Selling Our First House

This fall was a major milestone for our family. We are no longer landlords. It's been a while since I mentioned it, but when we bought our new house, we planned to sell the house we were in. After consulting with a real estate agent, he convinced us that the timing wasn't right. Boy was he right! In the two years we kept renting, our house appreciated considerably. This was due to a lot of reasons, but mainly the neighborhood around us kept getting better. When we moved in, the neighborhood was brand new. But there were big plans for the surrounding neighborhood, including putting in a new Costco, a new high-rise luxury apartment building with a grocery store, and a new community center. All of these plans have come into fruition over the last decade, with the new community center opening days before we listed our house for sale. There is still future potential for improvement too, as our town is in the middle of redesigning the downtown area.

We knew that now was the right time for us to sell because the house is ten years old. While still relatively new, now is the time that bigger ticket items might come up. Appliances needing to be replaced, new flooring, HVAC system, etc. While we were making a little bit of money on the rental, any major expenses would wipe out our profits for the year. And, to be honest, Dan did most of the work over there, and we both agreed we'd rather use our free time as a family than to have him trimming bushes and unclogging toilets at a rental property. The big decider was that our tenants of two years bought their own house and moved out. They were amazing and would be really hard to replace. So it was time to sell.

Selling the house came with a lot of mixed emotions though. It's the house Dan and I moved into after we were married. We watched it go up, plank-by-plank. It's where we adopted Nori, and where we brought home Asher. Where Zahara learned to talk and Asher learned to crawl. It's where we had amazing neighbors and fun snow days. It was a great house.

The sale couldn't have gone better. We got multiple offers within 24 hours of listing, and ended up significantly above asking! A lot of that was due to our incredible tenants who kept the house in tip-top shape over the last two years. They even helped us stage the house for sale, painting rooms and moving their furniture for the official listing photos. We really lucked out with them.

I have nothing but good memories from that house, and wish the new owners a lifetime of happiness!

Life Updates

The blog has been pretty quiet, but that doesn't mean life hasn't been moving. I just wrapped up a very busy work project and now have a little bit more breathing room. So let me catch you up on what we've been up to for the past couple of months.

Family Wedding
Dan's second cousin David got married in New Jersey and we decided to make a weekend of it. David's mom Stella was amazing and found us a babysitter to come to our hotel and watch the kids during the wedding. The rest of the time we were able to hang out with my in-laws, and my friend Dina who lives nearby.

Cherry Blossom Festival
There is no better place than DC in the spring. The air is so fresh and people are so happy. This year, the poor cherry blossoms didn't do too well, but even at half their normal bounty it is very impressive. Plus, a little ice cream on the mall never hurts anyone.

Passover

As you know, Passover is one of my favorite holidays. This year was really special because we had almost the whole family in town. My cousin Larin flew in with her little girl Phoenix and we finally were able to meet! Watching all the cousins together was absolutely incredible. 

And, Zahara's Jewish school is paying dividends. She recited the "mah nishtana" (four questions) all by herself, sang a bunch of Hebrew songs, and was able to tell a lot of the Passover story. If you know me at all, you know this made me way happier than I thought possible. I was practically bursting with joy--or as they say in Yiddish, nachas. 

Preparing to Move

We are in the midst of getting the house ready to rent. We initially thought we were going to sell, but the market turned on us and now it looks like renting will be our best option. Either way, we need to clear the house of the clutter and touch up a few areas. It's been pretty chaotic--and will only get worse! At least we have our new house to dream about. It will all be worth it in the end!

And now you're mostly caught up. I have a more posts planned about two of our recent adventures--both in Pennsylvania. Stay tuned!

Asher's Nursery Wall

All the jokes about the second kid are absolutely true. For the first kid, you put so much time and energy into doing everything "right" for your kid. You find all the right books, get the best crib, the best stroller, the toys that will make her the smartest. You decorate the nursery with a wonderful theme that will allow your child to grow and develop even while she's sleeping. The second kid gets hand-me-down everything and, if he's lucky, at least one family picture that he's in. Poor Asher.

You may remember the love and care I put in to Zahara's nursery in Harrogate house.

