Moving In

Libbie, Steve, Dave and me having Que at the Pool

We moved into The Tabby House 26 days ago.  I had to count twice, as I would have sworn it was just a couple of weeks.  My how time flies when you're having fun.  We moved on Wednesday, Aug. 29th.  Steve arrived Friday and stayed with us.  Libbie and Steve Geist arrived Saturday and stayed with Mom.  We did a lot of unpacking, reshuffling and dislodging of things left in the house we didn't want. Steve and Dave removed a huge wooden storage contraption from the study's bar area.  It barely fit in Steve's new Tacoma truck bed, but it's a good thing it did.  He took it to Megan and Sean.  I'm glad it's out of here and I'm so glad Megan and Sean wanted it.

Steve and me

Steve Geist removed the valances from the dining room and bedroom.  He also moved boxes of books and anything heavy that Libbie and I didn't want to handle.  Mom was carefully unwrapping the dish packs and smoothing out the mountains of paper for Libbie and Steve to reuse.  We did take a "few" breaks for drinks and meals.  Thankfully, the Que at the Pool was still open.  We ate there 3 times that weekend!

Jon and David arrived the next weekend to close on their house downtown.  I picked their brains for furniture placement and potential purchases.  Why oh why did David sell his business??  We've been extremely fortunate to have him make beautiful things for us in the past - a king headboard, bar stools, banquette, doors to cover our bookshelves, and drinks tables.  Just kidding about selling, David.  Happy retirement!

Dave and Jon at Noble Fare on Jon's closing day

Mom and David on David's closing day

Dave and I have worked on several projects and have LOTS more to go.  Dave replaced the breakfast room chandelier with one I've carried around for almost 20 years.

Too big and heavy for me

Just right!

He replaced the light in my closet with a Kate Spade ceiling mount I found at Circa.

Old light

New light

He replaced the broken microwave with one that matches our refrigerator and dishwasher.

He stripped the wallpaper from the powder room.

Today he worked on making it easier to pull the trash and recycle bins out of the cupboard.

Dave also, on a daily basis, makes some improvement to the yard.  So far he has trimmed a lot of trees and pulled vines from the side of the house.  There are hours and hours of work yet to be done.

The previous owner's bedroom.
All that's left is the wallpaper.

So what have I been doing - besides supervising and taking care of the everyday duties??  Ha.  One of my priorities is to get the guest room in shape.  We bought a king bed for it, I ordered draperies, pillows and a duvet cover from Ballard's, and have gone through several lamps and shades to get the right look and light for our guests.  I found new lamps for the living room and deliberated for days over the right shades.  I bought new bedding for our room and have looked for bed skirts for both beds.  When going from a sea foam room to a sage room, none of my old bedding looked right.  We won't be stripping this wallpaper for a while, so I had to get pieces that coordinated.

I think I've spent the most hours either putting things away (dishes, tabletop items, books, pantry goods) and deciding what needs to go to the thrift store.  I've donated 4 trunkfuls so far.  It's called moving, folks.

We Bought The Tabby House!

Sometimes, things move so quickly your head spins.  Here's how we ended up buying The Tabby House.

I'd been walking from our house on Village Green Circle to the Landings Harbor Marina at least twice a week for the last 11 years.  I always admired a particular house, even though only one side was visible from my usual route.

When I took a different path, occasionally I noticed the front of the house.  The front is somewhat hidden by trees.  There is a lagoon on the left side and the house is set back from the main street by a large section of community property, so it's a fairly private lot.

One day, as I was walking Molly's Mia, and taking the path that goes by the front of the house, I noticed a For Sale sign.  I quickly looked it up on my phone and was disappointed, but not surprised, the price was too high for me to consider.

Three months later, Jon and David were in town scouting out potential homes, though they were really interested in being downtown.  I checked the Open Houses in the Sunday paper, and was excited to see this house was on the list.  Jon and David were busy, and I was dying to see the inside of what I called the tabby house, so I recruited Dave to go with me.

I loved it!  I encouraged Jon and David to see it, which they did a few days later.  It wasn't for them, but my mind was working overtime, especially since there had been a price reduction which made it worth considering for us.

We had over-improved our current home for our street, Village Green Circle.  We were well aware of that, but didn't care because we planned to live there the rest of our lives.  We had completely redone the kitchen, flooring, laundry room and bathrooms.  We installed an awning in back, put sun-protective film on the windows, blew foam insulation in the attic, and built a patio in front.  We removed 13 pine trees from our small patio lot.  The house was painted inside and out.  We had just installed an insulated garage door and we had beautiful hand-painted wallpaper in the kitchen.  We loved our house, but there were a few things we couldn't adjust.  We had no room for a golf cart.  Our (lovely) neighbors were very very close.  We shared our work spaces/offices with sleeping room for guests.  We had 8-foot ceilings except in the living room.  All of these issues were quite livable and we never considered moving.  I had looked at several homes when Libbie and Steve were considering buying in The Landings, and the only thought I had about getting another house was to flip it. I never went to Open Houses.

Then on Sunday, July 8, I stepped into the tabby house. It was 800 sq. ft. larger than our house, it had high ceilings, it was on a lagoon with lots of windows to enjoy the view, there were 3 bedrooms (master on main) and a roomy study.  The kitchen was very small, but there were also 2 wet bars.  The nice big garage had room for a golf cart.  The interior colors were pretty and I loved the tabby exterior.  Be still my heart.

A few days later, after looking at the house, Jon and David said they were not interested.  The next Sunday, I called the real estate agent and asked to see the house again.  I also suggested she come to see our house so we could get an idea of what it would take to cover the difference between a sale price for Village Green and a purchase price for this house.  She came to see our house Monday.  We signed papers to sell our house and offer a contingency contract on Wednesday. Photos were taken Thursday.  Our listing went 'live' Friday morning.  We had a full price offer by 1 pm.  Our original offer on the tabby house had been rejected.  Having a full price offer for Village Green in our pocket, we increased our offer and it was accepted on Saturday.  The whole deal was done in two weeks, from having first looked at the house to having contracts to buy and sell.  Whew!

From then on, I've called our 'new' home The Tabby House.