Day after moving bike ride

O.K. this isn't really house related but it kind of is.

Since J was in town and we don't get to see him as much as we used to before he moved away, Sunday was dedicated to going to ride bikes just like we used to.

However, this time I could get ready for my ride at home and just roll out of the garage into town to meet everyone and then we went on a sweet 30 mile bike ride going far and wide.

We even ended up at a brewery where I could have a beer because I didn't have to worry about driving on a super twisty highway. Then I rode up to the house, I will admit it was more of a climb than I wanted after all that but I could roll into the house and shower. So awesome. Riding with my friends made it all even better especially since I got to ride with some people who can't make it to the regular morning rides and I really like riding with them, hope I get to do more weekend rides from my house soon!

Moving Day!

We had a move-in day and also a moving day scheduled for months. I had been packing for 4 weeks before we were even supposed to move in, much to T's chagrin because the usual answer to "Where is X" is "in a box!". Here's all the boxes piled up in the old den, kinda looks like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Ever since move-in day we've been bringing truckloads of boxes (pickup truck) and dumping them in the garage but there was some furniture and boxes that were too big for the old truck-truck so we rented a box truck and recruited my very bestest friends to come help out.

After about an hour we had the truck pretty much full of our junk. Some great packing by J. and heavy lifting by C. and N.

Poor J. he's so allergic to cats it's not even funny and there we were moving our furball infested stuff all over the place, finding huge dust bunnies of cat fur as we went. What a trooper!

And then the mother-in-law shows up with her truck! full of her crazy stuff and some pieces of furniture for us too. We unloaded her stuff, packed in more of our stuff and headed down to our new house to unpack.

Our old house driveway is crazy steep but ends up in a nice flat area. Our new house driveway is short and steep with very little flat bit at the top. We could have the truck on the rampy bit and have a flat area to unload onto, but that meant getting the stuff up a huge incline IN the truck before unloading, or park flat but have very little room behind the truck. Option 2 was the best of two bad choices. Option 3 was unload on the street and carry everything UP the hill and you know we weren't about to do that!

Eventually it all worked out, E's bed was the biggest deal and I even stayed up late to put it together so she could have her own room back. Mission Accomplished!

Garage and Storage

I love the garage in the old house, it's something we spent a lot of time getting right and it's wonderful to work on my bikes there. This new garage (here's the before picture) had some good cabinets at the end and a big double garage door with an opener. Since T would be riding bikes to swimming every day, she needed another way to get out without running the garage door opener which is right below our bedroom. And that was how we came up with this crazy plan.

First the garage floor is being coated with a green stain/sealant that's like epoxy, but not quite. Then I'm also getting the same cabinets that we have in the old place which I've been very happy with. I spent a lot of time thinking about the arrangement of the cabinets and how I might use them and how they'll fit in the the various wiggles and panels on the walls. I'm also going to put in some Plugmold power strips, Wall Control pegboard and Akro Mils drawers. Thanks to my buddy at the local bike store, we're getting a great deal on a commercial 8 bike rack which should have enough room to keep us going for quite some time.

For the garage door, we're taking out the double and replacing it with a single and a wide 36" entry door that we'll likely mostly use all the time. I'm going to try hard to get the garage door and the entry door to match the other doors and windows around the house, they have a 3 pane motif going on I'd like to maintain.

There is also a storage room which you get to from the outside, I was trying to work out how to get to it by staying in the house, but it would jack up the apartment too much so it's staying as an outside access only thing. I had also thought about turning it into an office, but we really don't need the space and with what we learned about windows needing to be 4ft from a corner of the building it would be hard to get some good windows in it. So it's staying as a storage unit. But since we're getting things done properly, I'm getting short commercial carpet installed and then a wall of the same cabinets as we are getting in the garage. It's going to be lovely.

It's not a trivial project, but it's all coming together nicely. I'll post pictures when it's done.

Let the work begin!

The first full day in the new house I worked at home because we had a lot of people coming over. First the painters were coming to paint my daughter's room before her huge bed arrived and also her bathroom needed a new color too. Then the internet was installed and that went really well, we can't get the 20 megabit connection here, but I'm signed up for 15Mbps with a static IP and 3Mps upload. I splashed out on an Apple Airport Extreme and I'm super happy with it, so easy to set up and I can plug hard drives into it.

Also I met with people to coat the floor in the garage and put in some cabinets in the garage to make it similar to my old garage which I really like. But that's another post.

More pictures in the Gallery.

Moving into our new house!

Saturday the old owner moved out, Sunday we came and just hung out at the house, it hadn't been cleaned so we didn't want to move our stuff in, we did however bring a truckload of boxes and leave them in the garage. And then I came back and brought another truckload with my daughter and then we rode bikes around the neighborhood. Monday was carpet cleaning day so we stayed away, well, o.k. we did bring a truckload of boxes to unload. Tuesday the cleaners came and we were allowed to move in. They did an exceptional job and the house looked great. We brought the mattresses from my daughter's bunk bed and put them on the hardwood floors in the dining room and we all camped out in a row.

It was so nice to finally be IN our new house!

Yard Work

It started off innocently enough, I dragged out the wood chipper to chip up the christmas tree. Then I wheeled it out back to chip up some branches that have been piled up forever and next thing you know I'm chopping down half a bay tree and all the new growth on the redwood stump that will never die. Satisfying. Finally I start picking the big rocks out of the pile of dirt that has been on the back patio ever since I built the woodshed (yes 18 months ago). Finally I can't stand it no more and start piling that dirt down on the redwood stump and 4 hours later my back patio is finally clean! 15 days before we move out... However it wouldn't be fair to leave it like that for the new tenant would it? I still have a bunch of rocks to get rid of, we're going for the great escape plan and hiding a few of them in the trash every week.

No pictures, just imagine a clean patio.

We bought a new house!

We just bought a new house!

It's hard to describe how surreal it feels, but we've been told we own it and I see a big huge mortgage in my online banking, so it must be true.

First some logistics, We are going to keep our old house and rent it out, we still like it a lot. Part of the deal with buying the new house would be that we would let the current owner stay in there and rent it back from us until February. That's why over there on the right of this website you see a countdown until we can move into our new house.

It's twice the size of our current place and has wonderful views of the ocean and town. It's close to parks and schools and my daughter will be able to walk to her (new) friends houses and school and ride her bike right out of the house. It's close to swimming and bike trails and beautiful.

Obviously it won't look this nice once our ratty old cat destroyed furniture moves in, but it'll still be awesome.

Did I mention the kitchen, because it is awesome and wifey can cook up a storm in there for sure! There is no pool (we didn't want one where we live) and it has a two car garage for the bikes.

It's move in ready and very well maintained. We want to put in a few bay windows and do a little painting but it's pretty much ready to go.

I also want to epoxy the garage floor and put in the same cabinets we put it at our current house.

Every time we visit we find something new that makes us love it more and more. Last time it was the little sponge holder in those fake drawers in front of the sink, the filing cabinet filled with receipts and owners manuals for everything in the house (just like we would do!) and the built in closet organizer in my daughter's room. I keep having these moments where I work out something new about it that fills me with joy, like being able to call someone up and they will deliver pizza! and not feeling trapped in our house on rainy days because we're worried there will be a big accident on the highway and we won't be able to get home. 99 days to go!