Yesssssssss!

Bought tickets to see this man:

I hope his hair is extra crazy.

Haint Blue: A Lesson in Color

There are a bunch of theories about why southerners paint their porch ceilings haint blue and there are apparently a bunch of different colors of haint blue.  This, while qualify technically as "haint blue", wasn't doing it for me:

So, the first weekend in the new house, I painted our screened-in porch ceiling this color:

It's Behr's Adriatic Mist.  Better, no?

First order of business

What's wrong with this picture?

The correct answer, aside from the metail blinds and too-short curtains, is the brass floor register.  Yuck.

There were 10 of these ugly, rusty, scratched brass things in the first floor of the house, but I've since fixed that:

Matte black spray paint is a glorious thing.  10 floor registers x $15 a piece = $150 - $6 black spray paint =  $144 still in our wallets.  Sweet.

New House!

I know I promised these awhile ago; sorry 'bout the delay.  A lot of these photos are pretty blurry, but I think you'll get the general idea.  I think these were all taken the day after we moved in, hence the complete mess in almost every photo.  We're getting settled in though and I'll post more pictures as we make progress.

Exterior of the house (late March--the trees have completely filled in now)

Entry way

Family Room

View from the family room into the kitchen and breakfast nook

Dining Room

Living room (the big ass chair is going on Craig's List soon)

Pantry with exploratory cat

Hallway

Hallway bathroom (this functions as the guest bath and future kid's bath)

Future kid's room with one random light fixture

Master bedroom and bath

Guest bedroom

That's about it for the downstairs.  Upstairs we have:

Chris's man room

Off of that room we have a closet and the weirdest bathroom I've ever seen (yes, that's the shower and tub)

Bonus room

Off the bonus room is a storage room that I'm converting into a sewing room

Also off the bonus room is another bedroom with access to the attic

And what's a blog post without a picture of the cat?

She's very happy here.

House Hunting

When Chris and I decided to sell the house back in November, we contacted our realtor and made a plan.  After staging, our realtor wanted us to look at a few homes before we put our house on the market just to be sure that we felt confident that we could find what we were looking for in our price range.

So Chris and I came up with a flexible list of priorities:

1. 4 bedrooms and at least 2.5 baths (otherwise there was no point in moving, really)
2. Location
3. Two-car garage
4. No more than 10 minutes to our gym
5. Private back yard (I can't stand neighborhoods where you can see into everyone's backyards)
6. No more than a 20 minute commute to work for both of us
7. A yard where we could have chickens (obviously, not a make or break deal, but a huge plus)
8. A house with character (ie no new construction)

With a list like that, I'm surprised our realtor didn't want to kill us.

In early January, we started house hunting, looking at 9 houses the first day.  While we didn't find the house of our dreams that day, we felt confident that we could find the house of our dreams within our price range and that was really the whole point of that expedition, so we were on our way!  We put our house on the market and got down to the business of house hunting for serious, especially since our house didn't take long to sell (panic!).

Fast forward several weeks, two snow storms, and 25 more houses (no joke), our realtor sent us the link to a house that looked like it would fit the bill so we took a look.  As soon as we walked in, we felt at home.  Very quickly the 2 car garage was no longer a priority; the house had everything else we wanted.  We made an offer; they countered and we eventually made a deal.

We've been here about a month and a half now and while we're still settling in, we couldn't be happier.  This is just the place we were looking for and I can't wait to get to making it our home.

Progress Report

Back in March, I posted my list of 30 things to do before my 30th birthday (January 21--don't forget!).  To hold myself accountable, I figured I'd post a status update.

1.  Take a photography class

2.  Go to Seattle with the hubby (done and it was awesome!)
3.  Sell the house (done 3/26)
4.  Run a 5k (signing up for the Susan G. Komen race in June.  We'll see if I can actually run the whole thing!)
5.  Visit Las Vegas for a weekend (I've been once upon a time and know better than to go for longer than a weekend)
6.  Learn to crochet (found a place to take a class, but haven't yet.)
7.  Watch all the Star Wars movies (watched all 3 original movies, still deciding if I should watch the newer 3--thoughts???)
8.  Do 5 unassisted consecutive pull ups
9.  Learn Photoshop
10.  Lose 10 pounds
11.  Start volunteering
12.  Start a vegetable garden  (it's planted, but nothing has happened yet)
13.  See the North Carolina symphony
14.  Watch "The Sound of Music" (never seen it)
15.  Watch "Gone with the Wind" (again, never seen it)
16.  Learn to make poached eggs (done 1/15)
17.  Read one book per month (so far so good!)
18.  Read "The Hobbit"
19.  Learn to make a souffle
20.  Learn to paint my nails properly
21.  Learn to play chess
22.  Learn to play poker (not in Vegas)
23.  Buy a new (to us) house (done 3/26)
24.  Refinish a piece of furniture (done!  pics to come)
25.  Go to a concert
26.  Blog at least once a week (doing terribly at this)
27.  Build a chicken coop
28.  Stop biting my nails once and for all
29.  Pay off my car (done!!!  5/14!)
30.  Learn my credit score