Life in our Shoes

Archive for the ‘Moving’ Category

I haven’t updated here in a while! I hadn’t realized it until just now.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind over here. We have been back and forth on whether or not we would get the house. One day we were making settlement the next day, then we weren’t due to x,y,z, piece of information we still needed to provide to the bank. It was insanity. It was kind of up in the air for a bit where we would even be living. We had to be out of our rental by 4:00 PM on Friday, June 11. We found out on Tuesday at midnight, which I guess then makes it Wednesday, that we got final approval for the house. The earliest we could settle was Thursday at 4:00 PM. That gave us roughly no time to move all our stuff out of the rental and clean the carpets.

I called in all my reinforcements and all their SUV’s (plus a moving van that we rented) to be at the rental when we finished settlement at 6:00. Then, we made the mass chaos move into the new place. The Squatch and I alternated trips back and forth between homes until 2AM, when we just collapsed. Only to get up and do it all again the next morning.

The next few days we got to endure the fun of living amongst an obstacle course of boxes and furniture until we could get at least the bedrooms painted. They are done now and look amazing! I love the colors, the kids picked them. They went very bold. Thing 1 picked pink and black, and Thing 2 picked blue and red. Side note…red is NOT an easy color to paint. Our room is “sombrero”. It’s kind of an orangey color. Also pretty bold. But, I love it.

The furniture is all moved in all the rooms, unfortunately we had to put the carpets on hold since we didn’t know when/if we were getting the house. This means? We have to move all the furniture back out in a week or so when we get the carpets. That’s what husbands and Dads are for right? I’ll just stay out back in the pool with the kids. Yes, that’s it. My job is keeping the kids out of the way. It’s a win-win for everyone!

After much consideration, we decided that if the house went to short sale, we were going to walk away. It may be called a “short sale”, but there is nothing short about it. Never mind the fact that we would have had to pay for some repairs before settlement. Not what I wanted to do, especially since the deal could always fall through.

We scoured all the available listings in all the neighborhoods we were willing to move to and came up with a list. I called my Mom (our realtor) to tell her what we wanted to see. She wasn’t home, so as we were sitting waiting for her to call back, our mortgage broker called. Apparently, my Mom had worked her butt off by providing good comps and very well written letters, to get our house reappraised. Seriously, that never happens. They never adjust the appraisal. Ever. But, my Mom? She is just that good!! This means, no short sale (whew) and we get to settle in the end of May as originally planned.

I couldn’t be happier! Now I’m off to enjoy this beautiful weather.

We had some time to kill today, so The Squatch and I decided to check out some Open Houses.  Unfortunately, there was only one today.  We aren’t quite ready to buy yet, since our lease isn’t up until July, but I like looking at houses even if I’m not in the market to buy.

If I could have picked this house up and moved it to a different lot, with a bigger yard, and  a little further away from a busy street…I would have loved it.  It was a new build and not quite finished yet.  The cabinets weren’t my favorite color, but nothing a little paint can’t fix. The builder chose the beige package for appliances which I also didn’t love, but they would swap them out for stainless steel free of charge.  There were no carpets yet, so whoever buys the house gets to choose the color and have them installed.  There is nothing like new carpets.  I could do without the smell, but they are so soft.

The master bathroom had gorgeous cherry wood fixtures. I wanted to climb in the tub and soak in it right then and there. I was a little afraid that might be frowned upon.  Or maybe they would have knocked the price down for the free show.   It’s worth a try, right?

I can not wait until we can actually go look at houses knowing that we can buy it if we choose.  So, sometime in April we can start seriously looking. Until then, I will stalk realtor.com and all the local Open Houses.