The Hole

I’m constantly amazed at how fast technology is moving and how quickly life is changing for all of us. Time and time again it is brought home to me how our lives have begun to revolve around these gadgets and how we feel as if we’re missing an appendage when they go away!

I have never appreciated the beauty of today’s technologies more than in the last year for sure. Some of you may know that Jeff and I became homeowners on October 1st, 2009. We’d been tossing around the idea of purchasing real estate for quite some time, but hadn’t really committed to the idea until about February of last year. We began researching location and options and quickly fell in love with the idea of owning a condo with a view in Belltown (downtown Seattle, WA). Long story short, we were able to find the crummiest ‘house’ in the best location! Our condo (The Hole as it will forever more be called) was in a short sale situation and was unbelievably trashed. But, the building was fabulous, the views divine, and the layout exactly what we’d been hoping for. And because we had the best real estate agent ever, we were successful in purchasing our first home-from the other side of the world.

From the moment we began researching condos for sale and trying to understand what the buying process entailed, we were glued to the Internet. All of the condos we looked at, including the one we bought, we found online. We left Seattle in July still not under contract. Yet we were eventually able to get our offer accepted, have the inspection and appraisal done and shared with us, and sign all relevant loan documents and scan them and email them back. All from Bangkok, Thailand (and at one point Jeff was having documents signed while he was in Brussels, Belgium as well!). That was all the easy part. Now began the massive cleaning and remodel of The Hole…

The idea of remodeling a kitchen is daunting, but throw in being thousands of miles away and it seems almost impossible. Yet, that is exactly what we’re doing. Our best friend is project manager and takes frequent iPhone pictures and sends them our way to keep us updated. My sister is personal shopper and sends text messages from her cell phone to my email account to keep me in the loop and to get any questions answered. The other day we had to coordinate plans for the countertop install so we Skyped our friend on his computer. We realized we needed my sister involved, so he called her at work on her cell and put her on speaker phone. The four of us then coordinated schedules and details-morning for us in Bangkok, our friend at home in Seattle eating his dinner, my sister from her work in Bellingham. I found myself shaking my head in wonderment.

So far we have purchased all of our appliances online, we’ve researched on the Internet green products to use in our new environmentally friendly ‘Hole’, and we’ve set up online bill pay to fund all of these purchases-even down to our HOA dues each month! We’re heading into the home stretch and the prospect of seeing the final product in a few weeks is exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time.

Of course, having fabulous family and friends is what makes it really possible-my mother is super cleaner woman, her best friend has an eye for design and gets things done (she wins the award for tackling the dirtiest jobs, miraculously getting stuff clean AND surviving!), my sister is an expert shopper who finds amazing deals and the coolest stuff, my brother is a perfectionist that has his own flooring business, and our best friend is a detail oriented project manager with contractor connections…how lucky are we?

So while I know that technology made our dream possible, it really is our friends and family that did the hard parts! My most favorite thing about The Hole? That it is all of ours together, created with everyone as a part of the whole (Hole!).

Thanks family and friends from the bottom of my heart-you will never realize the depth of my gratitude. See you at The Hole in June!