We moved away from Austin to Las Cruces, New Mexico just under 4 weeks ago. At that point we had owned our house in Las Cruces for about a month, but it had been undergoing renovations and we had been staying in our travel trailer. When we moved in, the renovations were almost complete, but the moving van basically unloaded into the garage so we could begin settling in slowly as each portion of the project was completed. As a result, we have been very busy for the past month.

But we want to share the story of renovating and moving in.

Soon we will also post some photos of the area and our outings. But today: The House.


The front yard

 The front door walkway

 The Back yard

Inside the living room before any work was done. Please note that the carpet, walls, ceiling, shutters, and ceiling fans are pink. The photos do not do it justice. It was real pink!

 Just as the remodeling was beginning. Among other things, they were about to cut a big pass-though in the wall to help join the living room with what was the dining room.

 Demo on the carpet and tile in the living room.

 Living room with new paint and tile flooring.

 The almost finished look: We moved the dining room into the portion of the living room that was around behind the fireplace as well as opening the wall for the pass-through into a new sitting area.

 The old look in the kitchen - it was the only non-pink room, but the black and blue and white didn't seem right for us.

 The new paint and tile in the kitchen.

  The old dining room.

 The mirrored wet-bar in the old dining room. This is where we cut open the pass-through.

The empty old dining room. Note the odd wood panel in the corner. It was for access to storage under the stairs.

The new sitting room - with the new door to storage space under the stairs. (The Harry Potter room.)

Looking into the new sitting area and the stairs up to the Master Bedroom.

The new sitting room.

The new pass-through.

 The other side of the new pass-through.

The downstairs bedroom (guest room) before renovations. Really, it was pink!

 The new guest room. Come visit!

The old pink carpet in the stairs. 

The stairs in process. 

The finished stairs.

The previous owners had a separate sitting area upstairs next to the Master Bedroom. We converted it into our office.

The Master Bedroom under previous management. 

The new Master Bedroom. Ours. 

We are nearly settled in now and leave tomorrow for a small camping trip in the nearby mountains. More travel posts will be coming soon.

In early April of this year we spent a week in the Gila National Forest, camping at the Gila Hot Springs and visiting the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. It was very nice and we had a great time. However, the next week we drove into Las Cruces and ended up making an offer on a house - which we should close on this week and move into over the next couple of weeks.

Because buying a house turns out to be distracting, we never got around to posting any pictures from the Gila part of our trip. Today we seem to have caught up to ourselves, and so a quick post of a beautiful camping trip almost 2 months ago..


To begin, some flowers from along the way

Various scenes from the Gila River and the Gila National Forest

 Elk

 A Vulture and the sliver of the new moon at sunset.

 Mike walking below the cliff dwellings.

Snow falling in the valley just east of Gila Hot Springs

The Cliff Dwellings

The white spots in this photo are of snow fluries

And some Birds

A Robin

 A White-Breasted Nuthatch

 One that is not in the books

 A Mexican Black Hawk

 And a female Broad-Tailed Hummingbird

After talking about it for several years, we have made the leap and will be moving to New Mexico (Probably in late June or early July). We made an offer on a house in Las Cruces a few weeks ago while camping in the Gila National Forest, and it was accepted. We should close by the end of May. Then there will be some remodeling. We will be traveling back and forth over the next month or so as things progress.

We will miss our many friends and family in Austin, but we believe we will be returning on visits pretty often. And we hope to have visitors come to Las Cruces too. 

Our new house as seen from the street. 

Our backyard

 The view of the Organ Mountains from the second floor.

We are not posting any photos of the inside yet, because it needs new paint and flooring. We'll show you all more of it as it progresses.