New Digs

I didn't post much on our new place before because I didn't take my camera so no pictures. But my parents did a walk-through with the realtor yesterday and took some shots.

My three requirements for a new place, besides being in our budget, were:
1) must keep Ed's commute as short as possible
2) must have parking
3) must have central a/c

Secondary preferences were:
1) three bedrooms
2) nice and/or big kitchen
3) laundry machines

Eric The Realtor said we were the perfect clients because anything we saw was bigger and better than what we were coming from, even places he thought were dumps, and we were not too picky. We looked at a variety of condos, townhouses and single family homes throughout Fairfax, Vienna, Falls Church, Arlington and Alexandria - 15 places in two days. We are renting for at least a year to make sure we want to stay in the area and/or at Ed's job before looking into buying. Plus we didn't want to be rushed on our first home purchase, and the market sucks right now.

So here's a slideshow and description of our new place that I'm SO excited about. First and most importantly, Ed's commute will be about 20 minutes if the bus schedules aren't lying. Amazing, I could cry. We're in a 1800 sqft single family house in a cute and quiet neighborhood, next door to a public park and playground. We're renting from a family who lived in the house themselves until now, and they've already been great resources on doctors and other neighborhood info. There are two levels: living room, dining room, kitchen, laundry, 1/2 bath on the first level, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths on the second. It's pretty straightforward. There's a cute back patio and then a great back yard with tall mature oak trees to keep us shady in the summer and busy with leaves in the fall. The master bedroom has a million closets and a built-in bed and armoire so we can go one more year of our marriage without buying bedroom furniture. The house definitely has an unusual layout but it's totally perfect for us right now - I like the quirkiness - and I'm constantly thinking about where things will go. Who's coming to visit first?