I am so weird.

Why take some sleeping pills (alright, fine, it was just a Tylenol PM, but still) and then fight to stay awake? Makes no sense. None what so ever.

On a good note my dishwasher was finally installed on Sunday. I all but jumped for joy. It even does a fantastic job. Who invented the dishwasher? I need to know so I can find them and kiss them. That and the person who came up with Jet Dry. #1 and #2 on my current list of best inventions ever. Lol.

And I made our first dinner in the new house. Yes, its been a month since closing, but I finally got the kitchen put together enough to cook on Saturday. It felt good to get something done. Oh, I didnt even burn dinner. It wasnt anything special, Italian Chicken for chicken salads, but I was proud. Especially because we didnt know how well the oven temp worked. Our old oven ran about 25 deg hot so we had to adjust everything. This one seemed to be right or at least close. We are going to try a pizza tomorrow to test it again.

Pictures!

They are crappy cell phone pictures, and I forgot the outside, but they are all I have right now, lol.

The living room. We will probably make this a sitting room of some sort. I am standing at the front door, looking left. To the right is the stairs up, strait ahead is the kitchen/dining room and the door out back. Just before the kitchen there is a door downstairs and a hall to the right leading to a half bath and the laundry room.

The kitchen standing at the back door. The wallpaper is gone now, all we need to do is spot check while we wipe things down and then paint! The color is a bright green.

From the hall looking right is the dining area. The door frame and hinge you see is the door to the basement.

This is the basement. Its going to be our Family Room. We will put the tv down there and probably a reading nook/library. The bar isnt built in so we can do whatever we want with it and not worry about messing up the floors. Its just sticky tile but still. It was well done for what it is.

The master bedroom. I am standing in the front corner, the open door being to the hall. His & Hers closets along the far wall. Just to the right of the hall door is a door into the only full bathroom. There is also a hall entrance.

Well thats the house! I didnt bother to take a picture of the two other bedrooms or the bathrooms since they are standard issue and empty anyway. The one bedroom we are making an office and the other will be a guest room. Once they are painted and have furniture in them I will snap a pic but really, there isnt much point until then, lol.

We are officially homeowners!

::jumps up and down like a 5 year old with a lollipop::

Ahem. Now that thats out of my system. Everything went well, we laughed through the entire process, and there really wasn't as much paperwork to sign as we figured.

Tomorrow I plan to try to strip the wallpaper from the kitchen and if it goes well, paint. I am not holding my breath for that to happen but you never know. We looked at paint chips tonight (I wouldn't look at any until we had the keys) and DH found a color he really likes, I just think it might be to much. Its a bright green. We'll see how it goes, lol. I'm in no rush to paint, just to get the wall paper down.

I will take pictures tomorrow and post them at some point, lol.

Nothing we do is ever easy.

We aren't planning to move until the 25th. We have just started packing and getting things ready. Basically the house is a mess right now of boxes and random piles of stuff shoved in any possible place possible to keep the rooms fairly open to keep packing up other crap.

The landlord calls last night. They put an ad out for the apartment and have received quite a few calls regarding it. They would like to start showing the place to hopefully get someone to rent right away.

While I understand this, the house is NOT going to show well. Its going to be cluttered and cramped. The already somewhat small rooms are going to look even smaller. I explained to him that the house was a mess from packing but he didnt seem to care. He said he would warn the people to expect to see someones moving mess. I am still going to be stressed about it. I don't care that we have to deal with it but I dont want some random stranger to see it!

Also, I own rats. Rats are not a pet for everyone. The landlord gave the ok to have "small caged animals, such as a Hamster or Gerbil" but most people do not lump rats in with that group and think they are dirty, disease ridden, pests. I dont agree (obviously) but because I understand others views and didnt want to risk an upset landlord who can still withhold our security deposit we did the polite thing and packed them up quick and drove them to my sister's for a few days until we can get in the new house. To bad my sister lives an hour away and it was already 9pm at this point. Any time we could have spent cleaning up was spent driving the rats. Ugh.

So now I get to rush home after work to whirlwind through the house trying to make the piles of stuff look just a little better and wiping down the kitchen counters and bathroom. Hopefully thats enough. I really don't know what the landlord is expecting.

