Anacortes Day 1

With all of our furniture and decor sitting in our Vancouver "staged" home, arriving in Anacortes did not mean moving in.  Major near-term renovation projects include:  replacing all the carpeting and tired engineered wood flooring with a solid, finished in-place, white oak floor. and repurposing the old kitchen to the garage in order to make way for a completely new kitchen layout designed by Laura. 

Our first full day in our new hometown started with waking up in the motorhome, breakfast at the Majestic Hotel, and ended with a sunset stroll along the Guemes Channel Trail near the Anacortes Ferry Terminal.  It was amazing to think that we were here after a journey that started three years earlier when we purchased the home while attending the Tulip Festival.

Included in the day's activities was the purchase of a new bed, acquiring a decorative whale that would fit with the coastal, nautical, sea captain back story of the cottage Laura wanted to create in our new home, and acquiring a comfy leather reading chair and ottoman for the future home-office.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Anacortes or Bust

March 16th marked the end of our twenty-one-plus years of calling Vancouver, WA home.  With our "goodbye" pictures of the house taken, we prepared to head north with me driving the Safari while towing the Honda Fit, and Laura driving the Honda Odyssey and pulling a utility trailer. 

The 250 miles journey to Anacortes took about five and a half hours thanks to the traffic moving well through Tacoma and Seattle.  After we arrived at our home in Anacortes, I parked the motorhome on the side of the house behind the gate.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much

Urban Camping While Staging Our Home

Urban Camping

Our last urban camping experience occurred three years earlier when we purchased a home in Anacortes, WA, and prepared it for handoff to a rental property management company.  Fast forward to  March 2019, and we are in the final phase of staging our Vancouver, WA home for sale.  The photo shoot for the real estate listing was coming up fast, so it was a mad dash to complete the last items on our ToDo list, and stage the house.

Moved for RV pad driveway repair

One of the items on our list was to have part of the driveway leading to our RV pad replaced.  Trees had damaged the existing installation.  In preparation for the work, we needed to relocate our Safari motorhome.  Fortunately for us, our home is set back from the street with a fifty-foot driveway, so there was lots of room to park in front of the garage.

The benefits of a long driveway

With the motorhome moved, the crew was able to bring in their equipment to break up and remove the old driveway.

Breaking up the damaged driveway

Shortly after preparing the area for new concrete, Vancouver got hit by snow and below-freezing temperatures for several days, so we had to delay the pour.  Four days before the scheduled photo shoot, the replacement driveway sections were laid down.

The driveway is poured on March 11

March 9 was our last night in the house, so our urban camping experience started on March 10 as we continued to complete small projects and stage the house.

Prepping to sell

The photo shoot would be occurring on March 15, and we'd be departing for Anacortes on March 16.  All total we'd spent seven days camping on the driveway.

The new driveway in place.

The crew that put in the new driveway did beautiful work, and it was all completed in time for the photo shoot.

Our departure configuration minus kayaks and bicycles.

One of the nice features

Live well, Laugh often, Love much