Well, I can't change everything, but I can at least try to make Asher's room a little nicer. Here's Asher's new gallery wall.

I went simple with this wall. I bought craft letters from Jo-Ann's using a 50% off coupon, and wooden animals and arrows from Target. I painted them all using leftover paint from previous projects. I ordered the canvas of Asher using a Groupon, and mom and dad bought us the gorgeous family canvas. Shout-out to Dani for helping me figure out the configuration.

Dan painted the room a while ago, and it really makes the space so much cozier. The rest of the room still needs work, but at least I have something nice to look at while I'm nursing him in the middle of the night.

Snowzilla 2016

Oh my gosh! We got SO MUCH SNOW!! Did you hear about Snowzilla? It was an enormous snow storm that hit the East Coast over the weekend. We had plenty of warning, so we were well-prepared. We had food, toilet paper, and warm clothes. All that we needed was the snow.

Snowzilla did not disappoint. In the days leading up to the storm, meteorologists were predicting up to 30 inches of snow. I worked from home on Friday, and Dan and Z came home around noon. Thank goodness, because the snow started soon after and didn't stop until Sunday morning!

All told, we got around 26 inches of snow! Though we had a good time playing in it on Saturday during the blizzard, Sunday was the best day. It stopped snowing and was pretty sunny, so we got to just enjoy the light, fluffy powder. 

Our neighborhood is the absolute best. We have so many kids around Zahara's age, and they all get along so well. A bunch of us trekked over to a hilly part of the 'hood to go sledding. It was really fun, and Zahara couldn't get enough, but as the snow was above my knees, it made it really hard to keep bringing her from the bottom of the hill back up to the top!

It was so much fun watching Z play in the snow. She loved it and did so much better than last year. This year she really could run and jump and throw snowballs. Hearing her giggle and shriek was all I needed. It was definitely a storm to remember!

DIY Mirror Frame

I love our master bathroom. It's clean, airy and spacious. But, it was missing something. We have a huge builder-grade, wall-to-wall mirror. It bounces around tons of light, but I thought it would look nicer if it were framed. Frames for a mirror that size were cost prohibitive, and buying a new mirror seemed unnecessary, so I decided to make my own.

Before

I used the last remaining days before I went back to work to make this happen. Luckily my friend Dani was on maternity leave and was game to help me out. We headed to Home Depot to gather supplies.

There are a lot of great tutorials online already, so I won't try and recreate one here. I followed Blue Cricket Design's tutorial pretty closely. I'll just add in a couple of pointers. First, I used pre-primed moulding. It costs a little bit more, but I liked the decorative elements and it saved me time.

I grabbed a twelve-foot piece and cut it down to size myself. It took a while--so long, in fact that a contractor who kept offering to help me managed to practically cut down an entire forest while I was still cutting my first piece. But, sometimes the pride that comes with doing it yourself is worth the extra time and muscle pains.

After what felt like hours in Home Depot waiting for help with paint (long story...short version is that the perfect brown paint is really, really hard to come by), we headed back to my house. We used Dani's miter saw to cut the moulding into 45 degree angles to form the frame.

We diverged from the tutorial a little bit in the next step because my mirror had big plastic clips that would prevent the frame from sitting flush against the mirror. We measured the clips and used Dani's Dremel tool to notch etches in the two sides of the frame. Sidenote: how amazing is Dani? Woodworking while baby wearing? That's a truly modern woman.*

After taking the wood upstairs to make sure the cuts were accurate and the pieces fit together, we started painting. I painted the backs and fronts of the wood so bare wood wouldn't reflect in the mirror once hung.

When all three coats were dry, it was time to hang the frame. Here's where things didn't go so well. We followed the directions in the tutorial and used liquid nails to hang the wood. All the pieces fit perfectly together, but the painters tape was not enough to keep them from sliding town.

In the morning I caulked and painted the corners to make the seams less noticeable.

I don't love how the corners turned out, but overall I'm pretty happy with the outcome. The whole project only cost around $50. The biggest expense was for moulding, which came in at $33. 

For not very much money, and a little bit of effort, the room looks so much more finished. Hooray for fun DIY activities with good friends!

* All safety precautions were taken to ensure the baby was not harmed in any way.