The house sold in 2 days!

Hard to believe, but we accepted a offer on the house roughly 48 hours after it went on the market. Full price and the buyer is paying their own closing costs, too. We actually had 3 other offers as well, including another full price one, and that was all before the open house today! There were, I believe, 10 different official showings between Thursday afternoon an Saturday evening. The buyer is shooting to have the inspection done this week while we're still in the Carolinas, and closing should happen in late July.

Our realtor interrupted our hard-earned weekend of R and R hanging out with Mamaw and Papaw, Candy, and Jason's gang to get the process underway, but it was certainly worth it.

Heading down to Greenville early tomorrow for the first of 3 days of neighborhood explorations and househunting. If we don't find something we love on this trip, we've got another planned in late July. Nieces Katheren and Courtney are sleeping over with us and will be our assistants during this process. After a big afternoon of playing in the hotel pool, they're out like a light right now. So's Aunt Rhonda, who's not been sleeping too well worrying over all this real estate 'stuff'.

We're torn between living right in or close to downtown Greenville or being further out of town with more property. Hopefully being down there in person for these few days will help us figure things out.

Putting lipstick on a pig

If our house was a farm, our bathroom would definitely be the pig. Without the funds or the time to put together a sweet remodel like we did with the kitchen, we opted to slap some lipstick on that pig to purty her up a little bit before the house hits the market.

Rhonda most of the work this weekend, which included a thorough scrubbing, de-molding (we're not filthy people, but there's no exhaust fan and mold can hide in steamy corners), new caulk, priming and painting the walls. I also put together a hillbilly fix with the broken faucet handles with Gorilla Glue. I'm putting a quick coat of paint on the ceiling this evening. After that, all that's left is for our plumber to replace the broken overflow/drain plug assembly on the tub Thursday.

It was a busy weekend for me, too. While Rhonda had her hands full inside, I mowed, trimmed and edged the yard, pressure washed the house and walkway, scraped and repainted the old peeling trim underneath the gutters. Since the gutters are brand new and shiny white, the trim was sticking out like a sore thumb. Took a good days work up and down the ladder Sunday to get 2 coats on.

Should get some interesting information tomorrow. Our Portland realtor has spent the last few days researching the market- sales of comparable houses in the last few months, etc. She lives and specializes in real estate in our neighborhood (and is a friend of a good friend), so we're pretty comfortable with her. Tuesday afternoon we're meeting to discuss her findings. At that time we'll find out a number of things, including what she suggests for an asking price on the house.

So, what do you think of the pig? If you quickly look at it and say, "that's not too bad", then mission accomplished!

Kitchen transformation slideshow

CLICK HERE for pictures that show the entire transformation from eyesore to selling point (that last part will be important in the near future...).

Meant to get these up yesterday, but our computer seems just about ready to croak on us.

Kitchen is done!

Too bad we won't be in Oregon much longer to enjoy it...

I'll post a link to a "kitchen transition" photo album sometime over the 3-day weekend.

Jason's 2nd weekend with us

Highlights of Jason's 2nd weekend here (5/1-5/3) included:

• A trip to Podnah's, the best BBQ joint (and possibly my favorite restaurant) in town. Jason gave the pulled pork his stamp of approval.
• Narrowly avoiding repetitive motion injury with endless games of Mario Kart on the Wii.
• A trip to the McMenamins Edgefield for some pitch and putt. The Pub Course is inspired by Burningbush, for anyone who's read Golf in the Kingdom.

The elements were against us at first, and Rhonda was the only with brains enough to stay in the clubhouse to wait out the showers while Jason and I headed out to the first tee. The clubhouse doubles as a bar, which I suppose makes her doubly smart. After about 5 minutes, the clouds opened up and we came running (and dripping) back feeling not a little sheepish.

Eventually, though, the skies looked a little more promising and we all headed out to give it another shot. Here's Jason working out the kinks on his rusty swing:

Me displaying my signature "Giant Man With a Tiny Club" putting stance:

About halfway through the round, the rain started pouring again. Luckily, we know the property like the back of our hands, and there are plenty of places to wait out a storm. Here's Rhonda leading the way to the The Little Red Shed, a cozy little Hobbitish kind of spot:

And here we are inside doing what Hobbits do best (if you look closely, a pint or 2 of ale are in the pic):

Back on the course for a somewhat sunny finish to the round:

All in all, a fun end to the weekend, and much less stressful than regular golf!

Back to bloggin'

The kitchen's getting very close to being done now. We're planning on finishing up the paint tomorrow. After that, Vern will do some trim above and below the cabinets, and that will be just about it! Here are some pics showing the progress of the last few weeks, including a sneak preview of the paint color (quite bold and dark, but we figured the light cabinets would allow us to get away with it.

Jason's Forest Service training is based in Corvallis (staying in the dorms at Oregon State University, where Rhonda got her Pharm. D.). It's only ~90 miles from the house. (Actually, Rhonda just reminded me it's exactly 92 miles. She should know, since she drove it daily for 2 years!). He was able to spend last weekend with us, and will be with us this weekend as well. Here are a few pics we took last Sunday on the Triple Falls trail in the Columbia River Gorge.

Next updates should be about Jason's second weekend with us and (fingers crossed) a finished kitchen!

Kitchen's starting to look like a kitchen

Seems I'm falling behind on my updates!

Vern thinks he'll be done with his part this coming week, including the tile countertops, the rest of the cabinets and their doors/hardware. Then it will be up to Rhonda and I to execute the finishing touches like paint. It's actually starting to look like a functional kitchen now- what do you think?

A few random things:

Scored some great tickets to the Blazers game Friday night. These are the best seats we've ever had for an NBA game. Took this picture without zooming- we were 3 rows behind the Blazers bench! Shaquille O'Neal (#32) is the biggest man we've ever seen in person. He's massive! Officially, he's listed as 3-1, 325 lbs. He pretty much dwarfed Joel Przybilla (immediately to his right), who's also 7-1, but "only" 245. Rhonda hates nothing more than sports on TV, but a live game is something entirely different, plus she can have cotton candy, which she loves!

Got confirmation that Jason will be coming out for training in Corvallis for a couple of weeks, and it looks like his weekends (4/25-26 and 5/2-3) will be free. I'll be sure to share some stories/pics of his time with us.

Fran the Van has some sort of issue we have to get checked out soon. She crapped out on us at an intersection last weekend (complete lack of power) and we had to have her towed home. I'm guessing it has something to do with fuel delivery- hopefully it's an easy (and not too expensive) fix like a clogged fuel line.

Jack got a puncture wound in one of his paws and we've held him out of daycare for the past couple of weeks. It's taking quite a while to heal, although it doesn't seem to be causing him any pain (he did limp noticeably the first few days).