Exchange Zones

We are interested in a home exchange (simultaneous or non-simultaneous) for 3 to 6 weeks during July and August, 2013 and hopefully with car exchange as well. Our home has enough beds for six people and our car is classified as a five passenger small SUV. We have a Golden Retriever mix (Ruggles) and a cat (Snickers) that can be boarded if our exchange partners wish to travel around the area. Our animals go outside during the day and come in at night for petting so we would love to have exchangers who love animals. Our preferred time of travel would be between Mid-July and Mid-August, 2013.

THE PEOPLE
We are both healthy 73 year olds. Lorraine spent 18 years as a co-owner of an antiques shop. She also taught art in the public schools and privately for a few years before going into the antique business. Bob was a business faculty member at a local university for 34 years. We both retired in 1995 and have been busy ever since!! We have two daughters and a son who live about a three hour drive from our home. We have two grandchildren. Bob enjoys walking, biking, wood carving and reading. Lorraine is interested in flower gardening, walking, biking and reading. Both Bob and Lorraine also enjoy traveling, antique collecting and helping our children with their home projects. We are experienced home exchangers as we exchanged with two different families in England, a family in The Netherlands, a family in Belgium and a family in Norway. In addition, we lived in Sheffield, England for 4 months in 1988 while on sabbatical. We also lived for a semester in Torino, Italy; Jena, Germany and Santiago, Chile while Bob taught in these cities.

THE HOME
Our home is on the local register of Historic Homes which has been modernized in a way that retains its charm, yet yields to our present-day life style. The center portion of our home is a log structure that dates back to about 1803. The major enlargement was done in the late 1800s and we added on an addition in 1972 and another in 1991. However, these additions have been carefully integrated so that one cannot tell where one addition ends and another begins. We did expose one of the log walls inside so that we can enjoy the beauty of early building techniques. Our second floor has three bedrooms (upstairs porch off the master bedroom), a project room (computer, scanner, stereo, TV) and a full bathroom upstairs. The downstairs has an up-to-date kitchen, dining room, laundry room, living-room (TV, VCR/DVD), three unnamed rooms that can be used for sitting and relaxing (record player, CD and tape player), a half bathroom and a screened-in porch (comfortable chairs and TV). Our home has central heating and air conditioning. We have a fairly large yard (3/4 acre)(1.214 hectares), with a vegetable garden, berry patch, many flowers and a small fish pond. We have a large garage with a Ford Escape (small SUV) and a small Ford pickup truck.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD
The City of Beavercreek is only a few miles from Dayton, Ohio. Beavercreek is a quiet and safe residential town of about 45,000 people spread out over a large rural/suburban area. Within a few miles of our home we have several bike trails (we have two new bikes available), two large shopping malls, farms, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, many restaurants, several movie and stage theaters, art museums, natural history museums, Native American historical sites, 3 scenic rivers with canoe rental opportunities, two well known “antique shop” towns, minor league baseball park and music venues of all sorts. The driving times to various cities: Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio/1 hour; Indianapolis, Indiana/2 ½ hours; Fort Wayne, Indiana/3 hours; Chicago, Illinois/5 hours; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania/4 hours; Nashville, Tennessee/5 hours.