Update

Well we moved into the house this weekend.

For the last 4 weeks we have been doing some of the repairs that I mentioned before. So for anyone following this blog I will check off what we have accomplished.

Some of the projects on the need to do now list are:
1. replace all the light fixtures (mostly done)
2. replace all the outlets and light switches (mostly done)
3. replace all the locks (done)
4. paint the whole inside of the house (all except 2 bedrooms done)
5. tile the hallway
6. install a new kitchen faucet (done)
7. repair the bathroom water hook up and the toliet (toliet partially repaired, decided to wait to do the water hook up since we will be completely remodeling that bathroom)
8. install hardware in the bathrooms
9. clean (done)
10. install a new garage door opener (done)
11. remove and cover live wires (mostly done)
12. install ceiling fans in the bedrooms (d0ne)
13. replace the baseboards in the living room (done)
14. replace a few places of sheetrock (done)
15. purchase and build a pantry (purchased and building it this weekend)
16. install things like smoke alarms and thermostats (thermostat and 1 smoke alarm installed, 2 more to go)
17. replace mirrors in the bathrooms
18. shave down some door frames so that doors will close (done)
19. install shower rods in the bathrooms (1 of the 3)
20. install a step in the garage
21. have a new bedroom door built for the master

On the want to do list:
1. level the back yard
2. remove deck in the front
3. paint garage floor
4. build a deck in the back
5. create a built in pantry?
6. move a closet door to another wall
7. remodel kitchen with all new cabinetry, a buffet, and an island
8. tile back splashes the bathrooms with tubs
9. have a gray tub refinished to white (will be completed by the end of Nov.)
10. new cabinetry in one of the bathrooms (will be completed by the end of Nov.)
11. build out a larger shower in the master bath
12. resod the yard
13. remove a large tree in the back yard
14. install french patio doors in the kitchen and one of the bedrooms
15. install new front door

Furniture and things we still need to purchase:
1. sofa (leather?)
2. recliners
3. side tables
4. entertainment hutches
5. new tv
6. another queen or two twin beds with frames
7. king headboard
8. artwork
9. new appliances (stove and dishwasher and possibly a fridge)

So that is where we are. Now the house is full of boxes. We have managed to arrange the living room in a temporary arrangement until we can afford a new tv and stuff. And of course first order of business was to arrange our bedroom furniture.

One small problem that we have run into is that our vacuum keeps breaking. The carpet in the house had never been vacuumed before and was brand new so it keeps clogging up the hose.

Soon C. and G. will move in with us and we will have a house full.

And were in!

We officially closed on the house on Sept. 30th. The house is ours! I can't belive that it is finally ours.

Now we begin on the projects to get the house ready to move into. I am ready to move now but I know that I have to be patient.

Some of the projects on the need to do now list are:
1. replace all the light fixtures
2. replace all the outlets and light switches
3. replace all the locks
4. paint the whole inside of the house
5. tile the hallway
6. install a new kitchen faucet
7. repair the bathroom water hook up and the toliet
8. install hardware in the bathrooms
9. clean
10. install a new garage door opener
11. remove and cover live wires
12. install ceiling fans in the bedrooms
13. replace the baseboards in the living room
14. replace a few places of sheetrock
15. purchase and build a pantry
16. install things like smoke alarms and thermostats
17. replace mirrors in the bathrooms
18. shave down some door frames so that doors will close
19. install shower rods in the bathrooms
20. install a step in the garage
21. have a new bedroom door built for the master

On the want to do list:
1. level the back yard
2. remove deck in the front
3. paint garage floor
4. build a deck in the back
5. create a built in pantry?
6. move a closet door to another wall
7. remodel kitchen with all new cabinetry, a buffet, and an island
8. tile back splashes the bathrooms with tubs
9. have a gray tub refinished to white
10. new cabinetry in one of the bathrooms
11. build out a larger shower in the master bath
12. resod the yard
13. remove a large tree in the back yard
14. install french patio doors in the kitchen and one of the bedrooms
15. install new front door

Furniture and things we still need to purchase:
1. sofa (leather?)
2. recliners
3. side tables
4. entertainment hutches
5. new tv
6. another queen or two twin beds with frames
7. king headboard
8. artwork
9. new appliances (stove and dishwasher and possibly a fridge)

So as you can guess we have a lot on our plate right now. I don't know how much all of this is going to cost but we will start down the list and get as far as we can. As we save we will do more. We hope to be moved in with atleast the stuff on the first list down by November or December. I will be excited to have our first Christmas in the new house with all of our family.

