Refinished tub and sink

This weekend was dedicated to lots and lots of home renos (along with a Dynamos game, my cousin's wedding shower, my sister-in-law's Gold Star celebration, and a wonderful dinner with friends....but mostly some HGTV worthy projects). One of our projects was refinishing the tub and sink in our guest bathroom. It was very rusty when we bought our home, but we were so focused on getting an amazing master bathroom that we looked past it. The bath and sink were pretty worthless and didn't want this to discourage hopeful tenants. 

It was actually much easier than we anticipated. They sell refinishing kits at Lowes for about $50. If you choose to do this, make SURE that you tape off everything else and maybe even put a tarp on your floor. The refinishing spray was very thick and everything had a thin layer of white on it after Daniel was done with this project! 

I love how the sink looks! It is SO white and shiny now- not a speck of rust or discoloration! The faucet on both the tub and sink could definitely be prettier...might have to replace that soon, if we can get the darn things off!

Anyway, we showed our house a lot today and several people were interested. Fingers crossed!

House updates

It's funny how you just get used to your home's eyesores  Chipped Paint. A chewed up blind. A dirt pit for a backyard. Especially when renovating a home, you focus on the things that mean the most to you and look past the "quirks" of your home.

We have been looking past our home's "quirks" for the past 3 years, and now we are having to face them head on. It is overwhelming. So many small projects! We have probably been to Lowes...4 times in the past 2 days?

It feels SO good getting some of these projects done! We have painted our outside trim, hung shutters, built a deck, laid new grass, cleaned things that we didn't even know that we were supposed to clean. I'm feeling a whole new sense of pride of our home and I keep wondering why haven't we completed these projects sooner!

With all of that being said, our home is now listed on HAR.com for rent! We are going to see how this goes for a week or so, and then decide what to do next with our house. I don't know how I feel about randomly posting the HAR link for all to see where I live and our asking price. If you are interested or just really nosey like I am, just ask and I will send you the link. OR type in 77009 (our zip) and see if you can guess which house is ours! If you guess right, I will give you our home (just kidding).

Renting our House

This past week has been a rollercoaster when it comes to our home.

Some background: We bought it in 2009 after MUCH thought. Daniel at first was very hesitant. He saw the condition the home was in when he helped move my Great Aunt Kathryn out...basically, she shared her home with a bunch of 4 legged varmints and 6 legged creatures. On top of that, it hadn't been renovated much in the past several decades. Guys, there was a TREE growing through the window. Green shag carpet. Asbestos. Discolored walls from people smoking in the home for the past 84 years. I always loved it no matter what- it's what I was used to and I had so many special memories growing up in this home. But Daniel, not having the nostalgic connection to the Heights home, wasn't sure if he wanted to take on the work to make our now home livable. After 6 months of every weekend being devoted to sanding, painting, and tearing down...we can now look back on the decision to buy our heights home and can confidently say that it was probably one of the best financial decisions we could have ever made.

Which leads us to the rollercoaster. Our home is our baby. We know it's worth, which makes us so torn right now about what to do with it.

Option A: Sell it. Probably not going to happen unless we get an amazing offer that we cannot pass up.

Option B: I can't get into a lot of details, but it would basically mean us getting back a smidgen more than what we pay for our home each month from a couple and a third party that is paying for their rental, plus we would have to pay for their utilities. We would basically break even with our monthly mortgage payment. Remember guys, not only did we buy this home from my family, but it was on the market for YEARS and probably would have been torn down if anyone else would have bought it. So what we pay each month is not exactly what our house is worth. Oh, and with this option, there is NO deposit.

Option C: Find another renter and get what our home is actually worth. I have a job for the next 7 days, and then my income is no longer coming in. We are moving to one of the most expensive cities on the planet.  We put A LOT of work into our home to make it what it is. It would be nice to actually make money off of our house.

We were planning on going with Option B. It would mean we don't have to show our home, we don't have to move our furniture, don't have to worry about some of the renovations we never got to. However, after thinking about all of the "unknowns" in our life right now (What if I can't find a job when we move back? What if we have babies? What if London ends up being a lot more expensive then we planned on?) we are now leaning heavily towards Option C.  If our goal is to get the most from our home, that means that this weekend we needs to:

A. Repaint any damaged walls
B. Repaint our outside trimming
C. Lay grass in the backyard
D. Refinish our middle bathroom
E. Replace some blinds that Cole decided to eat
F. Clean, clean, CLEAN

On top of next Thursday being my last day of school and moving across the world in a little over a month, we don't know what we are doing with our home and don't have a lot of time to figure it out. I am VERY stressed out!

