The moment we have been waiting for... WE CLOSED ON THE HOUSE TODAY! I thought this moment would never come, and it never seemed further away than when we walked in to do the final walk through and discovered this...
This is a pile of the ceiling sitting on our formerly beautiful hardwood floors in the living room... apparently the incredibly crummy contractor hired by Fannie Mae to fix the pipes left water in one of the pipes surrounding the radiator and water was leaking through the ceiling until the ceiling gave way and dumped onto the floor, allowing the water to be released and soak into the floor boards, causing them to warp. It was surreal... literally, given that the floor looks something like Dali's melted watches. These are the same utterly inept plumbers that allegedly winterized the place, but instead left water in all of the pipes, causing them to freeze and burst. We now have leaks throughout, which are being handled by an incredibly awesome plumber that is taking care to do things the right way. Amazing what difference a good plumber versus a bad plumber can make. The upside is that we are settled, and the bank has paid for a substantial portion of the work. The real miracle is that we should have running, HOT, water by the weekend, and flushable toilets. I know, it sounds like that should just come standard, but not in a foreclosed property... we are so excited to start moving tomorrow and get settled in. It's going to be a huge day, no doubt about it.
We went over tonight and dropped off some breakables and gave our first house tour. We also got to meet our neighbor, who seems super nice and very laid back. Excellent. I'll be posting more as soon as we are in and have access again... Comcast says that will be Saturday, I am saying we'll see... hooray at last!
Before I launch into all of the BIG NEWS of the day, I thought I'd take a step back and mention that our trip to Berkeley was great. We got to see my sister not only graduate from UC Berkeley, but give the valedictorian speech for her program. It was magical. So so so proud. And we got to spend some time with family, and wandering around looking at things. There's always so much good eye candy in California...
Some of my very favorite things to see were in my sister's studio building. It is pretty great to see the little scraps of art left behind after people make some really great art.
It was just an awesome place to be... we got to hang out while my sister ran a really impressive laser cutting machine to make these huge banners to be hung in a store front window that was featuring the work she did with students at a local school... they were also involved in her MFA show piece. It was great to see them and to ear them talk about their work and experience in making the project.
We also ate and ate and ate and ate... such good food. It was a pretty nice break before returning to the housing madness...
We ended the trip with the most perfect meal at a restaurant in Sausalito called The Fish. It was right on the water, literally on a pier, and we had the best cold cold beer and fish specialties. Such a nice end to a nice trip. My only regret is that we didn't have more time to relax, but there was so much fanfare that we were celebrating pretty much the whole way through... not too shabby!
All apologies for being so distant, but we were in fact away. There is so much house news to share... good and bad, including but not limited to the brand new, water-warped wooden floors in our living room and the fact that we should, finally, actually be closing tomorrow... I also have all kinds of inspiration photos from lovely Cali that I couldn't upload due to a faulty internet connection at the hotel... but, here is a little video to sum up my feelings on getting home and seeing the dog and getting ready to finally make our new home. It's been such a long time coming, but I finally think we are getting there. I do fully intend to maintain this as a daily (or almost daily) blog, so I hope my hiatus won't have put you off... massive update soon to come. There are few things that I like better than traveling, but one of the reasons is because its always amazing to come home... Enjoy!
We are off to somewhat sunny California for the next five days... away from works, away from the mounting stress and pressure as we approach our SECOND settlement date, away from agents who can't even tell you the name of the plumber they hired, let alone the details about the repairs... just away. I have worked hard this year and have been really looking forward to this trip. So I intend to make good on it and enjoy myself as much as possible!
We will be staying at the Hotel Durant in Berkeley, CA close to the UC Berkeley campus, where my sister will be graduating as valedictorian of for MFA program. I couldn't be prouder. She is an amazing artist and very creative teacher and inspiration to all that she works with. We will be on site to celebrate with all of my family... ALL of my family... and I am very excited. I love visiting the Bay Area and always come back with a head full of new ideas from things that I see on my trip. I guess that's a major point of traveling, isn't it? To soak up the influence of another place for a while? Anyway, I'll try to post pictures of what we see and love over our travels for the next few days. There's always plenty to see...
And we'll hope that in the meantime the real estate fairies flap their wings over our dear little foreclosure and get things moving. It would be wizard to come home to a problem solved.
Today was as Monday as can be... back to work, off to the doctor's, and only one emergency house related phone call today. Not bad, really as a lot of days have had two or three emergencies each. Today, the credit union was questioning why the check we received from the proceeds on the sale of our house had two names on it and my bank account only has one... good to know that they are paying attention, but it did cost a race to the bank by Tim to sort things out. So be it, it has been sorted... aside from snapping into action to go talk to the bank, Tim also cleaned up the frames he scored at the flea yesterday. Now they look like this...