I am going to end this post now so that I can go get started on gathering the things that we need to get tonight so that we can have a productive day at the house tomorrow.

Hurricane Ike

We assessed the damage to the new house and there is some minor damage. Most of the fence was down and there was a leak in the hall bath. We are not sure what the leak is from. It could be from the roof or the plumbing. It flooded the bathroom and caused the hallway carpeting to be wet.

We have tried to get ahold of our realtor but due to the storm she is busy. Speaking of realtors we fired our previous realtor. She almost cost us our current contract. Our first realtor irritated us because he would not return calls and the such but he was ok at what he did. We put up with him but then he decided to move to another state (not due to us but for personal reasons). So we were turned over to someone else in the same office. At first we thought that her quirkiness was cute but it quickly got on both our nerves. We would ask for multiple things and she would only deliver one of them. She would talk to me about something and I would ask her a question and then she would call M. back and talk to him. He would be irritated because he has not talked to me all day and she needed to talk to me, NOT him! So anyway...we fired her and a have yet another person from the office representing us. It has been an interesting ride. With all the hurricane clean up, the realtor is busy assessing her own damages (the new better one). Hopefully we will be able to get ahold of her soon and have the owner's insurance pay for the damages.

News Flash

I start this post with the news that we are all counter signed and are only waiting for closing for the house to be ours!!! I am excited that we are very close to having a home again. We are set to close around the end of September but we hope to capitalized on our fortunate situation and do a few things to the house before we move in.

Here are a few of the things that either have to be done or I would like to do:

make all the plumbing work
replace faucets especially leaking ones
repair sheetrock damage
install new baseboards around fireplace
paint the inside of the house
install a vent in one of the bathrooms
remodel kitchen and install new cabinetry and island
remodel master bath by knocking out a closet and enlarging the shower
modify the step down in the garage
move some shelving in the garage
replace all light fixtures with updated ones
install fans in all bedrooms
move a light fixture in one of the bedrooms to the center of the room
replace all outlet covers and some of the outlets
remove all live hanging wiring
replace counter top in one of the bathrooms
tile all bathrooms
install updated mirrors in the bathrooms
install new locks on exterior doors
remove a nonfunctioning spa
install a deck on the kitchen that wraps around the to the back bedroom
remove the deck in the front of the house

It is an extensive list but one that we can accomplish over time. I would say I would like to complete about 1/4 of it before we move in. We would like to try to move in by Thanksgiving or Christmas. Please continue to pray for us and this adventure that we are on. We will be searching out good contractors to do some of it so if you have an reccomendations please pass them on. Free labor is also good if you feel so inclined to donate some time and or any special skills that you have.

A Bit of Good News

Our offer was accepted!!!! So we move on to the next step. I am excited.

Let me back up a little bit...we put an offer on a house about a week and a half ago. Part of that contract included that the seller would repair the foundation if there were problems. We believed that there we problems and wanted to have it checked out. The seller at first countered our offer (it was low but doesn't hurt to try right??), we countered back and then we started investigating companies to inspect the foundation. We requested and received permission from the seller to have the foundation inspected before a final offer was accepted. After many phone calls to about 6 different foundation companies I was frustrated because the foundation companies wouldn't speak with me because I was not the owner. We finally contacted the seller and asked him to call the foundation companies and have an inspection.

So the signing of the contract was put on hold as the seller investigated the foundation issues. Come to find out that there are not really any issues that need to be addressed. M. talked to the foundation company that did the inspection directly to find out what they thought.

During this time, the seller had placed the house up for lease. I was so disappointed in this as I was afraid that they would not even consider our final counter offer. M. called the seller agent today and it turns out that they agreed to the offer. So tomorrow we go and initial all the paperwork and pay the fee. Then Saturday we will have a general inspector come and inspect the house from top to bottom. I am still not positive that everything is good and it will cost us at least $450 to find out if there are any surprises in the house. M. called an inspector that is also a structual engineer who can give us a detailed report. Hopefully on Saturday we will know more and I pray that all will go well.

