A&J - Our First Home

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, we took the plunge! Terrifying, exciting, nerve wracking and wonderful. We bought our first home in beautiful and sunny Aruba. It's a cute, single-story, duplex, that's being used as storage for a local furniture store. As it's been unoccupied for almost a year, we have our work cut out for us! DIY crash courses are likely to be in order.

As most of you are hundreds of miles away, we thought we'd share our journey with you through this digital medium. We hope you'll enjoy reading about and looking at our mini-adventures and accomplishments (as well as our immenent disasters) as much as we will enjoy (or despise) experiencing them.

Love, Julie & Alex

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DIY madness

October 5, 2009

Well...we are officially home-owners! Deeds have been signed, water, gas and electricity have been connected, and the first days of demo and general mayhem have passed more or less uneventfully. Alex & I are happily covering ourselves in dust, paint and grime for the best cause ever: our first home.

Oct 1st: Signing at the Notary

And for those of you who need proof that we are actually attempting some things on our own:

Alex: Demo Derby - Taking down the ceiling Julie: Finger Painting - kitchen cabinets

Naturally there are still a few things we will not be doing ourselves, such as strenghening the ceiling construction in the bed- and bathrooms, as well as installing the new bathrooms. Luckily Oscar (our go to DIY expert) and the boys from Banjolux are lending a helping hand in those areas.

Oscar: Adding ceiling beams Jon: First tiles are going up!

Proudest moment: setting up the scaffolding with just the two of us - Alex was convinced it wasn't possible, but we managed! :)

Posted by Julie Tchong

H-Day

October 1, 2009

It's here: the day we become house owners. It's 7:07 AM and we're both up and awake, Alex is even dressed and ready to go into work for a few hours. Neither of us can sleep a minute longer, a malady we started suffering from about a week ago: wideawakefromthemomentyouwakeupcositsallsoexciting-itis.

As Alex goes off to work I grab my OJ and yoghurt and head for the terras to enjoy the view while it's still ours. The sun isn't high enough yet to turn the sea into the field of turquoise that take...

Posted by Julie Tchong

"Quickie"

September 29, 2009

We were at a furniture store last weekend and struck up a conversation with one of the sales-girls. She and her husband are also looking for a house. She commented on the fact that we found a house so quickly and wondered what our strategy was. Quite simply really: Know your budget and then spend EVERY spare moment searching.

First we went online to orientate. Almost immediately the CASNAN site became our best friend. Besides being able to search for local listings, it also gave an instant o...

Posted by Julie Tchong

What's in a Bag?

September 28, 2009

Someone at work noticed that I'd been doing something a bit out of the ordinary: I was only using one handbag. Truth be told, I'm carrying so much extra stuff around since we decided to buy, that I couldn't be bothered to keep switching all my stuff from bag to bag.

So what "extra bagage" does buying a house require? For me it was measuring tape (for rooms, furniture & more), 2 notebooks (one for scribbles about ideas, tips, tricks and prices, and one for important/decided things), extra pens...
Continue reading...

Posted by Julie Tchong

Our Site is Live!

September 28, 2009

Welcome Friends and Family!

We've decided to start a virtual diary of our latest adventure: buying our first home. This is our first blog entry: namely the launch of this website. What did we upload for you? All the pictures we've got of the house pre-signing, clutter and all. So if you want to see what mess we got ourselves into, go ahead and click on the links provided below!

Posted by Julie Tchong