Condo Move In–Part 2

From Friday to Sunday night, we were pretty much moved in with everything put in its place.

Dodo and Bernie were staying in nearby Buckeye and wanted to see the condo and catch up since we last saw each other at Betty’s RV Park last Mardi Gras in March.

This was before we bought lamps, etc.

The President of the HOA here recommended a restaurant to us, Brenda’s Kitchen, only three blocks from here.  After touring Dodo and Bernie around Sun City, we went there for lunch.  What a find!!! This is the old-fashioned little town café…everything made from scratch a la soups, biscuits, sausage gravy, corn beef, potato and mac salads, stews, meatloaf, etc.

The walls are decorated with antique kitchen implements. The place is tiny and only holds 55 people.

 

 

This place is BUSY constantly from 6 am to 2 pm.  Everyone shouts out “hello” and “goodbye” to all customers. 

 

Plus the waitresses are very friendly even asking our names, but they are also a little “cheeky” with a playful sarcastic attitude which was fun to banter with.

I found out they made their own corn beef, so I had a sandwich while the rest of the gang had hand-battered chicken fried steaks with real mashed potatoes. The topper was hearing they had homemade grapefruit pie…never heard of that, but it was delicious! It was like a lemon pie, but with grapefruit.  There are sooo much citrus here this time of year, bags of lemons, oranges and grapefruits on sidewalks just for the taking, so this was good use of the abundant grapefruits.

We had such a great visit with Dodo and Bernie!!! Around Bernie you are laughing all the time….great for the soul.

Remember, you are loved.

Condo Move-In Part 1

This is going to take me at least three posts to cover the move into our condo…so sit back and read.

We picked up the keys from the previous owners on Friday, Feb. 13 (my lucky day). Here’s a selfie of us opening the door for the first time

       

When we walked in we found a welcome gift left by the previous owners, Dave and Debbie, with a card saying they hoped we would love the condo as much as they have….they are only moving a block away to a two-bedroom condo so we will see them often….they have become friends.

We took a lot out of the RV, but still had to buy pots and pans, dishes, glasses, flatware, sheets and towels.

Here are some before and after shots of the condo. We bought all our furniture from American Furniture Warehouse in Glendale.  They are headquartered in Colorado and we’ve bought all our furniture from them for the last 30 years.  They delivered, assembled and set up the rooms on Saturday.  Worth every bit of the $150 it cost. The white moisture spot in the first photo has been fixed and the swag light in the dining room will be moved.

I had to add a little “funk” to the place, so I put shelving paper not only on the shelves, but also up the back of the cabinets.  I love the “wow” affect when you open the doors.

Love the splash of color from the glasses on the shelf with Pat O’Brien’s glasses

More space than I’m use to so I just spread it out

Spice turntable…yes, all alphabetized

We went back to the RV yesterday and took down some of our pictures on the walls to add to the condo. We’ve been living the last two weeks with everything new around us from dishes to the bed and sheets we slept on. Having the pictures hung up made a big difference in our “feeling at home”.

We parked the RV at the Elks Club which was only 5 miles away.  We moved everything in grocery and shopping bags.  Jim would go to the RV and fill up 5-6 bags and bring them back for me to put away.  We were basically “IN” the condo with everything put away by Sunday…three days…I think that’s pretty good.  Come Monday we had our first visitors, Dodo and Bernie…more about that tomorrow.

Remember, you are loved.

Signed, Sealed and Delivered

that’s what we did for a whole hour…signing papers at the title company yesterday.  All our part is now finished and all we can do now is wait for the sellers to sign their papers and then have all the paperwork recorded.  So by Friday sometime we will be called to pick up the keys.

We also did a “walk through” of the condo with our realtor yesterday. I had a chance to measure cabinets, drawers and linen closet to get an idea of how much shelf lining I  need to buy. 

We are concern with the wall colors as without the sellers furniture we could see the true colors of everything and it is yellow and dark brown…not our taste.  But we will live with it for a while and see how we feel, and how our furniture works with it. 

The sellers did leave all the window coverings, which is very nice.  They even left an outside roll-down wooden curtain to cut the sun from shining inside.  That will be helpful.

We will move the TV from our rig to the condo for now and purchase another one in the fall. Other items are more of a priority.  We will put it on the green table Jim Mossman made for us that now sits on the side of our couch.

Today we move from North Ranch to boondock at the Elk’s Club in Sun City for a few days as we unload a lot of things from the rig into the condo. It will take a lot of trips back and forth but we’ll take our time and get it done over a period of days. Hopefully we will be allowed to park the rig behind the complex for a few hours to make unloading easier.

We’re excited, but I’m also sad in a way as this RV has been our only home for seven years straight and it is hard to leave and put it into storage.  I know we will use it again in the spring/summer, but it will be different as a summer retreat and not our only home…….well …..

Remember, you are loved

Condo-Changes Are a Com’in

We got a call from the title company and were told since Monday, February 16th is a holiday that they will be closing on our condo on Friday, February 13th….my lucky day (I’ve always like Feb. 13 and good things have always happened to me on that day).

