WE DID IT!!!

We closed successfully on Wednesday morning - the house is now officially ours! We are moving full swing into the renovation phase this weekend, so watch this space for some "before" pictures...

Almost there...

T minus 11 days till closing, and we are well on the way... we've arranged for homeowners' insurance and utility hookups, and the truck and movers are booked for January 28. (If you are the praying kind, please pray that we don't have a foot of snow every weekend like we did this past January!) Today we're heading out to Lumber Liquidators to check out their end-of-year sales and hopefully pick up some hardwood flooring for our family room. If we can find a good enough price on the hardwood, we might even be able to hire someone who knows what they're doing to install it, and take one project off our plate... we'll see what happens!

Redfin

Sorry for the silence lately... until we close on the 28th, there won't be too much to talk about renovation-wise. Since our last post, we've received official bank approval for our mortgage, so now it's just a matter of arranging utility hookups, insurance, and staying patient until closing day!

For the last three years, we've been saving up our down payment and stalking the online listing sites to familiarize ourselves with the local market. About two years ago, when some friends of ours went through the whole home-buying process, they introduced us to a site called Redfin, with which we instantly became fascinated. Redfin is an online real estate brokerage that allows you to browse listings in your area and essentially act as your own agent - you choose the properties you want to see by adding the ones you like as "favorites," and a Redfin agent then arranges for the tour. After you find a property you like, your agent will work with you to draw up an offer and submit it to the listing agent, and the whole thing happens online. After your offer is submitted, Redfin opens an online "Deal Room" for you, so you can keep track of what's happened so far and see all the next steps in the process. The best part is that when you close, Redfin refunds you part of the agent's commission! (The amount refunded varies according to state law, but our Redfin refund will more than pay for our new fridge.)

When the time came to make a move, we were sure that we wanted to buy through Redfin, and we have definitely not been disappointed! The concept was great for us, because the last three years of looking had given us an excellent sense of what we wanted (and more importantly, what we could realistically expect to get for our money). We only needed one tour to find our house, but if we'd needed more time, we could have done an unlimited number of tours. The entire process has been incredibly smooth, and our agent is just awesome (and I am not saying this just because she reads this blog - hi, Liane!). She responds instantly to emails, no matter what time of day it is, and her recommendations for a home inspector and a closing attorney have been spot on. It's readily apparent that she completely adores her job, and she has done so much to make the biggest purchase of our lives just about as easy as buying a cheeseburger at the drive-through.

The only drawback to Redfin is that it isn't yet available in all real estate markets, but they're expanding all the time. If you're looking for a house and Redfin is available in your area, we can't recommend it strongly enough!

Unreality

Even though it's official, it still doesn't quite feel real. The 150 pounds of slate tile that have been riding around in the back of my car for the last two or three weeks say otherwise, though. Eventually, it will grace the front and back entrances to our family room, if I can remember everything Joe H. and his subcontractors taught me about tiling over ten years ago. If I get really good at it, I might even tackle the bathroom walls!

Holy Crap! IT'S ON!!!!

Got news today that the appraisal came in and the valuation is sufficient for the bank to grant the mortgage. They say we'll have a commitment letter by December 6, closing on the 28th.

You know what that means?

It is....officially.....ON!

Buying the refrigerator didn't turn out to be foolish after all.

Now...we have to plan our attack. The to-do list is as follows (in no particular order):

• Procure hardwood flooring for the family room and hallway between kitchen and dining room
  
• Figure out how the hell to install hardwood floors
  
• Try not to nail my own foot to the floor with the flooring nailer (I make no promises)
  
• Procure some sort of vinyl tiles for the kitchen, since what's there now is screamingly terrible
  
• Install vinyl floor tiles
  
• Try not to glue myself (or the cats, or my fiance - again, no promises) to the floor
  
• Procure paint - we have so many paint chips right now that we could do a lovely mosaic though
  
• Line up an electrician to add a sub panel, install a 220 volt outlet for our dryer, and upgrade service to 200 amp
  
• Paint
  
• Get the chimney re-pointed, cleaned, and inspected
  
• Line up movers
  
• Paint
  
• Receive refrigerator delivery and installation
  
• Figure out how much sheet rock is needed to finish the basement (in order to replace the "Oh my God I'm from the seventies" wood paneling)
  
• Replace locks on all the doors and re-key them.
  
• Paint
  
• Procure cedar shingles to replace ones that have seen better days
  
• Figure out how the hell to replace said shingles
  
• Paint
  
• Lay tile in the entry ways from to the family room (front and back)
  
• Get bath tub re-glazed
  
• Paint
  
• Try to figure out how to fix the bath tub drain
  
• Replace walls around the tub (more tiling!!!)
  
• Find and install missing closet doors
  
• Did I mention that we may need to paint?
  

At any rate, the list is long, and I'm sure I've missed some stuff. I can't wait to get in there and get started!

The countdown begins

One month from tomorrow, we're closing (assuming everything continues to go as smoothly as it has so far). Two months from tomorrow, we're moving in (assuming we don't have a foot of snow every weekend like we did last January). In the meantime, we have to paint a whole lot of walls, do some reflooring, possibly demolish and rebuild half a bathroom, pack up our apartment, move all our stuff, and oh yeah, Christmas has to get squeezed in there somewhere too. And did I mention that one of us is recovering from knee surgery and the other has a problematic back?

I think we might possibly need some help... fortunately, we've worked on so many people's houses by this point that we have a lot of favors to call in!

New Fridge

Just bought a new fridge from Home Depot - can't help thinking that maybe it was somewhat foolish to make such a large purchase for the house before actually securing the mortgage?  I'm operating under the assumption that everything will go as planned.  Time will tell!  More to come...

Welcome!

Welcome one and all!

So my fiance and I are in the process of buying our very first house.  The place is in need of some updating - it looks like the last time anyone decorated/painted/etc. this place was sometime in...well...suffice to say, it's a little dated.  It's not a total gut job, but since my grandmother won't be living with us, things need to be changed.

Our list of projects is considerable, and since we're somewhat handy (so we think), we're undertaking a good number of them as DIY.  It all seems easy enough...hopefully those aren't famous last words!

We'll be posting our experiences and lessons learned here as we start our projects.  We hope you'll follow along!