House Update 2

Again the picture in this post doesn't relate to the post at all.  These little guys kept us entertained last summer on vacation.  Hopefully by the next time I post I'll have pictures of the new house.

Let's see, where to start on the house update.  Well, the beginning might be considered to be the closing so I'll start there.  The closing happened on Tuesday, June 19th, but at 4:00 pm rather than 9:30 am.  The mortgage company finally got my loan approved and to the Title Company at 2:30, so they cut it kind of close.  Luckily, I had bugged them and the Title company enough on Monday that they gave me an estimated closing costs and I got a cashier's check for that amount.  Otherwise I couldn't have made it to an open bank before the closing, especially since even though they had gotten paperwork to the Title Company, they still hadn't gotten my final closing costs to me.


Anyway, the good news is I have a new house.  I somehow figured that once it was mine, things would calm down a little and I'd be less stressed.  In fact, the house is still consuming my life pretty much.  So much to do and to get done.  And I now am a firm believer that construction-type jobs never happen on an actual schedule. 


This week I've been having the entire interior painted and I had a plumber put in a new water heater.  Monday I had cable and internet connected.  Today and tomorrow, I'm having the three bathrooms and the laundry room re-tiled with ceramic tile.    So that's where I'll be tomorrow all day, baby-sitting tilers.   Actually, that's what I'm doing right at this moment, but I haven't been here all day.  A friend of mine has been sitting with them while my sister and I worked on getting my current house and garage packed.  I began at 5:40 am, she arrived at 6:50 am, and the two of us worked straight until 2:00 pm.  Can you say "exhausted"?  I'm going to sleep well tonight.  I just hope I can get out of bed tomorrow.  Packing is hard work!


I wish I could say that we got all the packing done.  We did make quite a significant dent in it.  And we did get the garage mostly packed.  We just gave out at 2:00-ish this afternoon.  I'll still be doing some frantic packing before moving day, which is July 5th.  And the poor cat-children. They don't know it yet but they'll be spending moving day at the vet. 


After my sister and I had all the packing we could take today we came up here and looked the house over, and I stayed while my sister and my friend went about their businesses.  The tilers are determined to get the tile in all four areas laid today so tomorrow they can grout, so they'll be here awhile yet.  That means I'll be here awhile yet.  And currently I have no working toilets in the house.   They're laying the third area now.   It's going to look GOOD when it's done.


Too bad the new carpet won't be installed before I move in.  It's going to be kind of a pain to leave everything on the wood floor areas until they can get the carpet installed.  Can't be helped though.  If the carpet doesn't get here, it doesn't get here.  


So that's the latest house update.  Everything is coming together, even if it's in a slightly more disjointed manner than I would have liked.   I'll be so happy to have it all done.  

House Update

It's been awhile since I blogged and after this weekend it will probably be longer, so I figured I'd better get one in.  First of all the pictures in this blog have nothing to do with the blog itself.  They're just pretty pictures my sister sent from her place last Fall when the aspens changed color and then the first snow on October 9th.  They are also serious wishful thinking because I just mowed my lawn and the temperature on my thermometer is 98 degrees.

Anyway, today's blog post is a house update.

The closing on the new house is Tuesday.  Three days away.  I'm finally feeling like it's actually going to happen, so I've started trying to schedule things.  I met with a painter to measure the house and talk about having the entire interior painted.   I've set up to have a carpet and tile installer come next week after the closing and measure for and schedule the carpet and tile.  I've picked out carpet and tile and have a pretty good idea about the paint.  Things are moving.

My real estate agent almost gave me heart failure yesterday.   She left a message on my cell phone (I was drinking margaritas and floating in my friend's pool.)  The message started: " I'm sorry to have to tell you . . ".  My heart just stopped right there.  I just knew she was going to say the seller had decided not to sell.  Instead, it was that the seller wanted to be out of the house by 5:00 pm Tuesday instead of being out by the closing Tuesday morning.  *heart starts back up*  Before I could call her, she called me again saying, never mind, they've decided they can be out at closing.   Good thing I was mellow from margaritas or I might not have survived that initial jolt.

