Our Home Tour

At last! Our long awaited journey has come to an end. Closing Time.

But don't worry Semisonic, it's the start of a new beginning. 

Home renovations will take two weeks, and we'll be decorating and furnishing one room at a time. Our first overnight guest should arrive in the middle of September, so we should get the majority of the house presentable by then. 

Here is the very first look at our new home:

Living Room. New Carpet and a new back door will be installed.

The breakfast nook going into the kitchen. Door goes down into the basement/garage.

Dining Room will be painted a super dark blue with white below.

Front office space will be a darker grey.
We'll put in an archway to the living room for a  future renovation project.

Kitchen. New clean white cabinet fronts will be put in with the renovations,
and we'll repaint it white to brighten up the space.

Master Bedroom. 

Master Bathroom, to be repainted and in a couple years, completely renovated.

Second Guest Bedroom, will be painted Electric blue.
First Guest Bedroom not shown. It's too brown...

Extra room for storage… and stuff. I'd really like it to be purple.

Half of the back deck, will be fixed and repainted.

Half of the back yard, will be landscaped in the fall.
Garden beds to come in the spring.

Pathway from the garage to the Front Door.
I want to put in box hedges and lavender in the spring. Not a fan of the pine needle mulch.

Man and Woman Buy House

After all the surprises and last-minute requirements, we finally closed on the house Thursday afternoon.  Actually, Troy closed on the house while I was away for work. Twice the signing wasn't exactly twice the fun for him. 

The closing date was moved multiple times, thanks to our bank. It seemed the communication between loan officer, underwriters and us was nonexistent. I felt terrible that Troy had to deal with all of the drama on his own. 

It only took two scanned documents from me in California, two letters of explanation, confirmation that we are currently in an apartment, and all the receipts the seller's agent "forgot" to send us from the inspection repairs, to finally finish our loan package and set the date.

I was very excited to get this pic via text.

Yesterday and today, we drove by and took measurements for our new space. Our "Christmas List" of things to get wasn't too long, but not exactly cheap. The Sears credit card will be reopened very soon, and we also ordered a Georgia Peach Pass. Taking the toll road to and from our apartment should go much faster without dealing with cash.

Home renovations should start a week from now, and painting will start depending on the construction timeline. Moving will start the week of August 19th. Utilities will be turned on next week, and we are fighting the urge to buy a lawn mower right now, because it's already overgrown. 

The next blog post will have the empty house photos, so you can take a tour of the new place. 

Closing In on the Closing

Our closing date is obviously not going to be tomorrow. 

I would liken the next two weeks to a game of Duck Hunt. You never know what else is going to pop up: more paperwork, signing things, proving you have your down payment, etc. As soon as it pops up, you have to shut it down. Take it, sign it, turn it right back around. There is no time to let something gather dust.

Duck hunt can be a daunting game, but I hope the bank and sellers will work with us and not create more setbacks.

New closing dates have been thrown around, so much so that it seems the bank is not willing to accommodate our schedule. I'd really like to be present for the closing, seeing as though I'm the co-owner and all…. Having to do a power-of-attorney to close on the house would be one more thing that I don't want to have to do. 

www.houzz.com

But, as always, there is good news as well. On one of the many calls from our loan officer, he has said that there is no reason why we should not get approved on the house. Our finances are in order and clarified, and all of the renovations we'd like to do are well below our budget and the home appraisal value. 

From that point, I felt that the time had come to start picking paint colors. I've had quite a bit of fun with my Houzz app, picking pieces and styles that appeal to me. Along with my Pinterest board, the house should have a very different aesthetic than it currently has. Muddy orange isn't the most appealing color. 

After we officially close (hopefully in a week), I will finally get to post photos of the empty space. I haven't yet because of privacy, and superstition….

Good News

Yay!!!! We don't need a new roof!!!!!

I am a big advocate for only using exclamation points once and only when necessary. However, this is very necessary. A new roof would've been a big chunk of funds onto the home renovation loan. Now, we can use those funds for other things around the house.

Another great development: we will not need to install new siding. The current wood siding has some spots that can be remediated, and afterwards, I can repaint it to the clean white that I want. With regular maintenance, the siding will keep up and not detract from the home value.

Our contractor is an FHA-approved contractor. He is familiar with the rules of taking out the type of home renovation loan we are applying for, and has done jobs in the past year compliant with the HUD standards. He was very clear about how the payment process works, and about where our money was going with each project.

On the home loan front, we finally have all of our ducks in a row. Both of our credit reports are on the bright side, and along with the contractor's quote and the upcoming home appraisal, everything is prepared for the loan underwriters.

We will probably not have final contract approval by the proposed July 18th closing date, because of the extensive underwriting process. Since we are using a big bank to finance the loan, the loan underwriting gets passed to another firm, and who knows where it goes from there. Our new (unofficial) closing should be closer to the end of July.

We've put in our notice to our apartment complex, so we have until August 24th to vacate. This gives us a good amount of time (three weeks) between the closing date and our move-in date. The contractor will need to be able to get our renovations done on schedule and then, we will be able to paint before moving in and being able to spend the night. Keeping to that schedule is waxing optimistic, but luckily we don't have that much stuff.

Once we've closed on the house, I will post pictures of the empty space and track the progress of the renovations and ideas for final touches. Also known as the fun part. 

As for now, it feels great to know that all your bases are covered. Any worries we had about our loan being denied, or being thrown an unexpected curve ball of that sort, have calmed. 

I've definitely envied other homeowners who seem to breeze through this process, but Troy and I know that we've put in the time and have very much earned our new home. Fingers still crossed...