Keeping Up

I'm letting my blog go; it's suffering from a terrible case of neglect. I open it up almost daily to get to my favorite links- I can see who's posted among the blogs I follow and click on the games I like to play; very useful. But posting? Not so much.

After the roller coaster that was our November and December, I was hoping January would slow down so I would be able to write more but that hasn't happened, obviously. DH and I did find a day to spend roaming around a small town some distance away and, I think I'm half crazy for taking this on, we decided to purchase a rental/vacation home. As if I didn't have enough on my plate already!! It's something I've been thinking about for a while, though. We went house hunting once about a year ago and didn't find anything so we gave it another go when we had the chance and found a house we liked. We made a low ball offer and the sellers accepted it- I was shocked!! It needs work but not too much so we should be able to rent it out after we get it fixed up. The area sees a lot of snow birds so the idea is to rent it seasonally over the winter, then we can use it during the summer months. The yard is about 4 times the size of our yard at our main residence so I'm looking forward to planting fruit trees. We can't do much as far as vegetable gardening since we won't be there during veggie season, but I'm happy with the idea of getting an orchard going. It will be so much fun to take the dogs up there and let them run around in the huge fenced back yard!

As far as getting it ready to rent, the main thing we have to do is paint, furnish and decorate the place. It's a 4 bedroom house so we have to buy a lot of furniture really quickly. We also want to put in a dock (it's on a lake) and maybe a pool. DH doesn't want the pool but I think it will attract more renters so it's an investment that should pay off in the long run. It's not something we have to do right away, though. Prioritizing is key at this point- this is a small business venture and I want to do it right, but yet still exercise some budgetary caution and common sense.

Pinterest is coming in handy, that's for sure! I've been browsing decorating and furniture websites since we made the offer. It's frustrating, though; I get all of these great ideas on-line but it's so hard to find the things I'm interested in purchasing at a reasonable price and quality level. We're going for a tropical, beachy feel since we want it to say "VACATION" the second you walk in the door. Lots of ideas out there, but not a lot of stuff to bring the ideas into reality.

We'll close in a few weeks, then the fun really begins. We'll take air mattresses and camp out that first weekend and just get to know the place; I'm looking forward to that part of it. After that, the work begins in earnest. I'm sure it will give me plenty to blog about!