Closing Day on our First House

Hello all. You’ll have to forgive me for the lack of posts this past week. We’ve been busy buying a house!

This past Monday we finally got the keys to our very first home. It’s been quite the adventure. Here’s how things went down.

9:00am ~ Our final walk through. We’re giddy and pull up to the house to see the moving van from the seller still out front and people milling about. Not a good sign.

Long story short, there is stuff in every room. Big stuff. Furniture, beds, boxes. If you’ve not done this before the house is supposed to be empty at the final walk through.

The real estate agent is not happy. Although we do get to meet the seller and some neighbors, while we want to be friendly, we have to be serious and tell them to get their stuff out of the house or else.

An agreement is made to clean the rest of the items out and we’d come back at 1:00pm to see the progress.

Things like this can really go bad, where the closing doesn’t actually happen and there are disagreements between buyer and seller. So while we’re not surprised this is still a bit difficult (the seller kind of was throughout the whole process), we’re optimistic that the closing would happen.

1:00pm ~ We go back to see and house and things are much better. All materials are out and they’ve swept and vacuumed. Good. We’re satisfied and head right to the county clerk’s office to meet with the lawyer. We are close!

1:55pm ~ We’re ready to meet with the lawyer and sit to wait for him.

2:20 ~ We’re still waiting for the lawyer and decide to call. He’s running around to the bank doing things and says he’ll be there by 3:00pm

3:00pm ~ Finally the lawyer shows up. Ironically we’re sitting next to him at the table and he doesn’t know we’re the couple he is to meet with (they do these transactions all in one large room of tables) so we overhear him say how his current closing is “a headache” Ha! We’ve been a pain to the lawyer – good for us 🙂

4:25pm ~ 58 signatures later, we’re homeowners!!! So we rush out of there to get the keys.

4:45pm ~ We’re sitting in the car after picking up the keys from the real estate agent in disbelief. Our first house!

About 6:00pm ~ After we change our clothes at the apartment, we pack up the car and head over to the new house for the first time and get to work.

With no further ado, here are some pics I snapped of our work the first night.

Here is the foyer. The fireplace needs to be painted and there is wallpaper under that paint in the whole room. It’s a little dark here, sorry about that.
 
Here is the wallpaper. I peeled all that off with my nails quickly. With the paint over it, it comes right off. But there is another layer underneath of course. I’m not sure how much I’ll strip because I don’t want to get out of control with the wallpaper removal because there are other things to do first.
 
Here is the dining room. Look at those shiny floors. And those wood slats on the walls. I’m still not sure what to do about those because I don’t like them.
 
My new kitchen! The green paint and the green plants on the cabinets will soon be gone…
 
Here is the room that will be our bedroom.
 
Red carpet: 1, 2, 3, disappear!
 
We’ve got 2 more of those carpets to get out. They are smelly, and the wood floors will be refinished.

Old carpets are great drop cloths. I got a little zealous with the roller in this room 🙂
 
Check out my painting gear! Love these self portraits. Here we were painting the ceilings.
 
One highlight of our closing day came from my college roommate. A little house warming bouquet. How cute.
 
Of course I made the counter look clean and clear for the photo. Here is what it really looks like now.

The joys of moving all right in one picture. Paint chips, cleaning supplies, tools. We’re having lots of fun getting the place ready. Stop by soon to see more of our moving adventures.