New house

The past month has been a whirlwind. At the first of the year, we put in an offer on a house. This was the third house offer; the other two showed us what a crazy market meant in real terms. So, I didn't get too attached to the house. I'm not sure that was good or bad when it nearly fell apart at both the beginning due to random financing/underwriting practices right now and at the last minute due to idiot people. (You know, all those real estate how to books and websites never tell you how to fire a real estate agent!) But in the end, we prevailed and were even able to vacate our small apartment and move into our new house on the last day of the month. Hurray!

It is wonderfully big, particularly after several years of shoebox spaces - 3bd, 1.5 bath on the main floor with an attic that needs to be finished ASAP so I stop heating Portland with my open stairwell and a basement that could be finished. There is a marvelous open kitchen/dining/living area for a 1924 house; too bad I can't see the counters for all the random crap on them right now. It has a great big yard that needs work; I have LOTS of ideas... yes, Ideas and IDEAS. For now, M loves it because he can ride his bike on an oversized driveway all day. I've even had a bit of time to play in the yard planting fruit trees (thanks mom and dad) and a few early veggies.

The house was a foreclosure. (Is there anything else these days? Particularly in our price range?) So, I've spent entirely too much time dealing with leaky faucets; letting a house sit for 6+ months doesn't do a lot for the plumbing. And mystery appliances. Seriously, if you take off with the stainless steel fridge, dishwasher and microwave as you foreclose, why do you put in a used dishwasher as a placeholder and not even connect it? And utility house calls like reconnecting the overhead phone wires to the house so that we can have internet.

We are just getting to the point of not living out of boxes. It has taken some time. We are headed into finals with a boatload of grading. And I wanted to get walls painted before I put heavy book cases against them. Besides, it took a lot of talking to get M to acquiese to painting over the pink room.


It started out like this....

M: I don't want to move. I want to stay at the BLUUE house. I like the blue house.
Mama: I know M, but I think you will like the new house. There are 3 bedrooms. And a yard for a dog (that is how we ended up with Chloe).
....
(at the house later that day for an inspection)
Mama: M, can you count the bedrooms?
M: (running from room to room), yes, 1, 2, threeeeeee
Mama: Which one is your room? (Note the two larger rooms are random shades of blue).
M: THE PINK ONE (running to the pink room that actually looks like a better color in this picture than it was).

So, then I had to work on telling him we could paint it for about a week. Which he then expected us to do THE DAY we moved in. He wanted lots of colors (everything but green). Now it looks like this after at least 6 coats of red. (PS - does anyone by chance have another blue ticking stripe curtain from IKEA? I designed the room around them - I've refrained from buying any new linens - thinking I could pick up another one, but alas, they've replaced them with a different, less classic, item. And I don't even know the name of the design to search ebay.)


We've also painted the 3rd bed/Den (can't put up a wall of bookshelves without paint) which is not quite picture ready. And the master bedroom which went from this


To this....


But that doesn't even begin to cover the time I've spent tinkering with unglamorous (mostly plumbing) things. But we will leave that aside for another post.