Two weeks

We got our official letter from our realtor, we close July 17th at 3pm. I am excited beyond words but my anxiety is starting to creep in as well. I woke up in the middle of the night last night having breathing issues and my chest has been tight all morning. I am trying very hard to not worry but it is getting harder and harder. So I am trying to stay away from the House Buying Forums & FAQs. I do not need to read horror stories right now! I will be so much happier when this is all done and we have the keys in our hands. Much happier.

A raging case of PMS is also not helping. My anxiety is always 100 times worse when a stressful situation matches up with PMS and I dont get my right mindset back until a day or so after AF's arrival.

30 day notice.

We gave ours last night. I put it in with the rent check. We now have to be out of our apartment by July 31.

I guess I should really start thinking about starting to pack, lol.

"Good to go"

That was what our mortgage broker told us we were, good.to.go. She heard back from the bank who gave us the approval and just asked for a few supporting documents, copies of our good faith deposit check, letter of explanation on any credit pulls (all from the broker), that kind of thing. But we got the go ahead to start packing!

I think its really happening this time. I cant wait. Just a little longer and we will be homeowners!! I am really having trouble not window shopping now. But I suppose its not that bad. We do need new appliances, might as well know what I want before going in to buy, right?

Another update today!

The seller agreed to all our repair requests with out countering. WOOT!

Lets hope this trend of things going our way continues!

House update

Just heard from the mortgage broker. The appraisal came back at $3k higher then the purchase price so we are good on that end. We were a little worried, the other house for sale on that street was priced a good $5k lower then the listing for ours and we ended up agreeing to pay $2k over that listing (congrats if you managed to follow that thought). Thankfully they take into account that there were multiple offers so that bumped it up.

Hopefully we hear by Friday what the underwriter says. This is where I worry. They are being super picky now and being pre-approved/qualified is meaning less and less. Nothing I can do about it but I still worry. Its just what I do.

Now I just need to hear back about if the seller agreed to our fixes. Our final addendum was for $600 towards appliances, fix the double tapped breaker, and put in a radon system. The radon in the basement tested at 24.3. EPA standards are 4.0 and lower. Just a touch high. The house has been closed up since Jan though, so I am sure that plays a part, but a system still needed to be put in. Especially since we plan on making the basement our family room and main hang out.

To much to fast?

I have been thinking about going back to school. Again.

I toy with the idea every few months but there always seems to be something else more important. However now the company I work for is growing and I feel like if I had some more....stable and constant learning behind me I would be able to help them out more. Be able to point them in the right direction as far as running the office goes. And after all, school is never a bad idea.

My big worry right now is am I getting in over my head? If I want federal aid I need to apply by June 30th so I need to make my decision soon. I need to not only decide if I am going but decide if I am going full time, part time, only one class (and forgo Federal aid). If everything works out with the house we would close around mid July. School would start in September. I would need to plan to get no help (I have no clue what I qualify for) federally. I might ask Boss if he would be willing to pay for some of it, seeing as I am doing it for his company, but with the way the economy is I dont know that he would be able to. So really I need to plan to front all the money.

Its not much in the grand scheme of things but we would have just bought a house, moved, and be putting our mark on it. Is it to much all at once I wonder?

Inspection Results

First, sorry if house talk is getting old, its just whats going on in my life right now, lol.

Now on to the post. I got the inspection results today. For the most part everything came back fine. Foundation is solid, roof doesnt leak, windows are good, all the big things are fine. BUT the dishwasher makes a funny noise when run, the refrigerator didnt work at all, and the microwave that was listed as coming with the property was marked as not present. The kitchen sink had little to no water pressure, there is a small leak at the main water shut off, and a few cracks/nails popping up on the roof, which was also marked as "normal wear & tear."

Its possible that the microwave, which was bolted onto the underneath of a cabinet but listed as "built in" didnt count for the inspection since it really wasnt built in. It seems a bit sketchy to me but what do I know? Lol.

Really all I am worried about is the kitchen stuff. Mainly the water pressure and the fridge. We must have those two. I am waiting for a call from the Realtor but for the most part I think we are just going to ask for the water pressure to be looked into and maybe some money for the appliances. We were going to replace them in a year or so anyway to something less dated looking so really best case is that the water gets fixed and we get cash for new appliances. With that in mind if the seller wants to fix them I guess there isnt much we can do other then to start saving now for new ones, just in case.

