We've Made the Move to Michigan!

It's official!  We are now Michigan residents!  After many months of thought and consideration, Kevin and I decided to start our "newlywed life" in Michigan.  With a little help from our friends, we packed up the rental truck with all of our belongings and drove the ten hours or so to Novi, MI.  Kevin's parents were gracious enough to offer for us to live with them until we found a home to rent in Royal Oak, MI.

We left DC around 2:00pm or so on a Saturday and drove until around 8:00pm with Kevin driving the moving truck (with his car towed behind it) and me driving my SUV packed to the brim with our belongings.  I was running on two bottles of 5 Hour Energy and adrenaline, but was exhausted after dinner so we spent the night in Ohio before making it all the way to Novi the next day.

After relaxing on Easter Sunday, we picked back up the move on Monday by placing all of our items into storage.  Tuesday, we met with a realtor to start looking at rental homes in Royal Oak.  We saw about six houses that day, but none that we were really interested in.  Either they were too far away from downtown and gorgeous, or a few blocks walking distance to downtown and in disrepair. We really thought it would be a lot easier to find a home, but we were wrong.

We found a house we loved, but when we got to the showing we found out that we were the tenth couple to look at it!   We booked it over to Kinkos to fax the home owner all of our information, but found out that we were the third couple to already do so and the house was on a "first come, first serve" basis.

The next weekend Kevin found a listing on Craigslist for a rental home and made sure that we were the first couple scheduled to see the house that Saturday.  The house was a great bungalow style home with three bedrooms, a half finished basement, fenced in back yard, two car garage and it also allowed dogs.  The paint scheme in the house wasn't the best, but the owner also let us know that we can paint it to our own taste.  We jumped on it and let the owner know that we were interested in signing a contract that day!  Three other couples were scheduled to see the house that day, but since we were first, we got first choice.  After a couple of days, we heard from the owner and the house was ours!!

Here it is!  

Since the current tenants don't move out until June 1st and the owner wants to update the plumbing, we won't be able to move in until June 15 or before.  We hope to be able to get into the house to paint that week as well.  Stay tuned for many before and after pictures!