Our Nest

When Barry’s cancer returned shortly after marrying Shawna the couple decided the best place for Barry to get treatment and yet stay close to Barry’s support network (Sister & in-law’s) Barry and Shawna decided that the cancer center at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville was their best choice.  We were sharing a rental townhouse in Stafford, VA.  Shawna was renting her condo in Maryland.   Shawna’s parents were moving to a new “over 55” community in Northwestern VA, and we were not having too much luck selling their home in northern Virginia, with  barely a nibble in 6-months.  Shawna decided to sell her condo in Maryland so Barry and Shawna spent several weeks cleaning, painting, laying ceramic tile, and generally dressing the place up.  After we got the condo ready, Shawna Suggested the two of them leave the rental town home in Stafford and move into her parents old home for a few months and do some pre-sale renovation-preparation.  We spent and spent the next several months, stripping wallpaper, painting, tiling, and rehabilitating plumbing and electric.  Shawna’s parents got a new realtor and put the house back on the market. It sold in two weeks!  Unfortunately the buyer had forgotten he still owed the VA 20,000 from a previous loan. 

The house selling so quickly prompted Shawna and Barry to make some decisions about where we wanted to start a nest. We determined the somewhere in the vicinity of the UVA medical center made sense. So Barry went shopping for a realtor while Shawna started scouring the on-line MLS listings. Another two weeks later the parent’s house in northern Virginia sold again. This time it stuck and Shawna and Barry needed to find a place fast! Shawna looked through the MLS listings and chose ten candidate homes.

Barry called the realtor to see if we could try to see all 10 in one day! The realtor asked how early we could be in Charlottesville. We started that day at 8:30 am Saturday morning and began the journey of many homes. We saw several possibilities, a few wrecks, and some really scary properties. Finally at 6:00pm, we pulled into the driveway of the last home, ten minutes later we told the realtor to draw up an offer. The next day we were told the bank had reduced the asking price again and had put the house into “short-sale” status. There was also another offer on the house. We told the realtor our maximum bid and waited patiently for the results. A few days later we were told the contract was ours! We were $30,000 under what we had been planned to spend! When the inspections and appraisals were filed and all the paperwork was signed we moved into our nest with positive equity instead being in a negative equity situation that so many home owners are in nowadays

We had taken the time prior to doing any serious shopping and attend an FHA homeowners workshop and had already secured pre-approval for the amount we’d need to go to closing and we were ready to go unfortunately the house was now owned by the bank and we needed to approve the sale. Several weeks later the bank suddenly approved the sale and wanted to close the deal NOW! Once again we had already done much of the paper work and had been pre approved for more that we needed to go to the closing table and we thought the hard part was over. That was not to be the case. The previous owners had split-up the wife and children were in Ohio and the husband was in Australia. A power of attorney document was sent to husband to sign and get notarized. As another week passed, we consolidated all of our worldly belongings into two storage bins and got out of the house in northern Virginia. After the power of attorney came back we found that it needed to be signed by a notary at an American consulate or embassy. Yet another week passed before we had a legal power attorney and were able to go to closing. We took possession if our nest on June 1st 2009.

The house is just amazing! Its in the piedmont (foothills) of the Blue Ridge mountains and 15miles from the Shenandoah National park, the Skyline drive and 100 miles of the Appalachian trail! We live in a community of 200 properties of three acres or more. We have a 1,600 Sq Ft three bedroom single story home with 75ft of lake frontage and a dock, 90 minutes from Washington D.C. and 30 miles to Barry’s treatment center at the University of Virginia. The house was suffering from neglect and poor maintenance but showed a lot of potential. All the repairing and upgrading keeps Barry and Shawna busy but it’s a wonderfully serene and peaceful place to retreat to after a long day.

                            View of the front                                                                                                                     View from the back 

We are busy rehabilitating the house on the inside and outside. We have once again been stripping wallpaper and painting, we replaced the cook top that was both an electrocution and fire hazard with a smooth top unit, we’ve replaced a small & ugly refrigerate with a larger stainless steel side by side unit. We've had to do numerous inside and outside paint jobs (doors, shutters, kitchen, dining area, etc.) We've replaced several broken or just plain ugly light and plumbing fixtures. We've completely stripped the paint off the deck and gave a more natural stain. We will soon be involved in a major kitchen renovation including ceramic tile countertops, wood floors and removing some wasted space filler over a semi enclosed island and installing a free hanging canopy style cook top vent to open up the kitchen and dining areas.

We are striving to make this a showcase of energy efficiency and eco friendliness. We’re insulating, insulating, and still insulating, were replacing inefficient appliances with Energy Star certified equipment. With the trees around us the house is naturally cool much of the summer and we installed an Energy Star wood burning fireplace insert that can generate 12,000 BTU’s of warmth in the winter. Our monthly electricity bill averages out to less than $100 per month. The propane supplier (furnace) isn’t very happy with us. Future projects will include far better windows, solar water and space heating assist, a geothermal heat pump, and a little solar electricity assist/backup. 

We are on a well and septic system. Virginia has extremely acidic soil and therefore acidic groundwater. When we moved in there blue-green stains in all the sinks, shower, and tub from the copper plumbing corroded from the acid in the water. We are also just two miles from a wood processing facility so, we have sediment filters, calcite acid neutralizing canisters, carbon block filters, and a potassium (instead of salt) based water softener attached to our well and Reverse Osmosis for our ice, drinking, and cooking water. There’s no sense living a healthy lifestyle without healthy water.

The community seems to have changed from a retirement community in the 80's to a "bedroom" community serving younger urban families from Charlottesville and Washington D.C. With that transition it seems to have lost it's sense of community, Barry and Shawna hope to revive the sense of community again. In a bizarre scenario, less than a year after moving into our new home barry was made a member of the homeowners association's board of directors.

In summary we got an incredible deal on a beautiful house in a great community in a gorgeous area!