MVI 1781 from Stephanie Roberts on Vimeo.
Category: TheRancho
Our new house–Welcome to Rancho Relaxo
Our new house doesn’t really look like a big deal from the front. In fact it’s mostly hidden by the tall bushes along the curb.
But it has a pretty little area along the front, and a beautiful vine that will have big purple bunches of flowers on it in the spring.
The front room has a big fireplace, and a nice big window looking out on the front yard.
The dogs like that a lot!
It’s taken a few days, but they are starting to settle in. I think it helps that the furniture all smells like home.
We had a lot to do, cleaning, arranging, figuring out where everything goes in our new small house!
What a mess! I’ll get better pictures when it’s all cleaned up!
The inside is nice, but the real selling point of this house is out back. Check out that huge covered patio! And the back yard is terraced!
You walk off the patio, and follow a path down the stairs to the firepit.
I think we could get most of our friends around this giant firepit! I can’t wait to do some camp-cookin’ over it.
Step off the patio and go to the right, and there’s a sunken seating area.
This seating area is surrounded by peonies and all sorts of other flowers and bushes, I don’t even know what they all are yet.
Beyond the seating area is gardens – here is a section of chard, beets, and carrots.
Then towards the back fence is another huge garden, which had squash, beans, and tomatoes.
At the far end of the yard is another seating area on the end of the terrace.
Up close to the house is a big herb garden full of all sorts of herbs I recognize and a few I don’t.
And because the house backs up to the city water source, which is a fenced off area, there’s no one overlooking our backyard like there were on most of the houses we looked at in neighborhoods. In fact that white house off in the distance is the only house we can see from our backyard, except our immediate neighbors, who are hidden by trees. So it all feels very private.
Well, it’s all ours now. We’re just about all out of the old house. Closing is in a couple days. It’s weird to leave the farm after all these years, but this is a super nice place. We’ve met some of the neighbors and they all seem nice. The neighborhood is close to work and very walk-able. And of course it’s a lot less expensive than the farm, and will be a lot less stressful than trying to maintain 3 acres we really didn’t need. Change is always a little scary, but this is one case where we made a change for the better, all the way around.
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Rancho Relaxo
Big big changes going on around here. After only two weeks on the market we got a full price offer on our little farm and it is in the process of being sold. Since the folks buying it have already sold and moved out of their home, things are happening fast!
Just before we got the offer, we were shopping around on Redfin for houses in the area we wanted to live in near my work, but not finding anything that really excited us. We were looking in a particularly frugal price range, and not finding anything, so I had to keep looking at more and more expensive homes, thinking I’d never find anything nice that wasn’t a fixer-upper in the price range I was looking at. Nice houses sell fast, and without the money from our house we couldn’t make a move on anything nice we saw, and it would be pending a few days later (who says the economy isn’t recovering?)
Then on Dave’s birthday we were going over to have lunch with his Dad in Portland, and I was browsing CL that morning, looking in the real estate section. I was searching for mobile homes, wondering how much it would cost to just get a piece of land and put a mobile home on it, when I saw an ad that said ‘Vancouver’s most Beautiful Backyard’. It wasn’t a mobile home at all, and I don’t know why it came up in the search.
It was a 1971 single level ranch, about ten minutes North of where I work. For Sale By Owner, and the price was squarely in our price range. And they were having an open house, at just the right time that we could go by and see it on our way to Dad’s. So what the heck, why not?
So we dropped by and WOW! The place was absolutely immaculate! The last house we had looked at looked like a little crack house compared to this. This place was neat and well cared for, inviting, and cozy. The backyard was spectacular, with terraces, seating areas, gardens, fountains, and a firepit. There is even a covered patio. Just what I always wanted! All in all, it has a quarter acre of space, and backs up to the city’s well water source, which is essentially a big park that is fenced off for security, so the backyard has an expansive view of fields and trees instead of neighboring houses. It’s just a wonderful little place, and we immediately had a name for it – ‘Rancho Relaxo”
Here are the pictures from the listing: Kitchen, front porch, back yard fountain and firepit in the background, and backyard seating area.
We were so excited, we went on to lunch with his Dad and told him about it, and he wanted to see it too. We went back with him and went through it again. This time we decided it was too nice to wait on, this house would be gone in no time. His Dad agreed to buy it for us and let us buy it back from him once we got our finances settled from our own sale!
So the inspections are done, title company stuff is in progress, the appraisals are underway (for both the house we are selling AND the one we are buying).Things are moving fast. In about two weeks the new house will close, and we’ll be moving away from our little farm. A week after that the current house closes, and it will all be done. It’s been a long mental trip to get my head around giving up my life in the country, but I think it’s the best thing for us, and I’m really excited about this adorable little house. I’m so grateful Dave’s Dad is helping us get it! I think this is going to be a good place for us!
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Steff Does Stuff! 