New (last?) House Tour

Welcome to the new House of Raftery, at 1917 Pine View Ave, Virginia Beach, VA, 23456. Yes, you read that correctly. At long last, we have reached the 23456 zip code. A true dream come true...

For this 3rd (and final?) Virginia Beach house tour in three years, I will share some pictures of our past and present, mostly because I just took pictures for our landlord today and the old house pictures are handy. First, the exterior:

Old House

New House

One of my favorite parts of the new place is the foyer. The floor is made of some kind of mysterious wood and I walk in remembering some of the added bonus features in this new home:

Old entrance... Note that we seem to be drawn to this style of stairs...

New Entry

As you cannot see, we now have a laundry room (You are only allowed to see the empty room, as this room has become a bit of a dumping ground for things that might stay in there once the garage is sorted. You absolutely may not see a picture of the garage, old OR new.)

(Current laundry room unavailable for viewing)

Awesome large(r) capacity washer and drying that dries in one try!

Bonus storage = essential as we no longer have an attic!

Another great feature is our remodeled half bathroom... interestingly, it appears to have more square footage than the master bathroom so "half" is perhaps the wrong choice of words. (Our old half bath was one of my least favorite rooms in the old place, so no picture will be featured here... or the online rental listing.)

This vanity is one of our favorite things in this house. I would put one in every room if I could... even the porch.

Next we enter the living room... the size isn't all that different form the old place, but the vertical interest and levels make it preeeeetty awesome:

The old place had the largest sliding door of any house in the history of ever.

All the loft is missing is Raf's homemade basketball hoop.

New House: Level 1

New House: Level 2

Raf worked hard to hang his new prized-possesion, our TV.

Isn't she beautiful?

 Our new kitchen is quite large, with plenty of counter and cupboard space. We liked the style of our old kitchen a lot and will probably use some of its aesthetic in our new kitchen when we get a chance to update it 30 years from now:

Our old kitchen with slate backsplash, reminiscent of the floors in my Lancaster house

Never thought I'd be okay with a red kitchen, but this one will definitely do for awhile.

We didn't really use our old dining room space as a dining room other than bar stools, but here is another before and after of a room that ensures Raf can share his cooking with someone other than me:

Old dining room

New dining room

 Through the dining room you can sneak a peak at another bonus feature of the new place, arguably our favorite room, the screen porch:

Ahhh... what a room!

We were happy to add a yard when we moved from our first house to the next one, but Maddy (and JP) were not prepared for the awesomeness that is our new yard:

Old yard... we have about four of these now.

New yard + deck... we have 2 side yards and a back yard for the pets to explore.

Shall we go upstairs?

Old upstairs...

New upstairs...

Another great feature of the new house is a loft space we jokingly refer to as Raf's Yankee room:

Some Goodwill speakers and a cheap laptop are all this kid needs. He loves this spot.

Our old place had one extra bedroom, a spot that housed our office, guest room, and litter box. We now have a guest room and...

Old guest room featuring window seat I will miss

New guest room featuring cathedral ceiling with skylights and sunshine on a cloudy day

...our tree room! It is called that for the obvious reason:

Still not sure what we're going to do about this one...

And the not-so-obvious reason:

The 12 foot Christmas tree we still haven't figured out how to store!

Here's what that sucker looks like set up:

Clark Griswold was pretty awed.

We also have Camryn's favorite bathroom:

The wooden toilet seat is one of my least  favorite things about the new place. It goes soon.

Now for the new master bedroom. The old room had a lot of closet space, but was quite drab:

The new room appears to be the exact same color, but features a great ceiling and some fabulous light:

Our bathroom, while slightly dated (brass and some tile we've mostly hidden), is soooo bright and features a heated fan in the ceiling! Now that was a lovely surprise! The room is small and tough to photograph, but here is my best attempt:

This is probably JP's favorite room. Just wait till we get an orchid. It will be impossible to keep him out:

All in all, we are pretty damn happy in this new place. Proof:

Now all that's left is a visit from our friends... who wants to Polar Plunge?