New House Photos

I know you are all just besides yourselves waiting for pictures of the house. Well, wait no more, at least for before pictures. Mircea and I have been hard at work repairing, painting, cleaning, etc. So I'll have some after pictures pretty soon to share as well. I'll start the photo tour with the good, but it gets pretty ugly pretty quickly (but nothing a little paint can't fix).

Supporting our teams. Go Colts!

The view from the front of the house. You can see the Chesapeake Bay from the house and we can see more and more everyday as the leaves fall. I'll take it!

The fireplace...I'd already started priming the room.


In a sad turn of events, I hadn't started priming this room. We think they ran out of paint while they were painting it. Love the pink carpet too. The previous owner had two little girls.

Mircea should be ashamed of this picture. It doesn't show that gorgeous Bratz doll wall border on the wall. I'll retake that one later so you can see. It's crazy.

The dining room. Which we will use approx 1x a year, but it's nice to have the space. I had a blast steam cleaning all of the carpet. And it still needs replaced, but alas, I'd need a second job to afford that.

The master bath. My favorite room in the house. It's about the size of our old master bedroom so we definitely appreciate all the room that we have. It also has a two person soaking tub, and Mircea actually got it to work. So we used it once...but man if it didn't take so much hot water I'd be in there daily!

A not so exciting picture of the master. I told Mircea he is fired as photographer. Chantelle, wanna come over?

The kitchen, a total mess b/c it was cleaning central.

The living room, which is actually our office because what the heck would we do with a formal living room. It's nice to have the big office space too.

Well, that's all I have. The after pictures will be slightly more exciting, and I'm sure this is just so thrilling for everyone, but I'm so happy to get to share this experience with my friends. I thank you for all your support through this roller coaster ride (and the many I seem to allow myself to be a part of) and listening to me vent. You're the best, and there's a hot pink guest room with your names on it!

Finally!

I'm about to go watch the Colts on Monday Night Football but I wanted to do a quick update that we did close today. I'll tell you more later, but it didn't go as planned but it turned out to not be that bad. The house is beautiful, everything we ever wanted, and we realized today that we can see the Chesapeake Bay through the dining room. Woo hoo!!!!!

Thanks for all your support with this roller coaster. Hugs to you all!!

Horror Story #1

I am not a homeowner yet. We were on our way over to do the walk-through and our Realtor called and said "the dog is still here, and so are they". We drive up and it's all true. So then Pam (our realtor) calls Felecia (their realtor) and says they'll be out in 15 minutes. When that time passes we call back, and she says another 15 minutes. Mind you, we've got 30 minutes before we're due to close. So Felecia calls again and says "they've got everything out do the walk-through". We go in. These are a few of the pictures I took.

Mind you, the whole time we're there Pam is on the phone with Felecia and the homeowner (who apparently left so she could find a new place to stay...TODAY) telling them the condition, like 4 kids are in the house with the huge rottie trying to clean up a little bit but then ended up just sitting on their asses when they could hear us saying that we weren't going to accept it. Their realtor was trying to convince us to go to closing and accept the house (like I said, the seller signed yesterday) and they'd have it cleaned out by tonight. Oh yeah, like we're going to do that. Then Pam called our lawyer who says that if the seller doesn't release us from closing on the house today that we are actually in default since she already signed. Felecia said that the seller would sign the paper, but it looks like we'll close on Monday morning. I'm not surprised. I've always known this would go like this which is why I was so quiet the whole way through and then I went and jinxed myself by posting the picture last night. The house is in shambles. Shambles. Mircea took the entire weekend off work (several grand mind you) we got all the utilities switched over, and I have two days off next week. Our whole house is packed.

I need a pity party. I'll update you as I know more but I had to document this as it is simply unbelievable. How's that for robbing us of all of the joy of our first home together.

And yet part of me feels so much sympathy for them. They are basically getting kicked out of their house and didn't even have a place lined up to live. But then I don't feel bad because they always knew they couldn't afford this place and got in over their heads. It was so bad, I can't even describe. These are just a couple of the pictures I took on my phone. It was bad. Bad bad bad.

Homeowner's Eve

Tomorrow is a big day for us. We'll do the final walk-through in the morning and then head over to the title company for closing. The seller is actually doing their paperwork today so it will be interesting. We're a little concerned about the condition of the house but we'll find out at the walk-through. Hopefully they didn't make a big mistake by damaging anything because Mircea and I are completely prepared to walk away if they did any damage to the house. No worrying now though, I'll deal with it tomorrow.

So I probably won't be blogging for awhile, but when I come back I should have pictures of the house (taken by moi) and hopefully no moving horror stories. Here's the outdoor picture of the house from the listing, but don't worry, we'll make it prettier and give it a paint update (in the spring).

Wish us luck!

Paint Colors

I'm trying to make some paint decisions and it is literally killing me (no, I did not mean figuratively) as I consider all the options. I have to paint every inch of the new house (in an underwhelming announcement we close next Friday-but it can still fall through, no jinxing, I am not partying until keys in hand...and the party will be awhile b/c i have a lot of work to do) and I just don't know scheme I want for the place. I know I want neutral tones for the living room and general "all house" color. So I think I've finally determined the living room color (sort of a latte-it's called "Wicker". Whatever, this is all unimportant. I need you, kind reader, to help me make a decision. I am totally married to having a green bedroom. Sort of a dill but it's called pine needle. Married to this. Except I found a beautiful blue color that I like and then I love the idea of having a slightly less blue bathroom to complement it because that would be nice and peaceful for the tub. Light green doesn't seem as soothing. Help help help. What do you think? I can't have the green bedroom with the blue bathroom, that just seems wrong. And the bedroom is the second room I have to paint as that and the living room are pretty much the only rooms that will have furniture in them because the house is such an upgrade in size. Oy.

I've got one picture I can share, and it's a horrible tease because it's the only picture I've taken of the house and it was just so I would remember what color the kitchen counter is. And although it looks gray and you'd think the Wicker theme wouldn't work, it has beige flecks in it to stay neutral. And yes, it's only the counter, but I'll post pictures (before and after) once we move in...oh how I'm counting the days. It's 10 more days...