Mostly, I'm just trying to ignore the sea of boxes and think of ways to spruce them up while our lovely friend Emily house/pet sits for us when we head off to SF for my amazing sister's grad school graduation. I'm so excited to take a break from box-ville, but would like to make it as comfy for Emily as possible. Plus, I went to the store tonight to buy plane snacks and I'm looking forward to six hours filled with cheese and crackers and endless episodes of The Mighty Boosh. Good times in the skies!
Just about every Sunday in the good weather season we head out to Williams Grove Flea Market to soak in its people, place and things. On the one hand, this is how we have amassed way too much stuff already, but on the other it is how we will be able to make our new house so awesome... Yes, Ikea is useful, and Target has things that you need, but really, the Flea is where it's at.
If you've never had the pleasure of Williams Grove Flea Market, you should know that it picked up where Silver Springs Flea Market left off. Yes, like Silver Springs it has an attached speedway, but more importantly Williams grove is built in to the ramshackle old amusement park that my friends and I worked at one summer; only one, that's all you can stand. Williams Grove Flea Market also extends onto the grounds of the Williams Grove Historical Steam Engine Association, where a steam powered train circles around the property, and a few times a summer they have specialty steam tractor and car shows, like today. Not only are we now the proud owners of the amazing stuffed goat that you see above, but I came to the conclusion that when I finish my law degree and become a paid attorney I want to drive a black Chevy Nova. Why not?
We also brought home this lovely couple for $10! The frames are so amazing. The same guy sold me a really nice light plate for $2.00. I'm not sure where exactly it will go in the new house, but anywhere will do I'm sure. Maybe in our bedroom, or in my den.
After that we stopped by the Antique Marketplace and looked around for a matching dresser and vanity set, but did not find one. We did see many other great things, including this beautiful Chris Craft boat, which was not on the shopping list. I managed to NOT buy more Stangl to add to my collection, which is unusual. I was feeling frugal, I guess.
I love Sundays... we followed up the flea market with diner french toast which I had to have, because something smelled like french toast at the flea market.
Now that I am not in study mode, it's time for a nap...
In preparation for the new house with much more room and eighty-bagillion ideas, I have been scouring craigslist for the awesome, cheap and good. Last week I picked up a fire pit for $25... we have a perfect spot in the backyard for this thing. The back yard is in two tiers, an upper and a lower, and on the upper part there's a perfect little area to set up a fire pit with some chairs around it for nights this summer when we need to escape the remodeling and just sit outside. We could set it up under our big tree too, but maybe then bugs fall down on you... or maybe the fire keeps them away. SO maybe we have two great spots for this thing. At any rate, I was excited because these things are about $150 new, and after you use them once, they look like this anyway.
This morning I went and picked up two excellent slatted benches. They are way better in person than I had expected, and they were two for $40. Sweet! They may not be original mid-century Nelson benches, but I love them. Apparently they came from either a mall or a library in Syracuse. I think they may become one long bench at the end of the guest room bed, or maybe one will go there and one will be in the kitchen or something. I love them because they are that perfect kind of furniture, to fill int he gap somewhere that needs it. I'll post pictures of their final placement whenever we get there.
I've decided to start this blog over the summer, to document the putting-together of our new house... for those of you who already know us, pardon the explanatory materials, but for any folks who don't... my boyfriend and I are in the process of purchasing a Victorian home, built in 1840, and we are going to set about setting it up this summer. This, we think will be the house of our dreams and I wanted to chronicle the process of fixing it up and making it our home. We are certainly not contractors or professional decorators, but we are fairly handy and we both have a lot of creative ideas. I hope that if you are interested in what we are doing you will follow along and feel free to chime in with ideas and suggestions along the way.
Currently, we are still in the process of settling on the property. This house was a foreclosure and is now owned by Fannie Mae. This resulted in a lot of bureaucratic processes to get much of anything accomplished, and so we are currently beyond our initial settlement date and waiting on some critical plumbing work to be accomplished so we can get moving... we have learned that you just have to be patient (or pretend to be patient) and just allow the process to move at its slow pace. It's a tough thing for those who, maybe, prefer to be in control of things, but there's just nothing to be done about it. Our patience (or fake-patience) will pay off, however, when we have working plumbing that the bank paid for instead of us. I wanted to get this blog started in advance of us actually moving in, so it could really be a start to finish kind of thing.
For those of you that do know us already, I thought this might be the most efficient way to keep everyone up-to-date with what we're doing in the event that you don't get to come see us in person...
So to everyone reading this... welcome to our home!
I love, love that we have a new house to put together! My boyfriend (Tim) prefers a baroque or Victorian look and I am much more of a modernist... as a result, we seem to put together a pretty fun place to live. We are moving from a sweet little duplex into a big, four bedroom home and I have been saving up inspiration for a while now... I hope to share it here this summer while I am on break from law school and just (just) doing my full time job instead of both work and school. This will be SUMMER OF HOUSE!!!