I can already see us living in this house and I am excited that we are further in the process than we ever have been before.

On a side note, I am also excited about going back to work. This is a change in outlooks from last week. Please pray for us for God's will in the house process and that we stay healthy as we head back to work and the busiest time of year for us.

Holding Pattern

We made the offer on the house that we liked but we are now in a holding pattern. The house needs some foundation work and the seller has agreed to have a foundation inspection and make the decision as to whether they are willing to fix it. We hope to hear something by the end of the week. Until then we wait patiently.

It seems that some people have been concerned as to why M. and I are currently living in my family. We simply are inbetween houses. It is not because there is any concern with us. So we have this little efficiency dorm type room where we have our bed and our couch and recliner and TV. Other than sharing cooking and bathroom facilities we are fairly self sufficient. The A/C in our little apartment doesn't work so great so we have fans to keep us cool.

That is all for now folks!

House Hunt Resumes

So we recently found out that our buyer realtor was moving to D.C. so we were assigned a new one to continue our house hunt. This weekend we went and looked at a few homes. One of the homes that we looked at was one we had seen several times before. For some reason we continue to be drawn to this house. It is a 4 bedroom and a study. It is a small 4 bedroom but is in a really desirable area of town. It fits all our needs and with a few modifications over the coming years could even have everything I want. So after visiting it for the 4th time we decided that it was time that we made an offer on it. Unfortunately there might be a little foundation problem that needs to be corrected. We are including a stipulation in the contract to have the seller fix the problem. This is required in order for us to get a loan for the house. We are currently waiting for our realtor to properly prepare the contract for us to sign and officially make the offer. Hopefully by tomorrow we will have officially put an offer in and then we begin the waiting game.

We will pray that the seller will be willing to make the repairs. That might mean that next week we might be doing an inspection and see what comes of that. We are to the point of placing it in God's hands. I know that I can't predict how a seller might respond. I hope that the fact that the house has been on the market for more than a year will make him more willing to make some consessions including fixing the foundation. I pray that if that is the case that it is an easy fix for the sake of making everything easier.

Please join M. and I in praying for the appropriate outcome of this offer.

We are out

We finally moved out this past weekend. Thanks to our friends who helped us pack and move some of our furniture to our new location. Without them I think I would have had a mental breakdown. We were out mostly by last Sunday with a little bit of cleanup on Monday. I had planned to cleanup on Monday and Tuesday but with TS Edouard approaching on Tuesday I had to finish everything on Monday. This included touch up paint and minor repairs. On Wednesday we closed on our old home. This was a bittersweet moment for me. On one hand I was glad that we were done with it so that we can move on but on the other this was my home. The fact that I don't have another home to move into made it all the more hard to sign away my house.

I never thought that I would feel that way about that house. While it was the first house that M. and I lived in as husband and wife it was not MY house. He had bought the house even before we met and I just acquired it when we married. But for the last two years it has grown on me and become my home. So as I sat in the title company office with just M. and I and the title company representative and signed away my house it was not a good feeling. I paid a bunch of money to some realtors that I haven't even met. Add to that leaving there feeling homeless.

Since we haven't found a new house yet we are staying with my parents. I am greatful that they have opened their doors to us but it is super difficult to go from a 3 bedroom house to a converted garage.

We also recently got a new realtor to help us buy a new house. Our old one moved away to another state. Looking for a house is stressful too. I live in a pocket of stress right now. I am sure that it will smooth out eventually but for now I go day by day.

And the packing begins...

So we whole heartedly began packing today. We have until Friday night to get most of it packed and ready for movers both Saturday and Sunday. Yesterday we were supposed to get started but I was not "in the mood." I could not motivate myself to do it. Today M. stayed home and helped me get started. We started in the worst of the worst...the office. We spent the whole day going through files and organizing it getting it ready to pack. I shredded 5 garbage bags of old files. I also got some of the living room done.

