Dream Come True

Most, but not all of you have heard our great news..... that we bought a vacation rental property in the outer banks!!! Nags Head, to be specific.  Like everyone else, this is something we'd hoped we'd be able to do one day and it turns out the day came sooner than we thought, lol.  The house was a short sale (ie, right before it goes in to foreclosure) and it took for-ever to close.  So long that we really did not know if it would close until we heard from the attorney that they got it recorded on the very last day before the lienholders approval of the deal expired.  So, we couldn't really get excited about it until we knew it was happening and then, because it's a rental property, it was rented all summer...  Then finally, as of October 8th, we could  go stay in the house!  It was the first day the house wasn't rented all summer so we went last week and got to work!

My dad came for several days at the beginning of the week and the three of us worked our butts off.  Seriously. Among other things, we emptied out four storage closets.  One had broken chairs thrown in it, another had old canned goods and dishwasher detergent, lol, another had an old comforter from one of the beds (right next to the water heater - sure, great idea), and the last was an exterior closet used by renters that had about 15 broken boogie boards, sand toys, pool floats, etc. just literally thrown in there.  A rusted out grill got thrown away, as well as a park grill (cemented in) that had fallen over from rusting through.  We also threw out about 30 plastic chairs that were scattered all over the property - they were completely disgusting.

The house was built in 2003 and we bought it from the original owners.  We knew there would be a lot of work to be done to get it back in shape, but we felt it was worth it because the location is absolutely fantastic.  It is directly across from a quiet beach access and in a great stretch of beach.  The house itself has a great, open floor plan, including 6 bedrooms (4 king masters), 5 full and 2 half baths, a pool, hot tub, outside shower, bonus room and wrap around porches.  The house needs new carpet, exterior trim paint, and some general yard clean up.  We've replaced the bedding (I'm convinced most of it was original to 2003 - YUCK!) and will be updating the living room furniture.  That should get it in good condition again and hopefully next year we can rented it out for a few extra weeks.... which is the whole idea!  Anyway, we had a busy week and worked our tails off, but the house is looking SO much better already!

At the end of the week, John's mom came for a night to see the boys and babysit so John and I could have a date night, which was great.  (As a side note, we found yet another great restaurant there - Blue Moon Beach Grill - delish!!)

We plan to rent the house out through Village Realty during the season (April - October) and then rent it ourselves to family and friends during the off season.  Once we get all the details hammered out, we'll let you know how much it will be and how it will all work.

Oh, you said you want to see a photo of the house?  ;-)  Well, here ya go!

Hello cute house!

View from the couch!

View of the beach access directly across the street!

And here is our nasty, ginormous trash pile - thank you Town of Nags Head for having bulk trash pickup.... lol

And now for a bonus video shot while we were there last week - Matt was crazy with the kisses this night!