Friday Tip Day

This might not have a lot to do with moving, but once I learned this tip, a whole new world opened for me.  I love flowers, and every once in a while, Mr. Move-a-lot will stop by a grocery store or gas station and pick me up a small bouquet of something.  Carnations, daisies, I love them all.  But, of course, they ususally die in a day or so.

UNLESS you put a tiny little bit of bleach in the water.  Toss out the plant food that comes with, add a quarter to half a little capful of bleach and those flowers will keep going long and strong.  Right now I've got a simple little bouquet of flowers that someone got me still looking fresh and it's been OVER TWO WEEKS since I got them.

Have a great and flower-filled weekend!

House hunting

House hunting sounds like fun, but it's really not.  Especially long distance.  We're off to DC next week to look for a place to live, and we are trying to schedule appointments from here. I don't consider us SUPER picky.  In fact, here's all we are asking for:

- Easy access to the two bases we'll be stationed at
- Allows pets
- Move in by May 25th
- 3+ bedrooms

Doesn't sound too bad, right?  Mr. Move-a-lot and I sent out about 35 inquiries this morning.  So far, I have ONE scheduled appointment.  We're using Hotpads and Military By Owner to find places, which are very user-friendly sites that I highly recommend.  The best experience so far is from the listing that said it was available July the 1st, but then said "we can probably do May 25th".  The worst is from the listing that informed me that if I didn't have a broker, I needed to fill out three application sheets and fax over tax returns, pay stubs, and bank records.  Yeah, I won't be doing that.

This is going to be a long week!

Giveaways

The thing you discover about moving is you have SO. MUCH. STUFF!  Everyone once in a while I feel like throwing everything away and starting over.  But, then I find a mug that I got in Iraq that reminds me of something.  Then I spend an hour on Facebook reading profiles of people that the mug reminded me of.  It's a slippery slope.

But, moving a lot does give you a chance to get rid of some things, and at our farewell party, I tried something new.  Everything I wanted to give away, I told people to browse through and take.  Some things (fondue pot) we registered for at our wedding and never used.  Some things (Roomba vacuum) are awesome and I used it, but I'm ready to send to a new home.

Some things I had already given to folks via my personal blog but for stuff left over, I set up everything and gave folks post-it notes to take stuff if they wanted.

And....nobody really took anything.  Although a few kids at our parties enjoyed playing with the rollerblades.  A great idea that wasn't TOO successful, but the up side is that now everything is all together in one place for me to box up and take to Salvation Army!

Friday Tip Day

The great thing about being a Move-a-lot?  Getting to try new ideas in new spaces all the time, especially those I've been wanting to try for a while.  But, I often forget new things I've seen or colors I'd like to try because I look at so much design stuff.  So, today's tip is to start a design folder.

I'm an old-fashioned girl who likes the feel of paper, so I print pictures and tear things out of magazines to keep them for our next adventure.  Here's my folder:

And here's just a few of my collection.  (Currently OBSESSED with the outdoor space picture)

Look at that amazing hanging light in the bottom center picture!!

So, whenever we hit a new place or finally decide which room is going to be the guest room, I can pull out the folder, skim through all of these pictures and pick something I think is pretty neat to try.  And, if it doesn't work, we just move a few years later :-)


Have a great weekend!

Best Guestbook Ever!

Saturday is out big farewell party for all of our friends in and around Boston.  I wanted to share my idea of a perfect guestbook, which, in fact, we also did at our wedding.  Sure, you can lay out a book and everyone can write their names, but all you have is a list of names!  To make it more special, for our wedding, we had each guest use a fancy pen (which also served as a wedding favor - bonus!) and write us a note of love on the back of their place card.  Then, on our first anniversary, we opened all of the cards and enjoyed reading all of the notes.  They ranged from the sweet to the serious to the odd ramblings from folks who really took advantage of our open bar.  A much better tradition than freezer-burned cake!

Here's our version for our farewell party.  I am really really sad to be leaving, so hopefully people will write us some great notes that I can read when I get homesick for Boston.  Which will likely happen before I'm even out of the city limits!

Waiting for a space!

I LOVE to bookmark great sites that sell cute things, even if I'm not ready for them yet.  One day I will be!  We're moving soon, so it's not the time to buy new things, because we don't even know where we will be living in DC, but how cute is this?

Perfect for a bathroom, right next to my uber-magnifying mirror.

A nice guest room print to hang

See all the prints for sale here, and just try to pick only one!  KEEP CALM GALLERY

Just a bit of awesomeness

I love the look of vintage, but I don't like to buy old things that don't mean anything.  I recently saw an office of a designer in a magazine, and he had stuff in there that was neat, but didn't have any connection to him, other than he thought it was neat.  For me, I like to buy things I have some type of connection to.  Which is why I bought this great sign from Etsy.  Now, to hang it in the new house or the new office??

Note: Just the long sign, not the framed mirror/window is what I got

Rent This House!

Mr. Move-a-lot and I foolishly bought a house that we fell in love with in Boston, although we were pretty sure we wouldn't stay there long.  And we were right!  We got orders to move to Washington, DC, so we decided to rent our lovely house for the next 30 or so years.

However, a house built in 1900 has a lot of things to do.  Aesthetically, structurally, this house had some issues. Here's some before/after pictures of our house, as well as some information on everything we had to do.  I love the idea of "staging" a home, so I tried to make it look at nice as possible before renters came through!

Full bathroom: redid the floor, painted, changed vanities, and decorated.

Bathroom before

Bathroom after

Guestroom #1: Painted the wood paneling and painted all the brown trim white.  Decorated

Guest room before

Guest room after