so hopefully it will continue to do so. Hope you are all well!

Well, we’ve got ourselves a new house. It’s ready to move into and Drew is first on the list. So tomorrow he will go into the office and start the process.

I showed a few pics of this house in a previous post so some of these are repeats. But hopefully it will give you a general idea. It looks like it will suit us just fine.

The first pics are of the outside:

The next few shots are the living room, sunroom, and view from the sunroom:

Then we’ve got pictures of the kitchen. It has a built-in bench but we can take it off if we want.

The foyer/entrance:

The “toilet closet”:

The office nook:

The full bathroom:

Master Bedroom:

The office:

this is a kid room. There are two like these so they will each have their own room.

Drew found a house there that he really likes. It is a restored barn. Before I get you too excited there is a catch to this house. Apparently, the owner would like to sell it. What that means is lets say we got this house.. in 3 months he sold it. We would have to move. This doesn’t sound very good to me. Drew is going to see what he can do about this. The landlord said he would like to rent it out for one more year. We could handle that. If we lived in it for a year, and then had to move, it’s nothing we haven’t done before. Heck, maybe we would buy it if we could afford it.

That being said, let’s get on with the show. The first three pictures are of the outside of the barnhouse (that is how I will refer to it from now on).

The next series of pictures are from the inside of the house.

The Living Room I think:

A peek into the kitchen:

Bathroom 1:

Bathroom 2:

Master bedroom:

Garage:

And then that day Ian and drew went to a zoo which sounded pretty cool. It was kind of expensive (30 Euro for both of them), but apparently they have a year-long family pass for $200 Euro. It sounds like something to invest in. The zoo has a Kilometer long rope bridge/jungle gym that is apparently pretty damn cool.

Links of Interest: House Insurance free quotes

Here are some more pictures of the house that we kind of like. Below is supposed to be a shot of the kitchen; Drew swears it is really big, but it’s really good he doesn’t take pictures for people selling their houses. The cabinet that is open is the fridge.

Here is the cellar/garage. there is a big work bench and a storage room. There is also a wine cellar. Too bad I don’t drink wine.

This is the bathroom. It leaves a little to be desired for taste-wise, but it’s workable. The downside is that it is the ONLY bathroom in the house

Finally, here is a picture of a bedroom. There are 3 others just like it. Drew thinks that 2 of them could fit our furniture. I told him to get a tape measure!

And that’s it. His camera died so he will go back another time with fresh batteries.