happy pups

3 more weeks till I get to be home with the pups! Happy photos will have to do for now.

Hopping Murray

My two weeks of pet sitting Murray the hopping dog comes to an end tomorrow. I've been watching my co-worker's sweet and funny dog Murray, and living in a bachelor pad for the past couple of weeks. Murray likes to hop up and down when you get home from work, are putting on sweaters or shoes, or anything closely resembling what might turn into a walk. Plus he has an accompanying whine that goes with the hopping. It's pretty funny. He's been letting me give him big hugs and lots of pets, since my mutts are way too far away.

G'bye Murray, and thanks for the love!

one step closer

They accepted our offer on the house! We have the inspection next week, and if all goes well, we close next month. I'm so excited to be in a new home. Living apart has become a bummer, and after 3-1/2 months we're all sick of it. We can't wait to be done with this phase of life and move back into one household. 4 more weeks to go.

we're almost there, hopefully!

Decisions, decisions

After finding out that the fireplace "is sinking" in the 60's house and much heated discussion, we've decided to say goodbye to the groovy big house. I'm sad because it's really a great space, and it would have been nice to live in a totally different type of architecture than we've ever lived in. But I think it's the right thing to do. We're going to put in an offer on house #1, which pretty much everyone said we should go with.

Keep your fingers crossed!

house#2-cool 60's house

here's the 2nd house. It's a big sixties house, one story. a little bit further west than the first house, but it's just a few blocks west from another 60's house we really liked. maybe a half mile or so west of the 40's house. located at 1416 n highland. this one is a bit bigger, about 1800 sf. and the 40's house has been on the market 3 months, this one 4 months. this one just dropped the price. it was 390K and is now listed at 335K, but we may be able to get for even less. this house had great light, a huge old beautiful tree in yard, and with the removal of 2nd garage, and fencing in the area, a huge backyard. it has 3 brs, a huge lr/dr area, really big kitchen with attached rumpus room that needs a new configuration b/c it's just a huge space with fireplace that's odd. need design assistance! but again, this house is move in ready with remodel down the road like #1. oh, and it has central air, even though it's not hot in the NW! again, super close to freeway like last house for commute to work.

this one needs:
new roof at some point-looks about 10 years old
possible new water heater---i saw water below it, not a good sign
new kitchen and rumpus room remodel-70's kitchen, functional now so could move in and figure out space configuration
new master bath-tiny and gross
remove 2nd bath wallpaper and paint. put in new bathroom cabinet.
pull up carpets-perfect wood floors underneath
tear out giant stone fireplace and put up sheetrock or something else b/c it's frightening
tear down detached garage and remove. add fence to that area -this will increase the backyard to make huge and awesome!
at some point put in new windows b/c they are old aluminum frame

front of house


stone floor entry

Living Room-immaculate wood floors under carpet. scary stone fireplace that needs to have stone removed b/c its hideous


Dining room



kitchen and rumpus room




the doorway off the rumpus room leads to a big laundry room. door on right in laundry room goes to the garage. straight ahead in laundry room you get to master bath, then master bedroom. the master bath is gross and tiny, so you could take half the laundry room b/c it's pretty big and make a nice master bath. the garage is huge and houses the furnace and water heater, and could easily hold a bunch of cars/storage.

hallway, bedrooms & 2nd bath--hallway looks a lot longer in photo. it doesn't really have that long hallway feeling, & there's lots of closet storage in the hallway





yard with huge tree, it might be an ancient japanese maple, but i'm not sure

lots of boxwoods to tear out!