This whole process has been very emotional for me. I can't even explain it. I am a little sad about leaving the house but at the same time ready to move on. It just seems that even though we sold the house and we are in position to move on...I am stuck and everyone else is moving on around me. I think that this is in part to losing a job that I wanted and M. getting the job that he wanted. I am happy for him but scared that he will be gone so much and we don't have a place to call our own that we will lose any sembalance of the life that we once had. What will happen to our time together? What will happen to the plans that brought us to the decision to sell the house and move in the first place? Will I be able to live with my parents again? I am not the single woman that I was the last time that I lived with them. What will happen to our privacy and ability to share a life as husband and wife?

I feel completely stuck in a rut and I am not happy in the life that I see coming ahead. I will continue to rely on God. That is all that I can do right now. Perhaps I will become more independent and it will turn out to be a good thing. Perhaps that independence will put space in my marriage. Perhaps it will put too much space. Part of the reason for this move was to be closer to family and also to friends, but right now I feel like I am not fun to be around and would be best to be left alone. So perhaps I will throw myself into my work. Without having to be responsible to get M. because we will no longer be carpooling together, I see myself working longer hours. Not because I want to but because I have nothing to go home for. A garage? A fight with the parents? A sleeping husband?

While I have no one to blame for how I feel...abandonment it not a fun or good feeling. I was still trying to figure out how to be married and now I have to figure out how to be my own person again. Add to that many layers of tension in the house that I will be living due to other situations that revolve around 5 adults living under the same roof.

So I am just venting. Apparently I wear my emotions on my face as whenever I go out right now I have the whole world worrying about me. I don't know that I want that. I think that it makes me want to stay in more. Not a good feeling when you only have a place to stay for 3 more days.

Well we shall see what tomorrow brings. Another day of packing... we are supposed to help my mom pack the room that we are going to stay in. I am worried that the room won't be ready for us to move on Saturday. Anytime I try to discuss with my mom what needs to be done I am frustrated. Apparently I am easily frustrated these days...who would have guessed?

I am rambling now...so I will head to bed for tonight. Thanks for listening.

4th and final

Well, I have been at a loss about how I wanted to write this. I think I wrote in my last post that we received our 4th offer. Well...it is the 4th and final. We are sold! Well at least it looks that way. We close on the 6th. So it seems that all is going forward with the sale of our house.

We fixed the A/C. Of course it was way more than I thought it would be but needless to say it is done. We still have to fix a window before the 6th but I think that is it as far as repairs are concerned.

I told you that I would update you on how our house hunting was going. Unfortunately it is bad news. We looked and looked and crunched numbers and crunched them again and between figuring out what we can afford and what kinds of houses are out there in that price range, we were not pleased with the pickins. So we are not buying a house right now! We thought that we might try and see if the right one was out there for us and try to move in before school started but it seems that was not in God's plan for us. We did find a couple that we really liked. Several of them we just a little too far from our parents and since being close to family was the whole reason for this move we ruled those out. We did make an offer on two others but I wasn't completely satisfied. so we continued to look. Our continued search soon ruled out one of the ones that we made an offer on. I think that we both we uncomfortable with the fact that the home was at the top of the price range for the neighborhood. Buying a home at the top price point in the neighborhood does not bode well for resale options. So we withdrew that offer. We had actually made an offer on two homes at the same time. The other offer was a really good one and the house was great but we came in second in line. I guess that one really wasn't meant to be. In our continued search we found a 3rd home that we were interested in but there was already an offer on that one as well.

That left us with no where to live. We started frantically searching for something to rent, either house or apartment. I was so disheartened. I didn't want to spend more money on rent than we would on a morgage and that left us renting some rat hole of an apartment. I was very uncomfortable with this. I was also realizing that with just a little bit more of a down payment we could afford a better house more like what we want and not settle for something just because it is all that we can afford. Seriously the difference in only like $10,000. I started thinking..."Is there a way to save more money?" I started thinking about other posibilities. It occurred to me that my mom has a converted garage and maybe we could arrange something with that.

I talked to M. about it and we decided that we could live in my parents converted garage if my parents agreed. I spoke with my mom about it and she and my dad agreed. Perhaps reluctantly but agreed nevertheless. I hope that it will all work out. For me, although I know that it will be stressful it will also mean that we can save quite a bit of money very quickly. In the midst of all this M. got a job offer for a better job that will pay a little bit more so that will be helpful toward our goal of saving more money. I am happy for him because he has been trying for this job for three years more or less. I know that he will do great at it and I am proud of him.

