Hello faithful followers, loyal friends, and random stumble uponers! I'm back!
I've been away for a while for a couple of good reasons...
1. As I announced back in October, after nearly 6 years of renting a house and paying off nearly all our old debt (except student loans and auto loans), including back taxes, we took the plunge and bought a house. In the grand scheme of things, we didn't move far... the new house is less than 15 miles away from the old house, but it's closer to where we both work, cutting down on our respective morning and afternoon commutes. This new house is much larger than our previous house too... approximately 500 sq. ft. larger.
We put in our offer on 19 October 2018, after a couple of negotiations back and forth, we had an agreement... just 3 hours after submitting our initial offer. We closed on 28 November 2018, and moved on 23 December 2018... yep, two days before Christmas.
Since closing and moving, we've been methodically unpacking, arranging furniture, installing new smart thermostats. People have been in and out of our house like traffic on Las Vegas Blvd on a holiday weekend, remodeling (interior paint, built-in shelf removal), installing (television - DirecTV, alarm - ADT), troubleshooting problems (internet - Cox Communications, satellite TV reception - DirecTV), fixing problems (heating and air conditioning, leaky plumbing, a leaning cinder block wall, an exposed foundation tension cable), grocery delivery (Vons), meal deliveries (GrubHub), other deliveries (Amazon and Wayfair), and family, who helped unpack our kitchen boxes.
As I mentioned, our new house is larger than our previous house, hence more rooms, and a need for more furniture... we bought a kitchen table and chairs from someone on Facebook Marketplace that matches a sofa table we bought about 12-13 years ago, and we're getting a china cabinet and hutch tomorrow from someone else on Facebook Marketplace. Both are in excellent condition with expected minor wear and tear for way less than we could purchase new.
This house has a formal dining room and living room, which we didn't have in our previous house, so we bought new dining room chairs, a sofa, 2 wingback chairs, a mirrored coffee table and matching end table, another sofa table, which is too tall for the sofa, but will work in the entrance way, and a 5'x7' area rug. Still need to put our authentic Black Forest cuckoo clock on the wall. Also need to buy a lamp or two, some candelabras and candles, sheer/lace curtains and curtain rods, and a couple of other items to complete the room.
For the family room (in Nevada they call them great rooms), we bought a new sectional sofa with 3 powered recliners (floor model discounted $1500), a round concrete and iron coffee table, and another 5'x7' area rug. We did a little reconstruction in this room as we knocked out some built-in shelving to create a large recessed niche to make room for a 75" 4K Smart LG LED TV that I got on sale from Costco for less than $1000 on Thanksgiving day (online only sale).
We're using our existing bedroom furniture in the master bedroom, which is downstairs.
Upstairs there are 3 bedrooms and a loft, which overlooks the formal living/dining room). Our desks and a sofa from the living room in the previous house reside in the loft.
The largest of the 3 bedrooms will be made up as a guest bedroom. So we bought a platform bed with a black, buttoned, fabric headboard, a bench to go under the window, a silver free-standing full length mirror, and a mattress. Still need to buy small nightstands, lamps, and a variety of bedding.
The middle bedroom will be an exercise room with a recumbent bicycle, boxing heavy bag, an inversion table, and, eventually, an elliptical. It's only about a 10'x10' room so I hope it all fits with space for a yoga mat too. The inversion table folds up, so that should help.
The 3rd bedroom is a den. It has the 55" Samsung plasma TV and the 2-seat rocker/recliner "sofa" that we had in our living room at the old house. My guitar collection will go in this room too.
In addition to the unpacking and arranging, I've also been busy putting together all of the furniture we bought from Wayfair, and arranging the garage (it's a 3-car garage).
2. I enrolled in a boudoir photography business program just days before we submitted the offer on our new house, so I've been working through the lessons and trying to build up my boudoir photography business. Because of the house purchase and move, I haven't been able to shoot much, which is required to graduate the program... in addition to passing a simple test, I need to have $5000 in sales and average sales of $1000. I have 6 months to complete the program, so I have until April to graduate. I did manage 2 sessions... unfortunately there was no sale from the 1st session, and the 2nd session was a TFP session (she's an aspiring model). Here are a couple of photos from each session.
I have one session booked for 19 January 2019, and I'm running a Facebook ad (starting in few minutes) for a week for a Valentine's Day boudoir photo session special.
With the larger house, I can do my boudoir photo sessions in my home... primarily the guest bedroom and the formal living room, but also the formal dining room, the backyard, master bathroom, exercise room, loft, front entrance to the house, staircase... no room is really off limits, but those are the planned spots. As such, I no longer have to rent hotel suites and Airbnbs, unless I want to, such as for a pool shoot (no the new house doesn't have a pool, though we talked about getting a jacuzzi later).
Now you know what I've been up to and why I've been quiet for the past 2 months. Hopefully, I'll be more active here in 2019, which leads into my next post... 2019 Goals (aka New Year Resolutions).
Stay Tuned...
DeadGuitarist
