Moving Day is Finally Here!

After one long year, moving day has finally arrived. Tomorrow morning at 8:00 a.m., two men and a truck will arrive to whisk us away to our new house.

If you've been following this blog, you know that on March 29, 2013, OG and I set out on our grand adventure--moving from the Twin Cities in Minnesota to Carmel on the central California coast. We bought an uninhabitable wreck of a house with glorious views, moved into our vacation condo, and commenced work. Now, nearly one year later, we're finally ready to move in. We've sold our condo and are happy to be turning it over to a young, single woman (first time buyer), to begin her adult life as a homeowner. She's thrilled, and we hope she enjoys it as much as we have.

The house turned out to be a much bigger project than we initially anticipated. If I had it to do over, I'm not sure I would. Due to vermin, dry rot, and asbestos, we had to strip it to the foundation and studs and start from scratch. The upside is that we have a completely new house. The downside is that we had to pay for a completely new house. 

"Before"

As with any new house, there were hundreds of decisions to make, both large and small, and we didn't always make the right ones. For example: neither we, the designer, nor the contractor properly envisioned the laundry room door until it was hung and blocked half the cabinets. They were able to re-hang it to swing to the right instead of the left, but now it blocks the utility closet door. If we'd been thinking, we would have asked for a pocket door instead. As it is, OG will probably take it down and store it in the garage. Also, the master shower is enormous. We could have added a foot to the toilet room on one side and the linen closet on the other and still have had a plenty large shower. OG thinks the fireplace is out of proportion to the living room and we should have switched the locations of the guest bath and the laundry.

"After"

Oh well, live and learn. I'm sure we'll adjust to most of these things over time. The others will undoubtedly be changed (at great additional expense). However, I plan to concentrate on what we do have--a lovely, new home in a great location with a fabulous view. I'm excited to learn how to garden in this very different environment. Due to the daunting size of the project, I hired a landscaper to install the paths, irrigation, and basic plants, but I'm looking forward to adding things and tweaking the design over time. The deer came in the first night and stripped eight of the allegedly deer-resistant plants, so my first task will be replacing them with something less appetizing. 

Finished Back

The plants look tiny in the photos, but with the near-constant sunshine and twelve-month growing season here, they'll grow fast. I plan to post pictures of my progress, so stop back by from time to time and catch up!