Getting Settled In

We've been in our new (renovated house) for a couple of weeks now and things are moving along well.  I'm including a few pictures of the mostly finished house.

Our daughter Kelly asked a few days ago if it felt like home?  -- Not yet but we are getting there.  Here is a look at what we've had done:

The house.  We painted the whole house and renovated the kitchen and both bathrooms. We opened up the kitchen by taking out a half-wall between the kitchen/dining room and cut a pass-through window above the stove between the kitchen living room. The master bath had a door from the hallway and the bedroom. We took out the hallway entrance. We also had a new roof put on, new gutters, new windows and have done some gardening. We still have the baseboards and trim and baseboards to finish inside.

After becoming fans of downsizing, we relearned the skill of upsizing and got new furniture for every room.  I was amazed at how quickly we filled up the garage which is from the tools and stuff we carried in the motorhome.  😳

We love projects and have a long list so we are enjoying it.  Pam's garden is still going strong despite a fungus that took out the squash.  The

pictures:
Kitchen

 New flooring, countertops, cabinets and appliances, lighting

 Dining Room

New lighting, pantry cabinets

Den/Family Room

Living Room

Hall

New lighting, moved cold air return vent from above closet to the door (second door on right). Removed hall access to master bath.

 Office/Bedroom

New lighting

Hall Bathroom

Completely renovated, new floor, tub, vanity, lighting, shelves, tile, 

Boys bedroom (for sleepovers with Grandma and Papa)

Master Bedroom

Master bath

Completely redone. closed off the hall door, moved the pocket door from the bedroom, tile floor and shower, new vanity and plumbing.

Laundry room

Removed cabinets, moved washer, dryer, added mop sink, added shelf, bench seat at lower right

Deck

We didn't do anything to the deck, just got a table and some chairs.  Adam and Melissa gave us their umbrella which gives us some good shade.

Garden

Yard

That's a brief look at our new abode and some of what we've been doing in the last month.  Hope you all are having a great summer.

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!

Travels Continue...

Our travels will continue, but this time without the Roadrunner.
First, a little catch up:  We got back to Virginia Beach two weeks ago.  The last two weeks have different to say the least.  Life continues to be good and we are sorting things out.  We have a very nice place to stay at Kelly and Jon's house.  They have a large extra bedroom/office that we are occupying.  It is about the same living space as the Roadrunner was with a full fireplace at one end and a desk, sofa and chair along with our bed.

They are working on life with a 2 and 4 year old and in the final days of getting another house renovated to sell.  In their spare time.  We've been looking for a place to live and have looked at about  50 places and actually gone through 4 or 5.  We are waiting for something that is fairly close and within our price range.

Obviously, after living in 300 sq ft or less for the last 10 years, we don't need a big place.  After about  10 days, we found something that will work and made an offer.  They countered, we re-countered, they re-countered the counter and for $192K, we have a place in Norfolk, VA.  Yikes! We signed the docs and everything is in motion.

We are 6.5 miles and 15 minutes away from Kelly and Jon and two adorable grandsons.  The house is in a pretty good neighborhood with a  large back yard and a nice sized garage.

Here's what it looks like on Zillow:

It needs a new kitchen, two new bathrooms, windows all around and a few other things.  And so begins our time in the Tidewater area.  Since we have 3+ weeks until closing, we decided we'd try something different and take a road trip to Arizona and back.

We're going to see family in TN TX, NM and AZ.  Here is our approximate travel route from Google Maps:

Along the way we are planning to see a few friends and hopefully check into Red Bay for old times sake.  This trip will give us a chance to see what it is like to travel like we used to and see if we can acclimate to that travel mode for a few months.  We'll see.  A couple of places we'd like to see are Canyon de Chelly National Monument (in the Four Corners area) and Antelope Canyon in Arizona.

It should be fun and lot of driving but we're looking forward to it.  

That's all for now on the Roadrunner Chronicles, thanks for joining us!

Gold Manor Update #3 - New Roof

The roof guys came on a day when there was lots going on.  The roof repairs included taking off two layers of shingles and replacing any sheathing that was rotted.  There were six sheets they had to replace.  Over the years of neglect, a large tree branch punched a hole in the roof.  Rain and water seeped in causing other problems but the new roof ensures that won't be an issue again.

Cars and trucks were parked everywhere in the front yard.

On the roof, Timo's crew was ripping off the two layers of shingles.

Front side, back side and eventually the boathouse. Here over the front porch you can see some of the water damage that caused wood rot.

The dumpster loaded up quickly (above).  Below, I watched with awe as one of the slightly built men carried more than one 4'x8' sheets of plywood up the ladder by himself.

Once the new plywood was down, they put the covering down and then the shingles.

At one point, I think we counted 14 vehicles on the property including the delivery truck with the hydraulic lift for the shingles.  When the roof materials truck arrived, half a dozen cars and trucks had to move out from the front to the house so the truck could move into place and use the hydraulic lift to move pallets directly from the truck to the roof.

It was pretty impressive to see how these guys went to work and got after it!  Below is a photo of the work going underway on the back side of the house.

The new roof made a remarkable difference to the look on the house.  Not to mention it removed the source of wood rot and other problems.

Two days later and another bin filled with debris, they were almost done.

Things happen so quickly and in rapid succession, its hard to keep up and remember just a couple of weeks ago, things were in complete chaos.

One more major item ticked off their checklist!

Thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles!