Time....gets away from you

Time really does get away from you when you do not have internet...but I will share that experience later. For now, back to the first week after closing.  Everything is a blur from lack of sleep, sweat and tears. Here is progress from day 5, 6 or 7?  Who knows.

Living room painted and part of the dinning room shown in this picture.  SO MUCH better!

LOOK what we found!  1921 hardwood floors!  Never stained, never sealed. (Guest Room) 

Everyone thinks we're crazy but we chose to sand this floors by hand because we did not want to remove too much material from the floor and we love a used old floor look. We ended up settling on an orbital palm sander. It worked great for removing just the bits of paint and dirt on the surface. (Master Bedroom)

So this one day will be my art studio.  Right now it is the carpet holding center until we can get to the dump.

Boiled Linseed oil application after sanding. They dried a bit lighter but have a beautiful color.  (Master Bedroom)

Time to move in!  Our Bedroom is finished!

A little Paint goes a long way.

DAY 3 and 4

A little dizzy and flustered trying to get it done fast and right.  It is really amazing what a little paint can do to a space.  Our house is starting to look like a home.  We are trying to make decisions about our amazing floors (insert sarcasm), will let you know how it goes.

3 THINGS I LEARNED

1.  Paint the ceilings, then the walls then the trim.  Allways paint the outside edge of the moulding the wall color.  It makes it very easy and also looks so much more beautiful when it is finished.  ( A little tip from my awesome uncle who drove from New Jersey to help us.  He owns a painting company! )

Office

Guest room

Guest room

Bedroom

2. Wet paint is easy to wipe up.  Drop cloth is a nightmare. So is tape.  Keep a rag handy and forget the expenses on both.

Stairwell

3. Ladders can go on steps.  That hallway 16 feet high was not impossible.










Amazing find at local ReStore (Habitat for Humanities) !

DAY 2 ... Prep work

An entire day spent removing thousands of staples, screws and nails.  We removed a 3 inch sheet rock nail from a switch plate, another from a metal bracket intended to hold up a curtain rod. What?  There was so much icky stuff on the walls, I have to buy a steam cleaner to remove the build up...yuck. Here are some pics from day 2.

A little surprise under the carpet.  No floor.  And another surprise! 25¢ 

(Original Hardwood 1921 in bedroom )

Dinning room all clean!

Office with primer!

Priming away the awful red

Bedroom primed!

A little surprise for me, My niece and nephew primed my studio room while I was at the store.  Was not planning on doing this until later! See all those doors....They have to be painted too.

DAY 1..... Closing day

How about being excited and dreading the next 3 weeks at the same time? Here are some before pics we took of all the work that will need to be done to our new home. updates to come. :)

Closing was a smooth 45 minutes, cleaning and painting are taking a bit longer.  The biggest confusion now is trying to schedule a moving company and pod delivery... by the way, pod does not prorate your last month.  How crazy.

Did I mention the worse colors ever?

 DAY 1 Project : remove switch plates

 Future Living room

 Future Art Studio

Future Kitchen

 Future Half Bath

ALL the switch plates 44+  (I got sick of counting)

worth the wait...

I guess its all worth the wait.  We maybe one of the first people in our circle of friends that are actually closing on schedule. Closing is tomorrow. We will be sure to post some pics (before pics only) so our process can be followed. We will be doing painting, flooring, bathrooms and eventually a new kitchen. I'm so excited.  Now just to hope we find a renter for our other property!  Stress is escalating, and I guess no sleep tonight!

All things approved.

Buying :

1.  All of our requested repairs for our seller have been approved.  Yeah us.
2. All of our docs have been submitted. Next is the appraisal.
3. Waiting around sucks.

Selling:

1. Finding a lawyer was the easy part.

2. I am waiting to list my house until I meet with my expensive lawyer to make sure I do not get in a situation I cannot get out of.  So far the list of questions I have:

What items will I have to be responsible for in a lease purchase as opposed to a rental?
Does an escrow account need to be set up for $ for the lease in the event of a legal issue?
What items do I use to best screen potential buyers, due to the nature of my situation and the market?
What items do I add to the documents I have to protect my interests?  Does the lease need to be notarized?
In the event of non-payment for 30 do I go to my lawyer or to the courts?  What is the process?
(I'm sure I will come up with more questions before the meeting but this is a good start. I will share what I find out.)

3. More packing procrastination today. Looking forward to something motivation coming soon... 34 days to go...

--B

Malarchy

Today I am organizing and packing boxes.  I found I have tons of stuff I don't "need" but is too good or cool to throw away.  Sorry to all those friends and family who may have given me many of these things, but they are going to a charity yard sale next week.  It's the best use of my time.  I know the extra money from sales could help me out a bit with the move, but the stress and time it takes to do a yard sale or post items on craigslist seems counterproductive.

Thankfully, family and friends did listen when I said " I don't need stuff for my birthday".  I got a few useful and fun things this year and not a bunch of  malarchy.

P.S. Blogger thinks I spelled malarchy wrong.  I don't think I did. Yep. I got it right.

Selling

In all the frustrations of buying a new home, people tend to overlook the frustrations of selling an old home at the same time.  I am so excited to be moving in with a wonderful man, remodeling, decorating and celebrating our new space with good friends. At the same time, I already own a home that is not right for us, so I must get rid of it.

Its hard to part with old space and old memories but I have found it refreshing.  Although I do more procrastinating than packing right now;  I think it is because I am still unsure of our new place actually happening and I feel like I will be stuck with this payment, as well as helping A with the new bills.

I have decided to do a lease purchase my house because I cannot sell for what I owe.  I am hoping to be able to share my experiences with you all about the process and share all of our wonderful (and terrible) home buying experiences too.  Maybe some of you will relate to some of this as well.

In trying to remain excited about moving through all the things we have to go through to get there, I am constantly looking at products and things I want for or to do to our new house.  It keeps me level headed.  So here we go.  39 days til closing. The count down begins.

--B