Bump

Ugh. We've hit our first moment of frustration. I hadn't planned on posting anything about a potential piece of land until we had some great news in hopes of not jinxing anything. Then again... I have this blog so we can document the whole experience, so that trumps all. :)

Land in Blacksburg is LIMITED. There is not a whole lot of it, and there definitely isn't a whole lot worth writing home about in our price range. With that said... we found a piece. :) It's a great piece right outside of town limits very close to our home now... meaning it's on our side of town, which was a big must. Bryan's drive to Roanoke is already long enough, we didn't want him to have to add 10-15 minutes on top of it. I won't say anything more about it for now, but I will comment on our realtor.

I've been getting some GREAT and extremely appreciative tips from a high school friend of mine. She's a real estate genius, and I love her dearly. :) With that said... the woman we are currently working with isthisclosetobeingfired by ME. Bryan contacted her last Friday in hopes to work with her on getting this land. As far as I know she specializes in land. She told Bryan she would pull the comp. prices for us and get back to him immediately to start discussing an offer and whatnot. That same day he began working with a local bank and was able to solidify our loan approval. We have yet to hear back from the agent! WTF?! Frustration has more than set in. Bryan has called the woman and emailed her twice. We're at the point where if we do not hear from her in the next 24 hours... we're on the search for a new agent. Until then we keep our fingers crossed that there isn't anyone else looking at this land. Argh.

Declutter

So I've been watching HGTV now for YEARS, and they have this great show on there called "The Unsellables." I've started DVRing it because they have some really GREAT ideas on how to stage/show your home. One of their big things is "decluttering." Well, duh! I know no one wants to buy my home with baby toys and dirty spit cloths all over the floor. :) Buuuuut what I'm learning is that you have to be able to show that there is plenty of room for everything. Everything should have a place. Well, for those of you that have been to our home... we have A LOT of stuff, and frankly if everything had a place we wouldn't be moving. ;) Fact of the matter is our house is plenty big enough if we (okay mainly me) could just quit bringing things into the house, but for the record... that's hard to do with two growing children who need stuff.

During this past week, I've started going through some things. Cabinets in the kitchen, drawers in the living room. Purging stuff/organizing stuff/and even packing stuff. It feels good to be getting rid of things we're not using and packing things away that we can hold onto in storage until we have a bigger home.

The kitchen has definitely become my first project. Here is the list of "projects" that need to be done. Besides the obvious cleaning and decluttering:

1. add wainscoting to side of cabinets and repaint
2. fresh neutral wall paint
3. window treatments for both windows and sliding glass door
4. repair laminent floor boards
5. replace dishwasher to match other appliances
6. replace sink faucet
7. remove/repair ceiling hooks
8. replace lighting
9. silverware drawer- repair/replace
10. repaint floorboards (won't be done until right before we show)

As you can see... I'll be nothing short of busy, and this is just the first room... hence the starting a little over a year before our listing goal. :)

Land

We're actively seeking land! Yeehaw! The plan is to get some great land ASAP, finish some projects around our home, put it on the market and sell, break ground and rent until our home is complete. HOPEFULLY all of this can be done by Spring 2012. :) Besides looking for land, we've made our list of projects to finish around here. It consists of everything from repainting walls (I have some gnarly colors currently going on) to fixing floor boards in the kitchen to repainting baseboards. We're going to be busy!

We are proud to announce...

... after a lot of discussion... we are going to build our dream home! While we are in the VERY EARLY stages of even beginning to comprehend what we are about to get ourselves into, we want to document the entire experience. From preparing our home to sell, to probably renting a home, to breaking ground... it'll be an adventure! :) Having Bryan constantly being out of town, a jam packed Fall season, and two small chitlins... we realize this isn't going to happen over night, so stick with us over the next couple of years. Watch us laugh... and probably cry... scream with excitement and with frustration... it's going to be awesomely nutso! :)