2nd garage and concrete to destroy. this will enable us to gain a huge amount of square footage for the yard by fencing in this whole area. more garden!

this garage stays, it's attached to the house, and there's still plenty of room!

house choice #1-cute 40's house

I've been house hunting and found 2 good options today which can't be more different. I'm stuck. We've looked at a bunch of solid houses from the 40's. they have great circular floor plans, nice sized rooms, lots of windows and good yards. This one has all that, and hasn't been touched, so we'd have to put in the work. It needs:

-master bed & bath to do-it's an attic now
-remove front fence, as it's creepy and unnecessary
-take down back laurel hedge--huge and ugly.
-replace back hedge with fence from front of house--savings!
-plumb attic for bathroom
-redo kitchen and downstairs bath--both are liveable as they were updated in 70s or so. plus kitchen has new appliances, so that's nice
-remove popcorn ceiling
-tear down walls in basement to make a nice big space-none of walls are structural, I don't think
-plant garden!

this one's 295K and is located in a neighborhood we like, close to freeway for work, quiet street
located at 4829 n 8th. it's about 1500-1600 sf house (when attic is finished). yard is 7695 sf. nice and big. gets sun, but is on the north side of street.

front of house w/huge fence that would come down. behind fence is a nice front lawn that faces south, so it would be sunny all day. along side of house, i could plant veggie garden!


LR w/fireplace


dr to the right of LR


enter kitchen from DR. Kitchen has door to backyard


downstairs bedrooms, decent size & bright



steps to attic

attic with unneeded yellow walls, but maybe some structural beams holding up ceiling!




bathroom-forgot to post pic last night



basement with weird interior walls that can be torn down to make one big space. walls are not structural


yard is ginormous, but with big laurel hedge on back that needs to come down!

the fugliest house ever

I'm house hunting for a new home for me, danly and the mutts. The realtor and I have seen about 50 places already in Tacoma. A few good ones and lots of shit. But this one takes the cake. I swear, it's the most fucked up house I've ever seen, and we've lived in tons of homes, plus looked for 6 months for our first home, so we've seen a lot. The only redeeming thing about this house was the 9,000 sf lot and garden that the house was on. but you'd really have to bulldoze and start over. Not only is this the fugliest ever, it was so damn funny, weird and confusing the realtor and I couldn't stop laughing.

enjoy

granite and coins embedded in the floor!


stained glass window on an inside wall


wood floor installed incorrectly, so it buckled. this was like walking on a carnival ride!


faux-destroyed kitchen island. why faux? just destroy it all!


crazy, rickety, windy, weird staircase. most frightening to walk on!


mr. realtor looking up in disbelief. the support beams are railroad ties, or something like that with electrical conduits, or doo-hickeys sticking out of them. crazy!!!




i didn't bother taking pics of the moldy ceilings, mismatched floors, and huge facade. there was no remnant of the original house, it had so many additions. weird ass home. good luck mr and mrs homeowners!

Sakura Time

It's cherry blossom season in both Washingtons. I'm in Olympia, so there's cherry blossoms all over the campus. Here's a few outside my office and the House building. They're blooming along with the daffodils all around the capitol. And the tulips are starting to open now. Smells and looks great. Apparently, the legislature gives away tulip bulbs to staff after the season ends. Hurray, this year's are so pretty- a pale yellowy-green. can't wait to plant them in my new garden!

Merry Christmasakkuh

and a Happy New Year!

you can go home again, and again

Looks like we're moving back to the NW within less than 2 years of leaving, for the second time! I've gotten a new job, which is great news. It happens to be back in Washington State, and is beyond amusing since we only left a mere 15 months ago! We really weren't planning on leaving DC for a few more years, but this opportunity just came along. We're sad to leave all our new friends, who we had hoped to get to know better. We'll just have to do that from afar!

I'll be working at the state legislative level, so that's exciting for me, since all things political make me happy. Dan and the mutts are going to stay in DC till Dan's done with his semester at MD in May. I'll be able to come back to DC for long weekends and stuff after the session is over mid-March.

And just to add more insanity to our lives, Dan and I just moved to a new house (twice) in the last two weeks. We found what we thought was a great old victorian to rent in Mt. Rainier, MD. After 2 days there, we realized it was a complete disaster, uninhabitable and a total nightmare. We wound up moving again down the street to another great house we had found earlier in November. It's a really nice bungalow, only now I don't get to live in it! But I'm going to unpack it for Danly, so he doesn't have to live among boxes while I'm gone!

Needless to say, this has been quite a ride the past few weeks, but we're looking forward to the next year and adventure.