At least the foundation is ok. We are willing to deal with the minor things like the roofing nails and normal wear but its good to know that the big things are fine.

Hurry up and wait.

We went Friday and signed half our life away applying for our mortgage. The appraisal should be done sometime this week/early next week and we should hear from the underwriter shortly after that. No one seemed worried that it might not work out but me. Epically after what happened the last time. All the same I am trying to stay positive. Assuming everything works out ok closing would be by July 17th. Please to see my fancy new ticker to the right. 1.5 months.

Under Contract.

Friday we went to meet with our realtor to put in an offer on the house we saw last week however he had just gotten off the phone with the seller's agent who let us know that someone else had also put in earlier that day. Go figure. The house had been on the market with no offers since January and the day we go to make an offer someone else is interested. Just our luck. Well we decide we really want the house and since the other buyer didnt know we were interested when they put in their offer we went in with our high bid hoping the other offer went in low. Saturday we get the call saying the seller countered to our offer wanting just two thousand more. Deal. We are (or will be today) officially under contract. We still need to sign the changes that the seller made but thats just a formality.

SQUEEEEEE!

I am so excited about this house. Now we just need to apply for the loan, which we have been preapproved for, and then wait. If everything goes according to plan we are looking to close mid July. Again, I am so glad the other house fell through, even if it was hard to handle then. We really liked the other house so the fact that we like this one so much more says a lot about it. In my opinion anyway. :-)

I am so glad

that the last house fell through. We went and saw one last night that I love. I love love love the neighborhood and the home itself is great. A few things would need to be done to make it work for us (new carpet, paint, etc) but really its nothing in the grand scheme of things. We are putting in an offer tomorrow. I have a good feeling about this, I just hope and pray that it will all work out.

When selling a house...

1. Dont be lazy with repairs. The last of the two homes we saw this weekend was "fully renovated." We had high hopes with the quality of the home based on that phrase when we decided to look at the home in the first place. The location wasn't great and the house itself was built in 1901 but we figured those things could be overlooked if the layout was ok and it was, in fact, fully renovated. However "fully renovated" must not mean making sure the 2nd floor porch was actually connected to the house, the doors and windows were the right size and opened/closed, or that the ceiling and floors were even. I think all this guy did to "fully renovate" this home was slap a new coat of paint on the walls (that he textured so wouldn't need a primer or 2nd coat) and lay some new carpet down. Waste.of.my.time.

2. Dont keep 10 billion cats in random rooms. The first home we saw we knew the house probably needed a little updating but the location was great. We walked in and hit the wall of smelly cats. It was almost overpowering. It wasnt like the crazy cat lady's ammonia filled home, but just a combination of multiple cats with multiple litter boxes that needed to be cleaned. The husband lasted all of three minutes before his sneezing started. And that was on a daily allergy medication. The smell aside the house didnt wow us enough to over look the little repairs and updating that would have been needed.

Those were the two most promising listings for our area and budget. Time to expand or compromise on our already small "must haves" list. This whole house hunting thing is hard! But fun at the same time.

Well, Let the hunt begin!

Again. :-/

We heard from the bank yesterday. We didnt get approved. We followed everything they told us to do but they just "forgot" to mention that we wouldnt be able to reapply for another 120 days. FOUR MONTHS! How do you just forget that part when telling loan applicants what to do to get approved? I am ready to scream.

Our mortgage broker did run us through another program though and we got a pre-approval through them. We are going to go look into it and hopefully it will work out. Some of the houses we really liked but ruled out due to location (1st loan program had limitations on the location of the home) are still on the market. Depending on how the finances will work with the new program, one of those just might be the home for us.

Is it to early to start drinking? 11am? Didnt think so. :slams shot of vodka:

:crosses fingers, toes, and anything else I can:

We found out last week that we managed to make it through the hoops the bank wanted us to jump though to buy a home. We should back hear this week if that was good enough. I really want this to work out. I love the home we found and cant stand living in the house we are in now. It was great when we first moved in but we are ready to move on.

**FYI-hitting enter at anytime when typing up a blog post will actually post it**