Another New Start
Like most folks around the world we found our lives turned upside down from the pandemic. We had almost finished our house renovation when the big lock down took place. We decided to use the time at home to finish our 3rd floor guest bedrooms and a few other little projects.
Just as we were finishing up the house I was laid-off from my job and a few weeks later my husband was also laid-off. The good news, our house looked great! The bad news, things were getting even more scary and serious than we thought.
Job hunting started in earnest and after a few weeks I received an offer – but the job was in Santa Fe, NM and would require we relocate there. Since our only child lives in Los Angeles, CA a move to New Mexico would get us much closer to her, and nearer a favorite cousin living in Taos, NM. So our plans started to take shape for our new adventure in the southwest.
The super crazy real estate market worked in our favor and our house sold before we listed it – I know crazy! The only problem was the buyers needed to move in sooner than expected. So plans started to come together very quickly. Housing in Santa Fe is the most unrealistic I’ve ever experienced. SO expensive! So little for SO much money! We frantically looked everywhere for a rental and finally found a very small, expensive, gross and dirty apartment that would be our temporary landing place.
My job continued while we relocated. Also, driving across country 2 times in the middle of a pandemic – not recommended. My husband found a job not long after we arrived in New Mexico. We started our house hunting and hoped we would find another fixer upper that we could afford. Lucky for us we had a great realtor, Jeff Assad who worked with us for almost a year to find something we could afford and that offered the opportunity to make it our own. January 6, 2021 we toured the house that we eventually would buy. It took 9 months to close the deal but we are happy with our new place and excited to start working on it.
Learning about Adobe
Living in New Mexico is unlike any place else we’ve ever experienced. We live about 35 minutes north of Santa Fe and it’s VERY dry. Fortunately, our property has an irrigation ditch running through it. There is an ancient network of ditches all throughout New Mexico. The ditches are called Acequias and are controlled by regional commissions. We pay yearly dues for the right to use our portion of the water that runs in the ditch. Our realtor Jeff is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to northern New Mexico water rights. You need to make sure you have rights to the well water on your property and any surface water.
So here we go again.
A new start in a new state. The house we bought is in pretty good shape. The property however is another story. It’s going to be a real challenge to landscape and garden here. There is an old very small adobe building (casita) on our property that we hope to renovate and add on to.
If you’ve been reading this blog since we started out in Vermont way back in 2010, or joined us when we lived in Maine, or even Harrisburg, PA, THANK YOU! What started out as a way to document all of our thrift and flea market adventures has grown to include our home renovation projects. It’s been a crazy ride since we started this blog, and sometimes there have been very long pauses between posts (sorry about that), but now that we are starting a new adventure, I’ll try my hardest to share our progress here and on our Instagram account. We hope you will check back and follow along. I’ll be sharing some photos from inside the house, adobe barn and casita soon.
