One down, one to go

On Wednesday we closed on our home in VA. (selling it) So currently I am homeless, but not for long. Today we close on our new home here on Daniel Island, South Carolina. Lots of stuff happening today: Closing on the new home, movers moving our stuff in, and Clemson is playing in the Music City Bowl game.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

Moving on (Part 3) - Selling the House

So I told you all about selling our house in VA in part 2, now it was time to buy a new house in South Carolina. We drove down to Charleston, SC the week of Thanksgiving and started looking for a place to live. Our search criterion was very simple: 1. access to good schools, 2. close to work, 3. safe community, and 4. access to deep water. Ok, access to deep water was not one of them.

We started on Saturday morning, and by that night we had narrowed our search down to basically 4 communities: Dunes West, Park West, Brickyard, and Daniel Island. By Monday afternoon we had narrowed our list down to 1 home in Dunes West and 2 homes on Daniel Island. The discussion were starting to get a lot harder now. Both were great communities, safe, close to work, and had access to good school. (and access to deep water.)

On Tuesday afternoon we decided we wanted one of the 2 homes on Daniel Island. The one we chose was a new home built by David Weekly. They were just finishing it up. It's a traditional home located close to ponds and walking trails. The kids will be able to walk or ride their bikes to school. It includes multi-piece crown molding, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, and a screened rear porch. It has a detached 2 car garage with a finished room above, including a full bath. This will be the guest suite. Make reservation soon, because we are filling up quick.

It has been very stressful getting all the paper work and contracts done. It is not easy closing on 2 houses only days and 600 miles apart. That said, I really like the house and the community that we chose. I cannot wait to go fishing at the nearby ponds and ride my bike on the trails with the kids.

Well, no more shoveling snow. Now we only have to worry about hurricanes.


If you want to see more photos of the new house click here.

Moving on (Part 2) - Selling the House

In September my wife and I started working on our house in VA to sell. At this point in time we really did not know we were moving, but this is when the work started. It began with a trip to Home Depot (my favorite store) to buy ceramic tile and paint for the master bathroom, paint for 4 other rooms in the house, and crown molding for one of the bedrooms. Does not sound too bad, does it? Well, that was just the beginning. We painted basically every room in the house. Some rooms we painted twice because the first color just did not look right. After all this was done we decided to install hardwood floors. So we installed hardwood floors on the main level (kitchen, hall, foyer, formal living/dining, and half bath). I was going to install the hardwood myself, but we found a company to install them for us, and we could not beat the price. My wife and I removed all the old flooring before they installed the new floors. This was a huge job. We also installed new carpet in the family room. (What a pain moving all the furniture around.) Well, with all the new flooring on the main level it did not seem right to not install new flooring in the laundry room, so I installed ceramic tile in there. By now I have become pretty good a putting down ceramic tile. ;-) I installed new light fixtures throughout the house. Installing them was the easy part, picking them out took days.

Now the work moved to the outside. I replaced some of the railing on our porch where we found a little rot, and my wife painted the porch. We headed back to Home Depot, which by now they knew us by name, and bought some new plants for the yard. I also installed new light fixtures on the front and back of the house. We also had to replace the bottom section of our garage door. I will save that story for some other time. Keep in mind all the work did not happen over night. By now, it is first of November and I am tired of painting. Now it is time to move some things into storage. It is amazing how much "junk" you accumulate over the years. We donated a ton of stuff, tossed a lot in the trash, and put some in storage.

We finally put our house on the market, and 10 days later it was sold. Not bad considering how long some of the houses are staying on the market. So now what? We have sold our house, let go look for a new one. You will have to wait for that store in my next posting. :-)



If you want see more photos of the house click here.

Moving on (Part 1)

This is going to be a multi-part post. Today was my last official day at AOL, LLC. What will I be doing? I am moving to Charleston, SC to start work at Blackbaud. My wife and I have been discussing for months about moving to the Charleston area. We have been wanting to get closer to our family. It is tough driving 8-10 hours with 2 kids in the back seat saying, "Are we there yet?", or "I need to go potty!" Now we will be able to make day trips to see the grandparents.

AOL is a great company to work for, and I have enjoyed every year of it. I started at AOL over 6 years ago. The first project I worked on was the Gateway Instant AOL device. After that I helped with a few other projects, and then found myself on the Boxely team. It is all about who you work with, and I had the chance to work with some great people at AOL. Ke, Veronica, Peter, Todd, Riz, Corey, Nancy, Sree, and John to just name a few. (There are way too many names to list.) Working with these people will be one thing I will miss.

In the next postings I will talk about the adventures of selling our house, and buying a new one. Stay tuned!