A House in Many Pieces

Hello Everyone!

So, this is the part of our story where we get to take some time to brag about all of the things that we've done.  I know that every time that we write, there is some new project, and we thought that we might show you the fruits of that labor.  This does not, of course, mean that there isn't still work to do (because believe us, there is!), but we wanted to take you on a tour of a few of the high-lights of our renovations...right before we move.

 The photo above is a picture of our guest room when we first moved in.  Now, to our credit, we had a roommate living with us and this is all HIS stuff (except the bed), but notice the Model-T's on the walls.  Also, one of the strange things about the house when we moved in was that so many rooms were painted in dark colors; this one was yellow and maroon.  We did away with that, as you can see below!

The idea for the curtains going to the side instead of splitting in the middle came from our bedroom, but we love this nice guest room instead of the old one!  Lighter colors, more light in the room, and less overall mess. Also, the quilt on the bed is from Olive (a good friend of Tom and Jennifer's who has passed), and the blanket at the foot of the bed is thanks to Miss Emma Olsen!  Just seeing it makes everyone want to come stay with us - right!?!?!?!

The other room that we wanted to show off in this "issue" of Bell World Weekly is the room we're most excited about lately; the bathroom!  This is our before:

Yum!  Notice the paneling on the walls - the carpet had gotten wet so many times that the walls were rotting away at the bottom, and so they put up paneling to try and hide that before they sold the house.  Also take a close look at the shelf and cabinet door above the toilet - it's not even cut evenly!  Nate says it looks like a "My first Jigsaw" project.  We don't miss it, let me tell you!

We LOVE this tile floor, and we got the tiles for free, which made it even better.  One of the advantages of having friends who are roughly 30 years older than you is that they have the money to re-do their houses, and then you can gather what they have left over.  But it all looks so beautiful, and we are so proud of it!

Stay tuned for the next episode!

Love you all!
-Nate & Justine

Sorting, Selling and Pitching

Hey All!

I hope that everyone else's Sunday is as beautiful as ours is here!  Today in Richmond is 70 degrees and sunny, and it feels like Summer has finally poked its head out to look around!

Life is busy here at the Bell household.  We have filled two plastic tubs with things that aren't essentials, but that we want to keep, and are heading up to MI to store them next weekend.  We're so excited to be home again, and get a few more dogs situated - Toby, our Aussie, is going to a new foster home there.  We're finding new homes for the books and odds and ends we have lying around the house that we never use. We just finished up five more Ebay auctions and are working on getting all of that sent out, as well as monitoring our Amazon account.  Not only does it make it so we don't have to move those things, but it's also great because we can make a little extra money on the side while I'm not working.

Working on a tip from a friend, I've found a place to try to sell my quilting creations!  Check out my new website here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/71873579/quilted-bag-sunflower-haze

Speaking of, we're working on re-homing and moving around all the dogs and cats in our possession as well.  Today we had a bit of an adventure - we've had this dog with us for the last few days.  He came to us as a stray, via one of the little girls who lives down the street.  We've been calling him Zach, or Short Round:

He seemed really eager to head out, and being a hound, we figured he might know where he's going. So today we put him on a leash and let him take the lead.  For all of you that have walked a hound, he was so excited to go it was almost painful on our hands.  We wandered down to 7th street, down three blocks, back to 6th and then he started acting funny.  He kept sniffing at porches, one, two, three, then he turned and beelined straight for a house and headed up onto the porch, so we knocked on the door.  We asked the woman there if she knew him and, amazingly, he had taken himself home!  His name is Burt, turns out, and he's 11 years old.  She bottle fed him from an infant, because his mother (a Bassett/Beagle) was impregnated by a St Bernard/Golden, and didn't survive the birthing.  She was working with a vet at the time, and took Burt as her own.  What a great story, and we're so happy to have him back home (and out of ours)!

More to come soon!  We're hoping that next week's edition will be before and after photos of the house, so we'll see how well that pans out.  Love to everyone on this wonderful day - now we're going outside!

-Justine and Nate

Frozen to Thaw

 Hey All!

What a whirlwind time it has been, and this will be a very to-the-point update because there should be updates coming more frequently based on some of our more recent news!

We survived the ice storm here, the radio announcers called it Snowmageddon, but as you can see it was more of an ice problem.  Nate was off work two days during the week, which was a lot of fun for us!  Also, we spent one of the two nights of storm sleeping at the shelter, to make sure that if the power went off we would be there to switch it over to the generator.  Luckily the night passed without incident, and we made a little extra money for our effort.

I finally, finally quit my job.  As many of you know, it had been a real emotional drain for a while.  There was a turnover in power on the board, and Nate and I decided that it was time to head out.  We still maintain the website, do the newsletter, and I am able to volunteer there when I want to, which works out well for me.  As for getting another job?I'm not looking for one, because.....

Nate and I have decided that it is time to move.  We really aren't finding anyone here in Richmond that 1. has the same interests that we do, and 2. is roughly in the same age group.  We found that we were enjoying our visits to Michigan more and more, and planning them more often, because we found it much easier to find like minded, age-appropriate friends.  So, we're headed back to the big M I!  We are not sure if this will be a permanent move or a stop-over, but we're excited to try to find a group of people that might be interested in working with Nate on the game he is making, and MSU is a much better place to find those people than Earlham (Nate's computer science graduating class was four, including himself).

Hannah and Sara rest Ying-Yang style after a long day of cleaning!

So, in the meantime, the question you'll hear most around our house is "Is is worth moving?"  We're getting down to the bare essentials, eliminating a lot of clutter, which feels really nice.  We are making good use of Ebay, Amazon, and Goodwill!  We also have a list of what needs to be done before we go, so we're working diligently on getting the house ready for potential renters.

Stay tuned here for more updates as things progress!  Also, now that I am unemployed, there is no excuse to not be sending weekly news!  :)

Love you all!
-Justine and Nate