Good-bye Point Loma, hello Encinitas!

The agile life continues. Two months ago, we went to New Zealand for a week. During that week, we listed our two-bedroom townhouse for sale. When we came back, some people wanted to buy our house. Then we picked an offer, went into escrow, and spent a day shopping for three-bedroom houses in North County, closer to M's work. Then we made an offer on one of those houses. Then escrow closed on our house in Point Loma, and we moved out. Two days later, escrow closed on our North County house, and we moved in. Just like an episode of House Hunters on HGTV, but 900 hours longer. 

If this sounds very simple, it is because our realtor--and good friend--Jared Kelley of Mission Realty Group was busy negotiating with all parties behind the scenes. We were only told to keep our house clean (and even then, Jared's wife Holly came and cleaned up everything we missed when we left for NZ) and respond to our e-mails. That was pretty much all we did. Jared & Co. did literally everything else. Obviously, I'm a big fan of him, not only because he originally helped me buy my townhouse in Point Loma (and helped me mentally reject other, less re-sellable properties), sell it for more than I paid for it, then miraculously helped M and me buy the only three-bedroom property in Encinitas that we could afford, but because it is really hard to find a trustworthy person who is good at negotiating AND knows the market AND has your best interests in mind while handling your hundreds of thousands of dollars AND will sit with you at Chipotle for two hours listing all the pros and cons of what you're looking for and what you can afford.

In addition, we wanted to reiterate a big THANK YOU to the thirty or so people who unexpectedly said yes to moving our furniture and a thousand boxes out of our old house (including Jared and Holly!), and to our friend Callie for driving the U-Haul truck with the agility of a race car driver, and to our friends Mark and Russell who moved all our furniture into the new house. We are immensely grateful to know such good people with hearts of gold.

Finally, here is where I learned something new about marriage: I didn't realize when M first moved into my townhouse after we were married that he felt out-of-place. Only once we'd moved to our new home did he confess that he felt like he had moved into MY place (...but with HIS couch. Ahem.). Now, he's on Cloud 9 and actually has an opinion about furniture and layout and where to put things. This is new and obviously a lot less convenient for me, but I enjoy seeing him so happy and proud. It's one of those things that didn't seem like a big deal on paper (because marrying me is like increasing his assets! Right?!). But it was, because my home wasn't OUR home, psychologically, and I had no idea.

When we finally had everything packed up from my old townhouse, though, I felt a real sense of mourning. This was my first foray into true adulthood and responsibility, and I still felt a need to say good-bye...unlike M, whose only parting words for the place were, "Good-bye. Thank you for appreciating in value." The following are pictures from the original listing in Point Loma, as the people who first sold the home to me three years ago had much better taste in decor:

Good-bye,  living room with beautiful cherry hardwood floors and recessed tray lighting. I hope your new owner remembers to put those little cardboard thingies under her furniture legs, or else she is in for a rude awakening about the scratchability of cherry floors. 

Good-bye, beautiful dark wood cabinets, stainless steel appliances and farmhouse sink. I hope your new owner, unlike your old owner, actually knows how to use you. 

Good-bye entryway with vaulted ceilings and custom beam. I enjoyed looking at the full moon through  your skylights and pretending I was camping, instead of actually having to go camping.

Good-bye master bedroom with peek view of the bay. Thank you for letting me open your curtains every morning, observe the expanse of harbor and yachts, and remind myself why I was paying a mortgage every month. Also, thank you for your giant walk-in closet.

Good-bye, beautiful bathrooms with skylights and modern finishes. Thank you for actually outnumbering the number of bedrooms we had, so that guests could also stay over and shower comfortably.

Good-bye patio. You were gorgeous and comfortable and my favorite spot in the house. I'm sorry I forgot about you and only used you five times in almost three years. You know how busy life gets, and how annoying patio furniture is to clean.

Finally, good-bye to the best neighbors a single, scared-to-own-her-first-place girl could hope for. Thank you for letting me be Vice President of the HOA and send mass e-mails about termite inspections and addendums to the CC 'n R's. Thank you for helping me feel a part of a community of people getting stuff done for the sake of our property value. Thank you for letting me add you all on Facebook so I can keep in touch through liking your statuses.

And, for the curious, here are a few pictures of our new townhouse (also from the original listing, as we currently have no furniture, having given away all our valuable, valuable IKEA wares to a charity yard sale):

This is what M is most excited about. A garage to store his surfboards and our soon-to-be-purchased ping pong table, with which he is already challenging other players (co-workers, friends, his father-in-law, whoever). In M's mind, the ping pong table has actually been prioritized over things like a dining room table and a washer and dryer. Le sigh.

Even though the bright green was unsettling in photographs, in real life, it is actually a very cheerful and appropriate color for this house. Also, I'm lazy and don't feel like changing it.

This living room has a more spacious layout than our old living room and has led to many discussions about what formation of couch we should get. In our discussions, I also mentioned wanting to go rustic coastal with the decor, but that only seemed to bewilder M, whose main concern was the sprawlability of the would-be couch. (The old couch did come with us. It is in the garage/ man cave, and staying there). 

This patio will likely be used a lot more often than our old one, not least because it is actually downstairs and not off a second bedroom. It also has a small fountain with a stone frog in it, which I felt was important to mention.

This master bedroom is huge. M is happy to no longer be tripping on furniture in the middle of the night. I get kind of tired from walking the fifty yards between the master bath and our bed everyday (my life is so hard). It also has a balcony, which I've already designated as M's alone time space, so that I can stay downstairs and be on Pinterest uninterrupted.

Life in California, let's face it, is expensive, and we know we are very, very blessed to be able to afford a home. We are thankful to our parents for everything we've been given in life (as well as for raising us with conservative spending habits), and we hope that we will welcome our family and friends soon into our little Encinitas beach pad. Maybe to sip drinks on our patio. Maybe to play ping pong. And maybe someone can teach me how to use our new kitchen.