Inspected

The home inspection went very well, and we really liked the guy that did it. He's in business for himself, and also is an electrician and does a lot of other home repair. He did a great job.

We'll be asking the current owner to install GFI plugs in the kitchen and bathrooms to make our home compliant for the FHA assessment, and there is also a secondary electrical panel in the basement that has a major recall and needs to be replaced.

The only other issue is radon. We're going to have to shell out around $800 for a mitigation system, so I've been reading up about it online. We're going to ask the current owner to share the cost with us, so hopefully that will help.

Other than that, the home inspector said our house was "immaculate" and was really impressed! He even gave us some good tips for stripping the wallpaper. So we're feeling happier than ever about our new home!

I've been continuing to think about what colors to paint, and have even been reading some design blogs, like this one that my cousin Katy recommended.

I took some pictures of the outside and a video tour of the inside, so I'll post those this evening hopefully. I think the video might be too long to post all at once, so I have to figure out how to split it up. But once it's up, I'm open to any and all decorating suggestions! I just want to get rid of the wallpaper!!

Mini break

Tonight I hop on a train to Philly to visit my good friend from Juniata, Nicole. We plan to talk, shop, talk, eat at yummy restaurants, talk, walk around Philly, and talk. Weather on Saturday is supposed to be sunny and in the mid 50's, so I brought my light jacket and my hooded wool tunic. That way I'll be unencumbered enough that I'll be able to comfortably carry lots of bags o' stuff from the fruits of our shopping.

Monday morning Paul and I lock in our mortgage rate (4.87%!! Ridiculous!), then grab a quick lunch before the home inspection at 1:00. I am extremely excited, but I hope to think about it less this weekend and focus on relaxing. I slept well last night for the first time in about two weeks, and it was because I wasn't thinking about our new house. I can't believe that after Monday, I won't see the inside again until the end of May! How will I make it that long? Well, it will just make May 29th that much more amazingly wonderful and exciting.

I will get myself into the relaxation state of mind by spending 2 hours alone on the train knitting and gazing out the window. I'm looking forward to it a LOT. Is it 6:00 PM yet?

ACCEPTED!!

SHE ACCEPTED OUR OFFER!!! She didn't even counter, so Paul and I are paying exactly what she paid for the house a couple of years ago...she even gave us the 1-year home warranty we asked for! The only thing she didn't accept was the closing date of April 30, she wants to wait until May 29 (the last weekday of the month is when you typically close). Which is fine with us! What's another month? We own a house!!

So you want to see pictures? I don't want to advertise the address, but it's in Shiremanstown, and I saved all the pics to my computer so I can post them. I'll post more after the home inspection, during which I think I'll be able to take a bunch of my own.

If you click on an image you can see it a little bigger.



The is also a third bedroom; the master bedroom has a half bath (no shower) and his & hers closets, plus my grandfather is giving us his nice bedroom suite with queen bed (YAY!!!); and the basement is half finished, with the other half going to laundry room and Paul's future man cave. There's even a separate room for Paul's man cave that also has a cedar-lined closet - isn't that cool? So we can keep some of our nice clothing down there and it won't get moths or anything! And the unfinished room where we'll put the washer and dryer will also have tons of space for an ironing board and plenty of storage. I am thinking up BUNCHES of other ideas already! WOW.

OMG WE OWN A HOUSE. FOR REALZ. SRSLY. As of May 29...woo hoo!!

Remember - I gave up facebook for Lent, so if you want the address, or to comment, either do it on blogger or e-mail me or call me! peacelovemath [at] gmail [dot] com

More waiting

We're supposed to hear about our offer by "Late afternoon" today. It's 5:00 now and no word yet.

I'm still all fluttery and nervous, but I think by going through the first offer and being RIDICULOUSLY full of anxiety that whole time, I've kind of inocculated myself. I guess another factor is that this time they'll make a counter-offer and it won't be the end of the road because we still have room to offer more.

I also feel better because we have a few other comparable houses that we'll go look at if this offer doesn't work out. And since our current house is SO overpriced, I'm just interested to hear what she'll come back with, and if it will be reasonable at all.

More this evening if I hear anything...

Make me an offer

Well, we made the offer this morning...and a few minutes ago our realtor called to say they did not accept it. Since we were reaching on this house, we gave them our best and final offer, so there's no counter-offer.

SO we're meeting with our realtor again tomorrow at 12:30 to write an offer on our other house, a rancher only two blocks away. This one is well within our reach, and our realtor thinks it's overpriced, so this time we'll be making a low but reasonable offer and then wait for a counter-offer. And then we will also counter, probably, and hopefully go back and forth until Paul and I decide to accept. And then we will hopefully close on April 30, and start moving in on May 1!

If this all works out, we'll give our 2 months' notice on our current apartment on April 1 so that we overlap for a month while we rip down wallpaper, maybe rip up some carpet, paint, and move into our new rancher. And then hopefully by August we'll be ready to have a big housewarming open house! You're invited.

Who needs sleep?

