House #1 Update

We listed House #1 on Craigslist five days ago, and have gotten quite a lot of emails from people wanting to schedule showings. So far we've shown the place three times, and while all the showings went well, today's second showing in particular was met with a very enthusiastic response. It was so, so rewarding to hear people say, "this place is so cute!" and "I love the paint colors you chose," and "I love this room," and "the upstairs is so cozy," and "the yard is beautiful," and so on. It sort of made it feel like all the work would be well worth it if someone would not only pay us to live there, but would truly enjoy living there and love our little house.

They emailed me tonight and said they'd love to rent the place if we agree to have them as tenants.

We're going to go through with some other showings we had planned for the next few days - mainly because today's prospective tenants have dogs and we'd prefer to have pet-less tenants if possible. (I love animals, but after doing so much work on that house I would hate to have things chewed, clawed, or just smelling like dog.)

But it's a relief to know that someone thinks the house is not only livable, but cute, and cozy, and other wonderful things. And to know that we haven't poured our time and money into this house for nothing. And I don't need to worry anymore the things I've been worrying, like "What if we never find tenants and everyone laughs at us and we end up broke and homeless and living on the street?" You know, normal things everyone worries about from time to time, I'm sure.

I plan on doing a "before and after" sort of post with pictures, but in the meantime I thought I'd post a few snapshots of how things are looking over there right now.

One of the downstairs bedrooms (Nathan and I used this as our master bedroom for the past two years), painted and with a new light fixture with an actual light switch by the door instead of an old fixture with a pull chain:

{Oh, and those electrical outlets? They work now, unlike for the past two years when we plugged in our alarm clock with an extension cord running under the door and out to the music room.}

The upstairs space, with fresh paint and new gray carpet. {It actually has new light fixtures now too, installed after this picture was taken a couple of days ago}:

The upstairs bathroom, which has a new vanity, new cabinet, and new tile floor (which you can't see in this picture), and a coat of gray paint:

The kitchen, with new electrical work throughout and a neutral cream color replacing the slightly odious green the previous owners had selected:

The downstairs bathroom, transformed from turquoise to cream:

Sorry the pictures aren't the best. I just snap a photo with my iPhone from time to time when I think of it. I'll post better ones soon... but I'll also post worse ones -- the pictures of how everything used to look!