closing scheduled

Our closing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Friday, March 7.

Hooray!

We'll do our final walkthrough at 8:15 that morning then head to the closing.

Then we're driving up to Michigan to see Morgan in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. She's playing Veruca Salt in her school's musical. :)

no early possession

:(

We won't be getting early possession - so it's going to be a frenzied 3 days March 12, 13, and 14 to get the floors finished to move in March 15.

Wish us crazy luck!!! Por favor!!!

Kate

packing

We've almost run out of things to pack already. After finishing up with books, CDs, guitar magazines, craft supplies, photographs and art - we're set for now. I guess next will be the contents of the China cabinet (capitalized because it's a cabinet from China - it doesn't hold china in the lowercase sense).
For our next feat, we'll need some assistance - in the form of newspaper from the basement recycling bins at work. I'll dig through tomorrow morning and send Dennis home with a box full.

Then we'll just have dishes, clothing, tools, and the cats left to pack.

Did I mention that I'm bored with moving already...?

remedies

We got word last night of some good news - the sellers have agreed to all of the items on our request to remedy!

The agreed to do the following:

• Mitigate the Radon in the basement (it read 13, the "legal limit" is 4.0 pCi/l)
• Level the sidewalk at the side gate leading to the kitchen door/backyard
• Repair the garage door so it operates correctly
• Have the vent pipe for the hot water tank reconnected and secured to the vent tile.
• Replace the window pane in the kitchen that has moisture between the panes
  

Woo Hoo!

It's almost time to schedule the floor sander rental!

this game of waiting is boring

I'm officially house-bored. We have a living room full of empty boxes harvested from work. I just want to go over there and rip up the carpet. I want to start piling stuff in the basement. I want to actually arrange furniture.

This part is so boring.

On a positive note, we didn't have to wait for the IRS to send us last year's schedule C and SE documents, because Jackson Hewitt had them on file.

Hooray!

As I wrote to our friends Paul & Megan: "I can't figure out which is worse: thinking about how busy we're about to be while not being able to do much to prepare, or actually being in the thick of the busy-ness."

We'll know soon, but not soon enough.

Now what?

I'm starting to get restless already. Our timeline will be tight once we take possession, but there's so little I can do at this point to make the transition easier...

We've purged craft stuff, clothes, miscellaneous knick knacks from upstairs - and taken them all to be donated. We don't want to buy a bunch of boxes just to recycle/trash them, so we purchased two rubbermaid containers that we'll take over each day full, and bring back empty - but not starting until March 12. It's just so far away.

I read about how to refinish a hardwood floor. We picked up all of the free paint books at Lowes. I'm trying to figure out if we can redye our freebie leather recliner dark dark brown - the slate blue just doesn't fit with the colors we like. I've flipped through 5 magazines tagging photos I like so that I can scan them into the computer.

I've arranged and rearranged furniture-shaped boxes in the online program I'm using to figure out room layout.

I'm about to pull my hair out.

the doorknob didn't work.

Really.

We had the house inspected yesterday. Our preliminary concerns:

• Heaved sidewalk when entering the yard to the side door - trip hazard
• Garage door only opened 1.5 feet - problem (especially since they need to move their old car out of it)
• Age of furnace: 27
• Age of air conditioner: 21
• Age of hot water heater: 12
• Rotten floorboard (but completely dry now), about 1ft x .5ft under the bathroom - needs to be repaired
• Microwave above oven wasn't plugged in
• Vent for hot water heater was misaligned from asbestos vent - needs to be realigned and sealed
• Trim around roof, windows, doors needs to be repainted - severely flaking off
• Couldn't open the upstairs bedroom door.

The inspector has to go back Saturday morning to pick up the radon tester. At that time he'll check the upstairs bedroom and attic. No termites, no mouse droppings. He was impressed overall with the structure. He suggested renewing the home warranty each year until the hot water heater, a/c, and furnace all need to be replaced - in the next 5 years max, his prediction. That seems logical to us. At that point, when those are all new, it will be like a completely new house (just with an ugly outdated kitchen and bathroom...).

Woo Hoo!

We also talked to the banker today about our mortgage options. We went with our original choice, 80/15 with 5 down. The monthly payment is going to be about $100 less than we were counting on - a plus, for sure!