I drove in to work today behind a Lexus SUV with a “Git-R-Done” bumper sticker. I think that sums up our new location pretty well.

Even in the dead of winter (February being the grayest, coldest, and most miserable month here in CNY) I just couldn’t kill the urge to walk around town and explore our new neighborhood. I remember how much fun I had discovering our old neighborhood on foot, dogs in tow. And the Village of Manlius did not disappoint, even on a very short and sludgy walk with two protesting pups who hate the cold even more than me. Old houses abound, and the people in Manlius have considerably more money to invest in them. There are picket fences, stone walls, and carefully manicured walkways. We can see the historical society from our front porch. It seems like a place that is very proud of it’s history.

We’ve moved from a fairly rural farm town to a suburban yuppie village. We were out of place in our old neighborhood -  the youngest homeowners on a block full of retired folks who had lived there for decades. We were sized up with great concern when we moved in. The eyeballing continued until everyone realized we were not going to be throwing wild parties. Eventually, people started to wave and smile when they saw us out doing crazy things like hanging upside-down off the roofline screwing a facia board in place, climbing up our rickety homemade scaffolding, or staining a fence for 4 steaming-hot summer weeks. We became somewhat famous by small-town standards, being “those people” and “that house”. By the time we left, I’m pretty sure our neighbors had come to embrace us. But we still didn’t fit in.

We were also feeling somewhat out of place in our new apartment. We chose Manlius because it was a nice upscale suburb about halfway between Teague’s job and mine. I have always loved it’s quaint storefronts and historic character. But we’ve essentially gone from John Deere to Starbucks, and it’s taking some time to adapt. It seems like a place for people much swankier than us. Everyone in our immediate neighborhood appears to be older and a bit more refined. A picky neighbor next door has already complained about our dog messes (the first weekend we moved in, before unearthing the plastic baggies - on our lawn, not his) and our parking skills (the truck was hanging about 2 inches too far out for the sidewalk plow, so the plow driver had to swerve over just a teeny bit, making the sidewalk plowing uneven and apparently shattering said neighbor’s world). We were starting to feel like the white trash of the Village. But after my walking tour yesterday, I was relieved to see that actually it’s a lot more eclectic than we first judged. Just a few blocks away, kids toys litter the lawns and the cars are not all new and shiny. We are not the only average joe’s. Phew!

I think we’ll find the area suits us well once the snow melts and we can get out and enjoy it more. I’m not sure we’ll ever win over the picky neighbor, though. C’est la vie.

You guys rule. Seriously. After anxiously releasing my big announcement into the blogosphere yesterday I wasn’t sure what the response would be. Here at home we’ve gotten a lot of support. But we’ve also gotten questioning glances and a few folks outright begged us to change our minds.  So I was relieved to see a whole bunch of “congrats” and “I totally understand” in my inbox this morning. We needed that!  And it means a lot coming from people who are also in the trenches right now toiling through their own home improvement projects.

You get me… you really get me! ;)

We loved working on our house, and have no doubts that we’ll do it all over again in someday soon. Hopefully with less electrical and more cash flow. And when we find our next great fixer-upper, you’ll be the first to hear about our plans!

Hold tight, kids…. this is a big one!

Since roughly August, my posts have been sporadic and the house work non-existant. I’m sure you’ve noticed a change in our pace. It was partly DIY burnout, partly the result of finishing nearly everything we wanted to change. But there is another reason we’ve been hands-off at the Fixer-Upper lately and it’s a bombshell. In early fall, we put our house on the market.

I know, I know, we should have told you! Should have shared the ups and downs (and why’s and how’s) of selling the house you’ve watched us pour our hearts into for the past three years. But the idea gave me the heebie-jeebies because you could easily find our house address online when it was for sale. The paranoid nutjob inside of me felt like we would be inviting trouble. And also, we didn’t want our agent having to sort out house voyeurs from prospective buyers. Because cleaning up a house to get it ready for showing? Soooo not fun, and not something you want to do over and over again for lookie loos.

We accepted an offer in January and closed on the house yesterday. Who knew you could sell a house in NY in the middle of winter? We’re still surprised. I waited until after the closing to share our news because, again, I’m paranoid. I did not want to jinx the sale. But everything went as planned and a nice young family now holds the key to Dirty Gert. We wish them well and hope the house brings them as much happiness as it did us - minus the crying over Home Depot bills and remodeling stress.

Most of our friends and family think we’re crazy, and that’s ok. They thought we were crazy for buying it, and look how well that turned out! I know it’s hard to understand why we would sell a house we worked so hard to make perfect, especially since it was never our intention to “flip” the house. When we bought it, we called it our “forever house” and planned on raising a family there.  If you peek through the archives, you’ll see that we rarely made quick fixes or settled for sub-par materials because we planned to live with our choices for a long time. Yet as time wore on, we realized that although we love the house it wasn’t really the best fit for us. Our lives and goals have changed pretty significantly in the past three years, as they’re bound to when you’re young and unsure where life will take you. My job responsibilities have increased with each passing year, and inevitably so have the hours spent at the office - an office I was commuting about an hour to. Teague’s construction business took off, so the lack of a garage or usable basement was a problem. With fuel prices constantly rising, all the extra square footage seemed expensive and wasteful. And our little village was a long way from any good shopping, restaurants, or entertainment which made us lazy hermits who never left the house together to do anything fun.

Those are a few of the many reasons we decided to sell. Getting our money back out (plus a little sweat equity) before the market tanked even further was another consideration. The decision wasn’t easy, but it feels right. We weren’t as attached to the house as one might imagine given the blood, sweat and tears that went into it. I eventually came to see it as a giant to-do list rather than a comforting place to rest my head. Had we slowed down and allowed ourselves to enjoy it more, we might have felt differently… it’s hard to say.

In any case, as of yesterday we’ve passed the torch on to someone else and will be (gasp!) apartment dwellers for the next year or so. We moved into our new place two weeks ago and honestly couldn’t be happier. It’s a large apartment in a historic home in Manlius, NY… a cute little suburb of Syracuse. The new place has big windows, some original hardware, and a whole lot of old house charm. We’re fighting back our fix-it urges and learning to live with white walls. I’m sure there will be a string of fixer-uppers in our future, but right now we’re taking a well earned time-out so we can live a normal life. At least for a year or so!

I’m not sure what will happen to the site now that there is no house to fix, but I will definitely check in now and then to say hi and share anything cool I find. Thanks to the houseblog community for all the support and motivation you guys have given us over the years. You guys totally kick ass. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Yours truly,
Mindy