Just trying to remember that this is out of my hands, and my little glimpse of stress is nothing like the amount of worry that some people go through daily. But, this is my reality right now, so I am sharing it with y'all!

Bummer for me, n 7uuuu8oiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir

...I was trying to think of a clever way of saying that the situation I am about to write about is a bummer for me, but (insert positive word that was big in the 90's...tubular?) for Daniel. And then my cat walked all over my laptop, and I decided to leave it.

OK, so my current bummer can probably resonate with many women. I can't shop. I want to so badly, but I can't because of this move.

The other day, I went to Rice Village with a friend. I saw so many flowy maxi dresses, colorful summer dresses, bright shorts...and I couldn't buy them. Because I am about to move somewhere that is cold for all but 2 months. And to a place where I might not even have a closet!

It's funny, because my shopping partner just moved here from France (which is also mostly chilly), and she kept buying cardigans and looking at sweaters. I was like, "It's about to get hot here! You need summer clothes" and then every time I would like at a cute little summer dress, she would be like, "You will need a sweater and tights if you want to wear that in London." I guess she could shop for me, and I could shop for her?

I. Why I haven't shopped since November (when we decided to move)
    1. Ultimately, we rather save money to travel
    2. Also, I rather save money for Topshop.
    3. I don't know the style in London...I might buy things now, wear them when I get there, and everyone's  
        like "Wow, that girl is soooo not from here."
    4. Right now in Texas, they are selling things for summer. Right now in London, it is 50 degrees and rainy.
       And the average high in July is 67 degrees.
     5. The less things I bring with me the better, because..
          a. Do I really want to pack it?
          b. Do I really want to unpack it?
          c. Will I have anywhere to store it?
          d. Will I even wear it?

To make matters worse, I got really ambitious and sold about 1/2 of my clothes...and now I literally have nothing to wear. So on top of just wanting to shop because I'm a girl and like new clothes, every time I look in my closet, I see empty racks, just waiting to be filled.

Bummer for me, tubular for Daniel (he, like most husbands would, thinks that since I have more than 3 shirts, I have plenty of clothes to wear and don't need to spend money on such frivolous things).

So, to make a really long, drawn out story short, if you see me in my same shirt and same jeans, you now know why.

Visa Obtaining

Getting our visas has been the most anti climactic event ever regarding this move. I had drafted a post about it, thinking that I would have a lot to say about it...and I really don't! 

First, we had to fill out ALL of this information online. The questionairee was loooonnnnggggg and asked all sorts of strange questions, like where all we had traveled in the past 10 years, where our parents were from, how much money we make a year, etc. Took about a week to fill out. 

Next, we had to schedule an appointment to get our visa picture taken and fingerprints. It was actually very costly, so I am thankful that Daniel's work paid for it. We also had to pay extra to expedite the process, since we are moving in a month and a half (wow!!!)

Today was the day for our appointment. I already had a half day because of field day, so I left work right at 11:30 to come home for our 1:00 appointment. I figured it would take forever, so I brought Daniel's PSP to play Lumines (I'm obsessed with Lumines and can play for hours....in fact, I will probably go play it after I'm finished with this post!)

We left way earlier than necessary because the weather was terrible and we didn't know where we were going, so we arrived about 30 minutes early. It was in a shady stripmall next to an Aquarium shop...totally not what I was expecting. I'm not sure why we had to make an appointment...once we got there, we just took a number and waited. They wouldn't let me play Lumines and they had to check our phones to make sure they were turned off, but thankfully it was a quick wait. This place was about a step above the social security office and DMV- not the nicest.  

We took our pics and fingerprints then ended up leaving before our actual appointment even was supposed to start. See? Very anticlimactic, but a part of the processes so that's why I'm writing about it.

Afterwards we went to Trader Joe's and bought way too many snacks...I sure wish that there were a Trader Joe's in London!  