Tomorrow morning, Paul and I are meeting our realtor to write an offer on a house we saw last night. The offer is going to be pretty ridiculously low, so we're not really expecting them to accept it. We saw the house by accident because we drove past the "for sale" sign on our way to the house we were scheduled to see. Our realtor pulled it up on her blackberry, and saw that the list price was one thing, when in fact it is actually listed for $15k more. This place is bigger than any other place we've looked at, and would be really fun to live in. It has a nice little sunroom and a big, sunny yard, and LOTS of potential for fun DIY projects. And underneath all that ugly carpet on the top two levels is HARDWOOD. Pretty cool.

Last night I didn't sleep well because I was thinking about this house. I dreamt about it. My imagination wouldn't shut off.

Tonight I won't sleep well because I'll be thinking about our meeting to write the offer tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow night I won't sleep well because we'll be waiting for the response to our offer.

At least then it will be Saturday. But not sleeping well makes me very emotional, and that's not a good state of mind for choosing houses and writing offers.

This is why we can't draw the process out over months and months. I just can't deal with the emotional rollercoaster for that long. But there are two possibilities right now, and both of them would make us very happy, so we just have to cross our fingers that the one won't go under contract while we're making our probably futile offer on the other.

In other news, I just bought a train ticket to go visit my good friend Nicole in Philly next Friday. We plan to walk around and eat at lots of nice restaurants and drink at lots of nice bars. And shop. And talk. A lot. Also I am going to go to her Episcopal church and meet her pastor, who is gay. I hope Lutherans catch up soon. We're better than most, at least.

All in all, a fun Sunday

This morning I had to wake up at 7:15 to be at church by 7:45, but since we started Daylight Savings Time last night it felt like getting up at 6:15. Not the best start to the day.

After church I went back to my parents' house to hang out with Hannah until she was ready to leave for Lebanon to visit our grandmother in the hospital. I hung out with here all afternoon yesterday too - it was a fun sister weekend. Yesterday she embroidered while I knitted, and we chatted and watched Food Network and Anthony Bourdain until Paul came to pick me up for our appointment with our realtor.

The whole looking at houses thing went very well, but I don't want to tell you about our new favorite yet, because we might actually be making an offer within a couple of weeks or less. So you can ask me directly, or I will blog about it once the process is farther along and our offer has been excepted. I will say that Paul and I are both REALLY excited, and thing are generally going smoothly - we're aligning with each other very well in terms of what timeline we're comfortable with and what houses we like. It's all very warm and fuzzy. I can't wait to have more concrete news for you!!

So anyway, Hannah and I went to visit Gommy in the hospital, hung out with her for about an hour (she was doing very well, sitting up on the edge of the bed to chat with us), and then we stopped by to see Addy, Franny, Aunt Judy, and of course Greer. Greer has been a little too big for lap-sitting for years now, but for some reason today she just wanted to sit on my lap! Furthermore, if I moved my hand just a little to, say, scratch my nose, she gently but firmly grabbed my wrist and pulled it back around her waist. Luckily, I got Judy to take a picture:


Greer is holding Hannah's foot because she was in the process of convincing Han that her foot was very smelly (it wasn't) and that Greer herself was not smelly, of which Hannah kept accusing her. Once she got off of my lap, Greer also told me that my feet were smelly. She was in a pretty good mood. It was quite amusing.

So that along with all the hanging out with Hannah and the happy house hunting made this a pretty darn awesome weekend and a good Sunday, even though it got off to a rough start and now I'm very tired and it's only 7 PM. Time for dinner with Paul followed by Battlestar Galactica 3rd-to-last episode! More house news as soon as I can share!

Jon and Kate plus Juniata College!

I've never even seen this show, but I always hear my friends talking about it. Look - Jon of "Jon and Kate Plus 8" is hanging out with Juniata College students in Huntingdon at two of the bars I used to frequent! Fun fun. Clicky!

Pre-Approved!

Paul & I got pre-approved for a mortgage today! It was so exciting and not nearly as stressful as I thought. And Saturday we have an appointment with a realtor who comes recommended, and who works with my friend Jo's dad! So hopefully over the next few weeks we'll tour a handful of other houses, and then make an OFFER on one!!

Here's the list thus far; the red tack is already sold, and the pink tack is our FAVORITE so far by a pretty big margin. I think we'll tour it again with our official realtor and during the daytime so we can get a better feel for everything.


View Larger Map

If you click on a tack it should show you the info I typed, including a link to the listing (copy and paste it into the address bar).

We are SO EXCITED!!!

Growing

My little baby Jade plant that my mom rooted from a broken bit of her big Jade is getting two new little limbs on top. There was just a little bump on top, but it's now resolved itself into to teensy round bits, so it's definitely growing! Yay.

I'm also happy about my herbs, which are finally flourishing: the rosemary has more bright-green, fast-growing new branches than it had all last summer when it was planted outside, so hopefully it will eventually get big and bushy so we can actually use it to cook without taking more than it can spare. The basil is also finally growing, but definitely needs to be moved into a bigger pot, something I keep not getting around to. Maybe this week.

Hopefully this summer we can see the basil I've been told about that grows and grows until you have more than you know what to do with. I would love to have that much basil, because I would know what to do with it: make lots and lots of tomato-basil sandwiches, salads, and pesto!

I hope our house has lots of big, sunny windows and a big, sunny backyard!