Week 12: Penultimate Edition

Hello fellow housing fanatics. Nothing really new to report, except that as of tomorrow, we will be ONE WEEK FROM CLOSING AND OMG I WANT TO SQUEE AND WRITE THIS ENTIRE BLOG POSTING IN CAPS.

But of course, I won't and will spare you all from any sort of offensive posting. But just know that I really, really want to. I'm that excited!

This has been a long, slow, sometimes frustrating, but ultimately rewarding journey.
To recap, we've had plenty of highs:

• Selling our SD home in three days at $10k over asking
• Flying out to the metro DC area in March for a week, discovering NVHomes. Seriously, no matter what, these are some seriously beautiful and well designed homes in amazing communities, and we're ridiculously happy with our choice to invest in this neighborhood and in this home. 
• Getting used to Maryland again! It wasn't easy leaving behind our home, our home state, and all of our family and friends in California, but I'm slowly starting to ease back into East Coast life again, and it won't be so bad this time around. 
• My son has had the rare opportunity to see a house built from concrete slab into a beautiful home. Those were some real teachable moments that most kids (or adults for that matter) will never get to experience, and I'm glad that we were able to give that to him! 
• Buying a house we can afford! That's a huge concern in this area, followed by commute times and schools. Typically, you have to pick two (unless you're filthy rich), and unfortunately for my husband, his commute isn't the greatest, but as he has pointed out, it's the same commute (distance, time) he's has for the past ten years and he will adapt. 

And plenty of lows:

• I don't even need a bullet point list for this, because it all comes down to the fact that we've been living out of a hotel for THREE MONTHS. People. Listen. Don't EVER do this. Please, please, please, NEVER DO THIS. I could write a separate post about how awful it is and how it has slowly chipped away at my soul and my sanity, but I'm at the point now where I want to forget that we even had to do this--and I'm still sitting in the hotel room! I still have a week to go, and for my sanity ....
• (And other things that I wouldn't classify as "lows", but dealing with the design center, sending over the same documents repeatedly, and other mortgage related stuff wasn't exactly a great experience for us either. But again, I'm trying to keep things classy and positive so ...)

In housing news, they are wrapping up all of the inspections and putting the finishing touches on everything. We have our own inspector coming out on Tuesday, and then the final pre-settlement walkthrough will happen on Wednesday the 14th. I've been meeting with painters, carpenters, and window treatment installation people for the past week, and haven't made the kind of progress that I wanted. For starters, I wish someone had told me that closet systems require the selling of organs in order to finance them. Geesh! Even DIY Ikea closet kits are crazy expensive! We are finding ourselves going over our budget again, and really trying hard not to "up" our decorating budget just to justify having everything we want RIGHT THIS MINUTE. 

And we have nineteen windows to cover. Nineteen! I don't know what we were thinking when we decided that we needed a highfalutin end unit. Geez. 

Too many windows!

So windows, closets, shelves for the laundry room and linen closet, real wood hanger rods for the remaining closets, painting, woodwork (we'd like some crown moulding, shelving, and maybe some chair rails), pendant lighting, ceiling lighting, furniture for our study and living room", and who knows what else is what we're looking to do in the months after closing, but before the holidays. Not to mention, we are officially entering the lowest level of hell, aka, the Dominion of Comcast, and I'm sick with anxiety over it. Seriously, they sound like the worst corporation on the planet. Do Not Want, but unfairly, Do Not Have A Choice. 

Thank goodness we bought our fancy furniture last year in the old house, because I just don't have the energy for it. This almost feels like a remodel! 

One thing we did manage to take care of before hand is the purchase of our washer and dryer! We wanted to go with the same GE set that we had before -- basically a top loader, sans agitator and without a lot of fancy knobs and buttons that would cause issues later on, but for whatever reason, neither Lowes or Home Depot had any comparable models. So, we just went with a Samsung version. I wanted the Active Wash with the built in sink, but honestly, didn't feel like it was worth the $200 price premium ($400 if you take into account the matching dryer we would have to buy), so we just went with the next model down--nearly the same washer and dryer, but without the built in sink. We have way too much stuff to buy to just throw money frivolously away at this point. Top loading, energy efficient, no agitator, 4.8 cu. ft, and on sale over Labor Day weekend, AND with a 10% military discount from Lowes. It will be delivered the day after we close. SCORE:

Want to see a few throwaway pics of the house? I know that you do. :-) Nothing new to add, just looking more spiffy and presentable.