How they do things here in Arizona the buyers sign all the paperwork with the title company one day, the sellers sign the same paperwork on another day.  Then they record the paperwork and THEN you have another day marked as the closing date when you actually get the keys to the place.  In Colorado you all get together at the same time, sign everything, write your check and you get the keys….then they record the purchase.  We go in to sign the paperwork on Wednesday, February 11th and do a final walk through on the condo.

We got another call with good news …. our realtor called to tell us the sellers “have been having issues with the hot water heater so they are going to replace it before closing date”.  What nice people…they didn’t have to do that.  So we will have a five year old heating/cooling unit, five year old roof, brand new paint inside and a brand new hot water heater.  We are blessed.

We’ve been checking out all the estate resale stores and Craig’s List looking for furniture for weeks now, but haven’t found anything in our style …. contemporary/modern. Also we want a reclining couch and loveseat instead of two recliner chairs like we have now in our rig …. don’t like the look of it in the condo …. reminds me of little old people live there …. reclining couch look up-to-date folks enjoy life there.

So yesterday we went to American Furniture Warehouse and went shopping …. in a big way.  Bought the living room, dining room and bedroom furniture. No, they aren’t heirloom quality, but will last us our lifetime. 

Here’s the bedroom set we got …. not the chest of drawers, just the bed, dresser and mirror, and one night stand.  We also chose a plush mattress.  The bed has a platform so we didn’t have to buy the box springs. (I swiped this image from their website.)

Here is the dining room set.  Interestingly enough, the chairs are identical to the two chairs we have now in our rig.  So when we have two couples for dinner I will already have the two extra chairs …. we are putting the chairs and round table from our rig into the eat-in kitchen of the condo.

And now for the living room. You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Here’s the motorized couch and love seat we bought	This is the rug we and end tables we bought but undecided about the coffee/cocktail table
Close up of the rug. It picks up the furniture color and the green in the bedroom and bathroom.	We bought two of these end tables but undecided about the lamp.  Plan on putting a basket of yarn on the bottom on my side. I like the ring of copper under the table.

After the furniture store we stopped at Tuesday Morning to see what we could find dishes and glasses, but didn’t find anything.  So we tried Bed, Bath and Beyond but didn’t find any reasonably priced dinnerware or flatware, but did find some towels on clearance we liked.  We picked out grey and black for a contemporary look.  Next we will try out Target, T.J. Maxx, Ross and Marshall for the kitchen items.

We are going to stay here at North Ranch and leave Thursday and move to Elk’s Club in Sun City so we will be closer for moving stuff to the condo on Saturday.  We will take out as much stuff from our rig as we can use in the condo.  It will be easier to move the remaining stuff into our downsized rig. 

We’re really going to miss the ice maker in our rig’s freezer when we move into the condo.  I’ll try to keep an ice bin full from four ice trays, but if not we can always buy an ice maker, like I’ve seen a lot of gate guards use in Texas.

Well, that’s it for now.  The weather here has been beautiful here …. with temps in the 80s with clear skies and unbelievable sunrises and sunsets …. yes, we are up in time to see both most days.  That’s one thing I want to find in Sun City …. a good place to watch sunsets.  Sandy and Charles Lee got Jim and I into watching sunsets every night when we were together at Ft. Pickens in Pensacola, Florida and Davis Bayou in Ocean Springs, Mississippi.  Now it is a priority for us …. watching every sunset …. pretty good priority to have. 

See you later …. remember you are loved.

Super Bowl and last days in the Desert

We had a grand ole time watching the Super Bowl on Mark and Patsy’s outside TV, with all of us clustered around sitting in our lawn chairs. (Need to come up with another name than “lawn chairs” as our chairs haven’t EVER seen a “lawn”. Maybe I should call them “dirt” chairs.)

We filled the tables with snacks, soups and chilis, while Chuck grilled sandwiches made from his sour dough bread and Mark’s cream cheese tapenade.

“Some” of us weren’t too much into the football game, so we sat to the side and did crafts during the game.

Knitting, beading and more

Look at the lovely pine needle bowl Judy made

Through the week we met to do crafts together.  This is a rare treat for me and I treasured every moment of crafting with other ladies.  I knitted Jan a hat to say “thank you” for the sour dough bread.

      

Sadly it was soon time to leave Quartzsite for this year.  We left Monday and made our way to Congress/Wickenburg to stay at North Ranch, one of Escapee RV Club’s parks.  We’ll stay here a couple of weeks while we wait for our closing date on the condo, February 16th.  This is the closest and most affordable RV park we could find to Sun City. 

A couple of days ahead of that we plan to move to the Elk’s Club in Sun City so we can transfer things from the rig to the condo.  But since it is boondocking only we have to limit our time there…can’t stay there three weeks.

We are driving to Sun City several times a week as we need to buy EVERYTHING for this condo, as we are going to continue to RV and maintain a rig.  We’ve been looking for furniture at the estate sale stores and Craig's list. 

Today we plan on going to visit the 100+ acre RV Storage Compound in Surprise with it’s 4,400 storage sites and make arrangements to store our rig still April.  Close by are our friends Lora and John, and we’ll visit them as well.

We’re also going to check out Costco, T.J. Maxx, Ross’s, Marshall’s and Tuesday Morning, most of them in nearby Peoria.  We need to find sheets, towels, pots and pan set, dishes and flatware.

Well we are off….see you soon.

Remember, you are loved.