nuestra casa nueva!

we knew that we needed to move out of our old house by the end of february. our landlord had already rented the house out for march and april, so we had no choice. brenda and i started looking for a new place to live quite early on, but were disappointed with what was out there. houses were too expensive, too far away, too shabby and sometimes all of the above. we got disheartened and kind of gave up the search. there was also the possibility that we might end up living for free in this huge new mansion that our friends built, and having that glimmer of hope took even more of our motivation away.

about ten days before the end of february (i.e. coming down to the wire), our friend will called with a house he wanted to show us. will is a real estate agent in sayulita and has his ear to the ground for all kinds of deals. we saw the house and immediately loved it. its big – 4 bedrooms big – and has a nice open living space with a huge yard to boot. plus the main bedroom has a king size bed. i was worried that the rent was going to be too high, but they offered it to us for less than what we were paying in our old studio apartment!

it almost seemed too good to be true, and it kind of was. what we didn’t know at the time was that there was this guy andy who had been living in the house for free for some time. andy is a friend of the landlord’s and needed a place to stay after he broke up with his girlfriend. andy liked living there and was a bit… reluctant… to move. on the day we took possession of the house he still had all of his stuff in the house and was digging in his heels, despite having heard from the landlord and will that he had to be out. we ended up postponing our move by one more day to give andy one last chance to move out.

the next day i arrived with a carload of stuff and found andy in the house. luckily he was in the process of moving all of his gear out. it was my first time meeting him, and despite all of the drama that was unfolding between him, will and the landlord, he was pretty cool. he took a while to get all of his belongings, but after that he was gone and we moved in without any incident. its been smooth living since then – having more space is just so awesome. nayou gets to spread all his toys out and run around, rocky gets his own hang out area and i get lots of room to do yoga. win win win.

here is a tour of the new place:

and just for comparison’s sake, here is what our old place was like: