2.22.2011

We are NOT Closing Today

The seller is currently holding us up because of a dispute between the seller's attorney and the title company.  Our lawyer is trying to push things along, but until they settle that, we will not be closing.  I'm so upset and stressed out about this!  I was really hoping we'd have the house last weekend, but now we might not even close in time for this weekend. 

Everything is ready on our end, we're just waiting at this point.  We're so glad that we decided to rent our apartment until the end of March, otherwise we'd be in trouble right now! 

2.16.2011

Closing is next Tuesday

I'm excited, but also annoyed that they couldn't do it Friday.  Since it's a holiday Monday, banks are closed (although I still have to work...), so Tuesday it is.  Still less than a week, but I'm bummed that we won't be able to work on it this weekend. 

2.10.2011

Closing Date

Matt spoke to our mortgage company today, and they told us to expect to close next Friday (2/18) or the Tuesday after that (2/22).  I can't believe it!  We've been waiting for this for so long, and now it's just around the corner.  It just depends how quickly the appraiser can get his sh*t together.  I really hope it's next Friday, so we can get started on all the work we have to do next weekend.  We've got the apartment until the end of March, but we also have a lot of work to do. 

Also, we're both extremely happy that we locked into a mortgage interest rate when we did.  We got it at 4.875%, and since then it's gone up every day, becuase of the issues in Egypt.  Yay low interest!

2.08.2011

New Stove

Matt and I finally picked out our stove!  We are way more excited than we probably should be, but this is one of the first things we've bought for the house.

Well, technically we're not buying it.  As I've mentioned before, the house is owned by an investment company, and was flipped.  As part of the flipping, they got rid of the old stove and fridge.  We made a note in the contract that the sellers would pay $500 towards the cost of a new stove at closing, because we didn't want them to buy a random crappy stove.  Our lawyer told us that we could close without a stove, and buy it once we own the home. 

Well, yesterday afternoon, our lawyer calls and tells us he needs to know what stove we want ASAP because they have to install it.  Um, what?  So Matt and I made a mad dash out to Home Depot last night, along with the kitchen edition of Consumer Reports.  The first Home Depot we tried only had 4 gas ranges, so we run out of there (literally, since it was after 8pm at this point and we were worried about the stores closing) and go to another location.  After all that running around, we came up with this Hotpoint range:












It was rated as a best buy in Consumer Reports (which we trust completely).  It's a pretty standard range, and it has a self-cleaning oven.  It's $549, but we told the seller that we're willing to pay the difference, so I really hope they go with our choice.  I think we'll be happy with our choice, even if we had to rush it.

2.07.2011

Master Bedroom

So I've been thinking a lot about the master bedroom recently. Probably because we are doing it completely from scratch, with all new furniture.  For some reason this is getting me more excited than other rooms we have to furnish.  Anyway, I'd like to do slate blue/gray.  Here are some of my ideas:

Bed (Raymore & Flannigan):













The rest of the furniture set matches the bed.  I'm not sure if this is exactly what we're going for yet, but it intrigued Matt and I when we saw it the other day.

I love this bedding from West Elm:


















I also like the idea of having pendants next to the bed instead of table lamps. I think plain drum pendants would be a good choice:















I also think it would be nice to have some bright accents, like yellow curtains, or a bright rug.  Here are some ideas:




















That's pretty much where my head's been recently.  We're probably not going to work on the master bedroom until we're already moved in, so probably not until April/May/June.  I want to get our main living areas done before the private areas.

As for the house, we signed the new mortgage application last week, and found a house insurance.  Now we're just waiting for the mortgage to go through!  Closing is still scheduled for the 18th, so hopefully we'll be homeowners in less than 2 weeks!  We are keeping our apartment through March, so we'll be able to clean, paint, and update the kitchen before moving in.  I can't wait to get started!