But back to my point. For the time being we will be living with my parents. I hope and pray that this goes well. Mainly I pray that the communication remains open and patience abounds. My parents and sister are having to work frantically to clear the room out as it was full of junk. We have to get a fast move on packing our whole house. It will be a small miracle to get everything done in about a week. We will keep looking for a house and hopefully be able to jump on it as soon as we possibly can. I am tired of coming in second on the houses that we are interested in. Please pray for us!

Good News

Well, we got word yesterday that the inspection went well and all the buyers were asking for is the A/C to be serviced. Oddly enough, we had already scheduled the A/C guy to today to do those repairs/service. So of course, you can imagine how excited we were to hear that if we agreed to have the A/C serviced they buyer was forfeiting the right to wait though the rest of the option period. So we signed the papers and sent them back immediately and effectively ended the option period.

We went looking for a place for us on Monday and found some homes that we really liked. We came home and crunched the numbers and discovered, however, that we could not afford as much as we thought. So we are now considering something priced a little lower than we originally thought.

Today we are hitting the streets again and going to look a few lower priced homes. I will update here when I know more.

4th contract

We received a 4th contact on our house last week. Not 4 at a time but if you have been following, we have already received and had cancelled 3 contracts. Anyway, I am really hoping that this one sticks. They had the inspector come this Saturday. We are waiting to hear back their demands on that one.

Friday night we were able to fix a few things around the house in anticipation of the inspection. The last two inspections were passed on to us so I made a list of things that needed our attention. Now of course, since our home was built in 1980, there are a few problems that we are just not willing to deal with. These are not things that are a danger to anyone buying the home but just things that you would expect when you buy a 28 year old home. We did fix the garbage disposal and switch though. I am finally able to use my garbage disposal after at least 4 months of non use. Boy did I miss it!!! Anyway, the switch was bad and under the disposal some of the wiring had come out of the conduit. Our friend C. was able to be our handy man and fix those two items. Also we were able to install a dryer vent cover on the exterior of the house.

So as we wait, hopefully, to hear something...I have begun to dream about a new home again. The timing of this offer has come that if we move quickly we might be able to move in before school starts. We will be going tomorrow to look at some homes for us to buy. I don't know what will come of this looking adventure. Saturday we went and drove around the areas we are interested in. I am reservedly excited about tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow we will also hear something about how the inspection went.

I have to say that I was disappointed with the quality of the inspector. We we arrived home late last night after attending a friends birthday party and discovered that the inspector had left the water in one of the bathrooms dripping and we found a dirty towel and pencil in the middle of the living room floor. It amazes me the differences in inspectors. The first inspector quoted 2003 code on a 1980's house...obviously a little over the top (42 pages over the top). No wonder the people got scared off. The second inspector was pretty good and the report was about what I expected. This inspector was sloppy in my opinion. That might work in our favor. Maybe they missed a few things. Funnily enough, we gave the couple that has a contract on the house right now a copy of the previous report that both M. and I agreed with. We offered to fix a few things. They decided to spend the money anyway and get their own inspection. Could have saved themselves $400. Anyway, we already fixed one of the three things we offered to fix. We will do the other things soon but I guess we will see what else they ask for.

Anyway, I will update again soon. Pray that tomorrow goes well. Also pray that M. finds a new job soon. We are really hoping that he will be able to move a step up the career ladder. Especially since our current jobs will not be offering even a cost of living raise this year. I am already finding it hard to adjust our budget to accomodate the rising cost of gas and groceries.

Contracts Come and Go

I must correct something that I said in the last post. When I said that it had been exactly 4 months since we put the house on the market I had forgotten that I had started that post in May. As of July 6th the house has been on the market 4 months.

