The Old Place

The rental Steve and I lived in just previous to our current place was a wonderful little house. Really the only problem was the size; we just didn’t fit.

We left when an opportunity presented itself (we were not actively looking to move at the time). I had overheard talk that our landlords were having problems paying the mortgage (even while we were living there paying rent), so I was nervous about the stability of the place and was glad to have the opportunity to leave.

I passed by the old place earlier this week and noticed a For Sale sign outside. Avid house oglers, Steve and I looked it up online and confirmed it was indeed our old place and that our former landlords are selling it at a $20,000 loss (really not too bad in this housing market).

We really loved that place. I was actually sad to leave (unlike our previous mountain home… good riddance!) and we had a lot of good memories there. Now, if we only had $550,000 to blow on a cute little house… oh well. Someday we’ll have a place of our own.

Before we start on pictures of the new place…

… a few from the old.

Demetri relaxing in the living room.

Steve eating a gigantic tomato that we got in our veggie box.

Hello new year…

… goodbye Christmas money.


We returned last Saturday from our vacation in Southern California to find that some vandals had slashed two of the tires on Steve’s truck. Our landlord said that it happened on New Year’s Eve to many of the cars parked on our street. Something must have scared them off when they were working on Steve’s tires, since the other cars in the neighborhood lost all four.


I suppose we should be grateful that we were out of town, or they undoubtedly would have gotten the tires on my car too and we’d have had to buy six instead of two.

When Steve gets a new toy…

… it inevitably leads to big mess.

Steve’s receiver, well… melted or something and was no longer functional. Though he would have loved to replace the entire system and get the newest and greatest, he showed restraint and just purchased a new receiver similar to the old one. Now, the trick is to install it.

Steve notes the predicament he’s in.

I’m sure these all go… somewhere…

The Amazing Bathroom

At our old place, Steve and I had a glorified outhouse for a bathroom. It had plumbing, but it was basically a shed with no windows, so the door had to be left open at all times (when not in use, of course) for ventilation. That lead to all sorts of problems, not the least of which were in the form of mice and mosquitoes.

Given all that, I knew I would appreciate the real bathroom in our new place. But I never could have imagined the uses we would find for it in just our first month of residence.

Bathroom as….

… dive locker.

… clothes dryer.

… rabbit surgical recovery suite (that’s Demetri hiding behind the litter box).

I think I’m going to like living in a “real” house.

Our Beautiful New Home!

Steve and I have been looking for a new place to live for the past few weeks. Our landlord managed to get into some trouble with the county and there may be an impending inspection. Our garage dwelling is most certainly NOT a legal residence. Rather than waiting to be kicked out, we figured we'd look for a new place.

We had looked at a half dozen or so places with nothing being all that promising. On a whim, I checking Craig's List and found a cute little place. These are the pictures that were posted of the little house:

We saw the place today and the landlords liked us. They called this evening to offer us the place and we took it. We went over to fill out the contract and get our key. We are really excited.

It is an attached one bed, one bath apartment. The landlords (a very nice couple) live in the back part of the house. There is good separation and the shared wall is between our bathroom and their kitchen, so we shouldn't have much of a noise problem. They have dogs and love animals, so they're okay with the rabbits, which is so refreshing. So many landlords are very anti-pet.

We will start gradually moving in tomorrow. First, we're measuring and planning where stuff will go and getting the window treatments in order. This is so exciting! A real house! With an indoor bathroom and everything!