I'm checking in a bit. Things have been...different. But good different. BB and I have had lots of memorable experiences since my last post on Thursday.
WE CLOSED ON THE HOUSE!! It went so smoothly. Done in half an hour.
Then the memories began. We closed on one of the coldest days of the year. At 5pm. On a Friday. Me being an apartment girl didn't think that the electric and water would be off when we moved in. I thought we would just change it into our name.
Nope. no heat, no water. On a Friday night.
We bought candles, bundled up, slept on the floor and rationalized that the discomfort was worth it.
Over the weekend we actually reset our internal sleeping clocks. Up at 7am with the sun...getting sleepy about 6pm and in bed ("bed" or blankets on the floor) by 7pm. (It's so dark with only a few candles!)
But water, electric and cable all came on Monday (now dubbed "The Greatest Day Ever" by BB and me...modern conveniences...oh how did those cavemen and settlers survive without them??)
Anyways- everything is going well. The house is wonderful. We got right to work destroying it on day 1.
We have sanded the plaster walls of almost the whole downstairs unit.
We pulled up carpeting and ordered hardwood for the bedrooms (original hardwood ended up being to damaged to restore 
.
Pruned the backyard.
Swept the front porch,
and talked talked talked about our future. That's all there is to do when you are sanding walls for hours and have no TV or radio to listen to.
AND! We met our upstairs tenants. 3 college boys, very cool. Somehow BB's job proceeded him and one boy had already looked up BB's stats online. They already said they want to stay in the unit for the rest of their college years (2 more years).
So a few observations...
1) I feel like I have been on a MAJOR SHOPPING SPREE! Oh my it's so fun to let loose and buy buy buy. Even unloading that huge down payment...just handing people money has become fun. It's been so long that I have been limiting my spending- now I am free to BUY! (BB and I are reviewing the numbers tomorrow to see just how much damage we have done.)
Since we did not have to put down as much $$ as we were originally planning..we did take 10k and put it away in savings for an emergency fund before going crazy at Home Depot.
We bought a starter house that will turn into a forever house! I think I have touched on it before- but it hit home for me this past weekend. The units are about 1000 sq ft each, and our bottom unit is a good fit for our 2 person family. But once we have one kid walking age...I think we will be bursting a bit (look at me planning for kids, not even planning to get preggo yet) and then we can go upstairs! Our sq footage will double and we wont have to move! I didn't plan on that bonus feature when buying a duplex- we were planning to move out and buy a SFH...but we love this one. I don't want to leave.
When we first moved in- it felt like a rental. Didn't feel like ours at all. It just felt like it was another baseball season and we have moved again, taking only bare essentials, setting up cable, power, all that. But as we started ruining the walls (that's what I think sanding does to the walls- BB assures me we are going to be pleased with the results), the place felt more like ours. By the end of the weekend...it felt so much like home. I never ever want to leave. I'm so attached. Even if it looks 10x worse right now than it did when we moved in.
I am very very afraid that we don't own the house. We closed. We handed over our money. But I keep imagining getting a letter in the mail or having a policeman knocking on the door telling us there was a mistake and we must vacate the property immediately because it's not really our house. Worse still, that the real owner is requesting we return the house in the condition it was when we moved in. :P
Anyways, I will get up some pictures soon! I am sorry I have not been reading ya'lls posts- we just got internet yesterday...but I was so thrilled to have WATER that I didn't even turn on the computer yesterday. (using bottled water to wash your hands and planning your errands based on what store has a bathroom is humbling!)
I think this whole week is going to be crazy as we demo the house and put it back together again. (not really but it feels that way) So next week I will be back to regularly catching up on WhiteS home purchase, Texe's dilemma to stay or move to CA, monkeymamas updates on tax changes, coanegigs(sp?) green kitchen countertop, DisneyS' ebay and survey updates, BA and Merch's stock strategies and everyone else's daily posts.
Gamecock reporting in
February 11th, 2009 at 01:39 am
February 11th, 2009 at 01:59 am 1234317564
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February 11th, 2009 at 03:23 am 1234322583
February 11th, 2009 at 04:22 am 1234326177
you just scared me when you said your hardwood floors were in bad condition...! i never even thought of that. now i'm freaking out about my own house, lol.
congratulations again. i am so glad you guys have been able to get into renovating it straight away. i imagine you'll even be excited to get your first bills in the mail.
February 11th, 2009 at 12:30 pm 1234355438
February 11th, 2009 at 04:09 pm 1234368595
Good luck with the spending, its amazing how much everything adds up!
February 11th, 2009 at 04:16 pm 1234368994
Congratulations!!
February 11th, 2009 at 04:18 pm 1234369117
February 11th, 2009 at 04:21 pm 1234369295
Yay! Glad you're moved in! Best wished for a long and happy residency in your first home!
February 11th, 2009 at 05:17 pm 1234372626
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