So even though the mortgage company is STILL dragging their feet, the title company has the closing scheduled for Tuesday morning.  Hopefully the mortgage company will finish up their end by early enough on Monday to give me time to get a cashier's check.  I don't want to push the closing back.  I have a refrigerator being delivered to that house on Wednesday.

*grinning*  Yes, I went and bought a refrigerator/freezer this morning.  It's just a small one, for in the garage.  I've been meaning to get a garage refrigerator ever since my house refrigerator died that time and left me without one.  So I figured I'd get one and put it at the new house.  The move won't be for another couple of weeks after closing so it will be nice to have a way to keep things cold for the workman, and for me or whoever hangs out there with the workman until my big refrigerator gets moved.

Lord, there's so many details involved in moving.  I had forgotten.  And I haven't even really started packing, though possibly I should get serious about that now.  I have another project for today.  Call moving companies and get some quotes and schedule the move.  Right now, I'm hoping to move the days right after July 4th.  Sometime between Wednesday July 4th and Sunday July 8th.  From talking to the painters - they can be done by then.  Hopefully the flooring people can be done by then also.  

This week I also met with the owner of a lease management company about leasing my current house when I move out.   That meeting went very well, and I was very favorably impressed by him.  I'm no longer worried about leasing this house.  I told him I'd want to start leasing it August 1st, so that's another thing that's moving right along.  

Anyway, that's what going on with me these days.  You can see why I might not get around to blogging for the next little while.  See ya on the far side!   

June?

Wow.  That's hard to believe.  It's actually June.   2012 is speeding by at the speed of light.  

I don't have much to talk about today, but I figured I'd blog anyway.   I'm about as motivated today as the cat-kids.    I'm still waiting to hear from the mortgage company about the appraisal and loan.   I suspect they're not in a huge hurry since the closing date isn't until June 19th.   Still, I really wish they'd let me know something.


Last weekend I went browsing.   Not shopping, because I was looking for stuff for the new house.   I'm not going to actually buy anything until I know for sure I'm buying that house.   Buying things now felt like a good way to jinx everything and have it fall through.   But I did visit six furniture stores and the furniture departments in four department stores.   I didn't find anything that just said, yes! I need this for the new house, but I got a lot of ideas for how I can arrange furniture in there and what type of furniture I want in there.  


Besides the furniture browsing, I also went and made decisions about paint colors, carpet and tile.   I really do want to have some fix-up done before I move in, and although again I didn't buy anything, I figured it would save time later to have already decided on colors and styles.   So I spent a lot of time driving around and looking around and almost no time buying anything.  That's actually highly unusual for me since I love to buy stuff.   I did buy more packing boxes but that was all.


Nope, haven't done any more packing, but I'm ready to!   I now have a good stock of different size packing boxes, but again the only thing worse than packing them, would be unpacking them here if the house falls through.


So I guess I'm ready and poised to go forward.   Which is probably why I'm not being very patient about waiting to hear from the mortgage company.  


We got some rain this last week, so my lawn will need mowing soon.   It also cooled it off a bit.  We haven't officially hit 100 this year (yet!) but we've come darn close and May was DRY!!  This week's inch+ of rain was all we had in May, which is considerably below the monthly average for May.   Luckily we were very wet in December, January and February, so we're still above normal for this area for the year, but I really hate extended periods without rain.   Brown is not my favorite color when it comes to growing things.


I realized that if I don't sell this house, I'm going to have to come over here and maintain the yard - water and mow, etc.   Which means either buying another mower or lugging mine between the two houses.   And if it's a dry year, that also means coming over twice a week to water the yard.  Okay, I'm kind of slow, but I didn't think about it before.   Guess I need to see if a rental management company will also do that kind of thing, or make sure the renters do.


Anyway, I'll worry about that later.  That's about all I have to say today.