So as of today we have had 3 offers on the house. Our first offer came about a month or so into the process. I got really excited. We had taken a break from looking for a new house for us for about 3 weeks. We had just decided to start looking again. I called our buyer realtor and requested to look at some homes but he told me that he was going out of the state for two weeks. At the time I wasn't too worried because we didn't have an offer. Little did I know that there was a message on the machine at home telling us that there had been an offer. We we out to dinner and when we returned home and got the message waiting for us we were excited. It was a decent offer so we took it. Of course this put us in a big hurry to find us a place to move to. But I had just spoken with our buyer realtor and he was going to be out of town. We called the agency and another buyer agent was able to show us some homes. I was really excited and didn't want to wait. I wanted to find our new home. For the first time it felt real that we would actually sell it.

Let me take you on a side note here...I am in the position of selling my first home before I have bought my first home. Since M. already owned the house when we got married I kind of inherited being a home owner. For me that is a really weird place to be since I have not been through this process before and I don't know what to expect.

Anyway, the weekend came and went and we looked at some houses. And then Monday came! And the buyer on our house backed out. No reason given. My little dream came crashing down. I was so disappointed. I thought for sure we would be able to move before the end of the year and all our plans would fall into place. I was mistaken.

About a month later we got another offer and I was a lot more cautious this time. I didn't want to get excited until I was sure that this was for real but the buyer had cash and wanted to move quickly so we had to find something quickly. Also we were now approaching the end of the school year and for teachers that is a very busy time. Since both M. and I are teachers our lives were in something of an uproar. We were also preparing to leave the country for vacation. The buyer this time had an inspection done. That was one step further than we got the last time. Unfortunately the inspection was over the top and of course a 1980 house doesn't meet 2003 code!!!!

At the same time we found a house that we really liked and we made an offer of it. While we were waiting to hear if the seller would accept our offer we got word that there was another offer for the house that we wanted. We had to make what is called a best and final. Not half and hour after we made our best and final we found out that our buyer decided to back out. They didn't even try to approach us about repairs. We had to pull our offer on the new house since we cannot afford two morgages.

Not soon after we left on vacation and while in another country we got another offer. It was not a good offer and after much agony we decided to take it just so that we can be rid of the house. They new buyer was having to finance at 100% and asked us to cover a huge chunk of her closing costs. She did the inspection and approached us for some repairs. We agreed to do a few but not all. She continued to come back and ask us for more and more things...even altering the original agreed upon offer. We finally had to call it quits and say final is final. She promptly backed out. Luckily, we had decided to wait until the option period was over to start looking for something for us. On that note we were spared the disappointment of losing another house that we wanted.

So we are back to square one. I have to say I don't like this emotional roller coster one bit!!!!

First Plans Lived Out

I have thought about making this blog for quite some time now. I want to share with others my experiences in buying and selling of my first home. I enter this situation in a slightly strange situation, although I am sure that many other women have been through something similar. I married my wonderful husband almost 2 years ago and when we got married he already owned the house we currently live in. He bought it about 5 years prior to us getting married, in fact, a year before we even met.


We started discussing our plans for our future about a year ago. M. was trying to move up in his career and we realized that it might mean moving. Unfortunately it was not his time to move up the corporate ladder just yet but it really made us get our priorities in order.

In addition we had other reasons for wanting to make a move to be closer to our family and friends. Although, I really like our current house it is over an hour from almost all our friends and family. This makes for really lonesome living. Even our jobs are not that close. We commute about 35-50 minutes one way to our jobs. Luckily M. and I work close together so we are able to car pool. With the rising cost of gas prices that is a good thing. Being closer to our family and friends means being able to hang out with friends that we miss more often and seeing our family more often. It might also mean having a few helping hands wehn we might need them with children in the future.

Anyway, back to my thoughts on moving. After careful planing and some repairs we put our house on the market in March of this year. Unfortuately, our house is on the low end of the market so we were not able to update the house in an extreme way and expect to make the money back in the current market. We did a few repairs and painted both bathrooms and most of the trim work in the house. We also had a roof leak fixed and the sheetrock below it repaired. The biggest change that we made was to install a deck in the back yard. It is not a large deck but is covering what used to be a pond that we took out about a year ago.

So we are on the market. Since this post is a little late in coming I will mention that at this point the house has been on the market for 4 months now. In fact it is exactly 4 months today! Not what we would have thought when we started this process a while ago. I will talk about our adventures in looking for a new house to buy in another post. For now this post has come to an end. More to come...