Too much stuff

So, what does one do before moving from a Texas-sized (though not really- our house is pretty small for being in Texas) to a teeny tiny 600 sq feet flat? Basically, purge. Everything. I ask myself these two questions:

1. Will I need it in London?

2. Will I still want it when/ if we move back? 

Usually, the answer is no. So far, I have made some good junk change selling old books and DVDs to Half Price Books. I also got rid of almost all of our clothes, since we certainly won't have a walk in closet in London. 

I never realized how much "stuff" we had until starting to pack up. It's really pretty disgusting. I'm hoping that London will teach us to be less materialistic, since we won't have any room to store our materials! 

What is giving me trouble is trying to decide what to bring with us. We know we will live somewhere furnished, but we don't know how furnished it will be. Of course, appliances and actual furniture is a given, but flats vary on whether they have kitchen utensils, towels, sheets, etc. Do I bring our own household things at a risk of not needing them and having no room to store them? Do we bring nothing and just buy stuff once we get there...stuff that we might not use for that long? Hmmmmmmm....

Packing is one of the many things we need to do. But it is probably the most overwhelming.

If you were wondering...

First of all, thank you everyone for your encouraging comments about our move! It means a lot to me, and I know especially when I am away from all of our family and friends, I will appreciate your comments even more!

These are questions that I get asked a lot, and I just want to lay them out there for y'all in case you were wondering the same things.

1. Why are you moving? We are moving for my husband's job. He works in oil and gas as a trading systems analyst.

2. What will you do? As of now, I will be able to work while we are in London if I want to. I do not want to do anything full time. Daniel will have a lot more vacation time while we are there, and I don't want a job to hold me back from being able to travel (usually if you start a new job, you do not get your vacation time until after a year). Ideally, I would love to substitute teach, work at a boutique, or at a yoga/ health club. A lot of people have jokingly suggested becoming a nanny- after looking into it, I've realized this job isn't ideal, since usually the hours are in the afternoon. If I find a job, I want it to be at normal working hours! If I am unable to find a job, then I will volunteer, do lots of yoga, be our own travel agent, and tour the city!

3. What about your pets? This is honestly the hardest part. Anyone that knows us, knows that our dogs and cat are our babies. They are such a huge part of our lives. Well, we can't bring them. First of all, Cole has pit mixed in her. This breed is not allowed in the UK and she would be euthanized.  Can't bring Dakota and leave Cole- they are best friends and they won't even go to a different room than the other...I don't think they can handle being half a world away. Even if we could bring our dogs, they would hate it. They need a backyard, places to run off their leashes- they would be so unhappy being confined to a small, crowded, backyard-less flat all day. So, Daniel's parents have graciously agreed to  adopt them while we are away. People who don't have pets will think that this is absolutely ridiculous, but we almost said no to London because we couldn't bring our pets. Then we figured that (please pet lovers don't hate me) that we really can't let our pets hold Daniel back in his career.

4. Where will you live? We don't know this yet. When we move, we will be placed in temporary housing while we try to figure this out. Daniel will work in Canary Wharf (yuck), which is East London. We have several different areas on our radar to live- Clapham, London Bridge, Chelsea...but we really won't know until we look. We need to live somewhere that is a short tube ride to Daniel's work. I, of course, want something old and with good character. What can I say, I love old homes!

5. Have you been there before? Daniel lived in Canary Wharf from October 2009-December 2009. I foolishly stayed in Houston to work. I guess I shouldn't say foolishly- I knew Daniel was going to be there for a short while and I just starting teaching and didn't want to quit midyear. During that time, I went and visited for about a week. Gotta say, I didn't love it. It was cold, windy, gray, and wet. Hopefully others that have been to London will get this: I felt like my feet were constantly cold and wet because it didn't matter what kind of shoes I wore...after being outside for awhile, I always came back with soaked through socks and shoes. BUT I think living there will be different than just visiting, and being in a nicer neighborhood will make a huge difference!

6. When will you come back?Who knows? If we love it, then I want to stay. And if we miss Houston too badly, we will come back after a year.

7. What about your house? We are going to rent our home out furnished. It's too meaningful to us for us to sell it!

OK...I think that's it. But please, if you have any other questions, ASK!