Owning a House – Day 2


Blog, Home / Saturday, March 11th, 2017

If you decide to buy a house, you’ll certainly think you have everything under control. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting yourself into and you’ll be confident nothing could really be thrown your way which you won’t be able to handle. That’s what I thought.

The buying process was out of the ordinary in how complicated it became. We dealt with sellers who agreed to a long list of changes and signed off on the amendment to the contact for said changes. Come final walk-through, they hadn’t done all the items on the list. The list they had provided us with. When pressed why they didn’t do some of the items, very minor items at that like caulking the bathtub faucet, they assured us they had. It was the same for the other items they didn’t do. Fortunately, those items were minor and we could forgive them, especially considering they had done some major items as well as gone off list on a couple of things. We ended up with a new furnace, updated electrical, a new roof, and a garage that at the very least highlights how crappy it was before the work done. Having all those things done really built up the confidence that everything would be under control.

Now, I wouldn’t say things have gotten out of control but a lot of things have been done, are in the process of being done, or have been discussed as needing to be done. Ellie and I keep increasing our to dos, even though we are checking the boxes on the old ones.

Yesterday, we started bringing things over to the house. We went to the hardware store to get some things we needed right off the bat. New locks, new toilet seat and flush mechanism, garage door opener, and a case of toilet paper. The locks are in the process of being installed, surprisingly easy and hard to do at the same time. The new toilet seat is on and the new flush mechanism is in place, eliminating a runny toilet.

Today, we moved even more items into the house. The goal is to have only furniture to move next Saturday. It’s lofty and, given history, likely not going to happen but I’m sure as hell going to get as close to it as I possibly can.

Ellie and I also spent a couple of hours starting the painting process. We plan to have it all done tomorrow because some friends are kindly coming over to help (in trade for homemade breakfast sandwiches (featuring homemade pork and venison breakfast sausage) and coffee). This evening, we taped off the living room and the bathroom, and we primed the living room. The room was painted a mocha/chocolate/muddy brown color with an accent wall of burnt umber for the wall with the fireplace. Not really our style. Now, it’s a splotchy white. Tomorrow, it will be a calming gray.

My back now aches, and I’m dozing off as I type this. Tomorrow will be less forgiving but it will be in the name of keeping things under control. We see paining as a big project and once it’s out of the way, we’ll be able to focus on all the smaller projects like adding a motion sensor to our back porch light because it’s impossible to see at night. And more security lights around the house in general because we’re skittish?

P.S. I’m totally freaked out in my basement at night. During the day a good amount of sunlight streams in through the egress windows, but at night its creepy and foreign and I don’t like it.

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