Moving Up! (What Excites Us About the New Townhouse)

Thank you one and all who have congratulated us on the upcoming move to a newer and larger space. We really appreciate all of you and, yes we will probably take you up on your offers -- for those of you who offered to help move, etc.

Nothing has really changed on the time line. Once the appraisal has been done on the current place for the HELOC we think things will move faster.

We thought we would comment on what excites us about the new place -- things that are new or better. Here are the main ones that we think of:

10) Master Bathroom! You might wonder why this is only number 10? I guess the answer would be that we don't have teenagers. In fact we have yet to convince Joseph to even share a bathroom with us. So we haven't been craving our "own" bath yet, because the upstairs bathroom was ours. Still, it is nice to have our own space. It is a little larger than the full bath we used. It is 3/4, but we don't mind going to the middle floor to bathe.

9) New home! Okay, so it is 3 years old, but if you come by you will see how well it has been preserved. Also, two important things that a new home has going, this definitely has going: Never had pets living in it (you never no how well trained the previous pets were), and it has never been smoked in.

8) Dining Room (area)! This is nice to not have the table crammed in the kitchen. It is not its own separate room, but we are actually looking forward to the open space. One (soon to be) new neighbor commented that the only thing he didn't like about the complex was the "dorm room" feel of having the living room, dining room, and kitchen in one continuous space. We are currently feeling compartmentalized, so we won't mind the open area. The one draw-back: we have to clean three rooms for guests instead of just one. The dining room and kitchen also meet at a bar counter. So that will be a nice eating area too.

7) Walk-in Closet & Storage Room: The master floor has both of these rooms in it, both are about 5 x 10'. We will be so happy to have better access to our clothes as well as have a storage space that doesn't vary in temperature by 80 degrees over the year.

6) Kitchen with out Dining Room and/or Laundry Room! Yes, our kitchen, dining, and laundry are in one space that is about 13' square. It isn't too bad if you stay on top of your laundry, keep your kitchen clean and never use your dining table to store stuff temporarily. But with the room having so many uses, it isn't long before a couple semi-neglected spaces becomes one disaster area. The Kitchen is just a kitchen!



5) Joseph's Closet! In Joseph's future room there is a closet that is on the wall that goes between his room and the stairs to the 3rd floor. The stairs only go up about 5 or so steps along that wall before turning 90 degrees. The closet is an under the stairs closet, but it is has only about 3.5' tall door because, again, their are only about 5 stairs along that wall. So it is a door and closet just his size. It will be a toy closet, and we'll either dismantle the handle so it doesn't shut in on him, or take the door off completely. When we went to the open house we discussed it being a toy closet for him, and when we came back with Rob 2 days later, he instantly showed it to Rob and told him, "Look! Joseph's!" So it will definitely be Joseph's closet.

4) Swimming Pool! We'll be paying the same HOA fees (yes, they'll still do my yard work!!!), but we will now have a pool. So on hot days, our friends are welcome to come cool off.



3) Air Conditioning! It will be great to have climate control . . . controlled! I will not miss having the house so muggy and humid. I will especially not miss having my photo papers so saturated with water from the air. What more can I say.





2) Bedroom! Yes, a bedroom that no longer doubles (or triples) as the offices of Stephen and Jen Bair of Bair Photography and Fun Photo Invitations. Yes, my commute will be 5 times longer, but when it was walking 5 feet from my bed, it won't get that bad. There was a surreal feeling to rolling out of bed and into work at the same time, but I won't miss it that much.

1) The Bath! We both like to soak, but that is less than satisfactory in our current standard tub. Our current tub only has a 9" soaking depth at the most. We haven't measured the new one, but it looks like at least 18"!!! We'll actually be able to soak, not just sit in water.


Well, that is about it.