Home Improvement FAIL
We have officially been homeowners for exactly one week today....Woohoo! I can hardly believe it is true!
Our closing last Friday went pretty well. At least I thought it did. There were a few little glitches in the paperwork that we were able to work out right then and there, although it made the process a little longer than usual. Our real estate agent, who is a little on the hyper side, was about a minute away from smashing her head into a wall by the end of it, because we were there for a good two hours by the time we got everything worked out. Apparently most closings only take about thirty minutes. Oh well, I certainly didn't mind it taking a little longer if that is what it takes to get it done right!
The closing attorney, who was a college friend of Dave's, was very patient, and did a great job of explaining each paper we were signing in simple terms. I still don't understand everything we signed, but I trusted the attorney, our realtor, and our mortgage agent, who were all there to cheer us on. I really don't think they would have let us sign anything that would end up biting us in the ass later. The bottom line of it all was: make your mortgage payments on time, the property is being sold "as is," and make sure you get your property tax bill when it is issued. Oh, and now you are in debt for the rest of your life! Aaaaahhh!! (But actually, it wasn't really that scary to think about. The much more daunting task right now is making the place liveable.)
After our closing, we went to visit our new house just for fun (and we had to go and get the keys anyways). We walked around a little bit, making mental notes of the work ahead of us. As we were standing in the kitchen talking, all of a sudden we heard a scratching noise in the ceiling above our heads. My heart sunk, as I imagined some horrible rat chewing up the rafters and making a nest in our new house! I wondered to myself if we had just made a big mistake. And then to top it all off, when we were pulling out of the driveway a few minutes later, I noticed that we have a fire hydrant in our front yard. Well where the hell did that come from? I totally had never seen it until right then. It's weird the things you notice after it is too late. But truthfully, I'm not sure that would have turned me off enough to not want to buy the house. It is what it is.
The next morning we started out bright and early, attacking the task of.......
Oh wait, sorry, wrong story.
We meant to start out bright and early the next morning attacking the task of ripping the horribly ugly wallpaper out of the kitchen and the two bathrooms. But those who really know us would not be surprised to find out that we actually went out with friends in Decatur the previous evening, stayed out later than we meant to, slept later than we meant to, and didn't make it to Roswell until the mid afternoon. Then, the Home Depot that we were planning on renting a wallpaper steamer from told us that they don't rent tools there. Doh. So, instead we worked on picking out a few paint colors that we thought might look good in the living room and picked up some new locks and doorknobs for the exterior doors. Hoping to make some use of the rest of the day, we drove over to the house, only to discover that we had forgotten the tool box. Damn, we suck at home improvement. So we couldn't change the locks out, but at least we threw some paint on the wall to see how it would look. We also scared the shit out of the poor squirrel that was scratching around in our ceiling, probably trying to make a nest. Take that Mr. Squirrel!
The next day, after sleeping off the double UGA victory hangover, we again headed back to the house, after renting a wallpaper steamer from the other Home Depot store in the area that does actually rent tools. We lugged the contraption home, filled it with water, turned it on, and waited....and waited...and waited. NO fricking steam. The damn thing was broken. So then we had to go and exchange it for another one, which kind of worked out, because we would have had to go back anyway to buy the rest of the other tools we would need. I guess at first we thought we would just steam the wallpaper, and it would fall right off. HAHA! Now that is funny. Looking back on it, I am sooo glad we had to go back the second time, because we bought some chemical wallpaper remover and a scraper, which ending up really helping (but at the time, we bought them "just in case.")
Tomorrow: Wallpaper fun, working with a contractor, and pictures!
Our closing last Friday went pretty well. At least I thought it did. There were a few little glitches in the paperwork that we were able to work out right then and there, although it made the process a little longer than usual. Our real estate agent, who is a little on the hyper side, was about a minute away from smashing her head into a wall by the end of it, because we were there for a good two hours by the time we got everything worked out. Apparently most closings only take about thirty minutes. Oh well, I certainly didn't mind it taking a little longer if that is what it takes to get it done right!
The closing attorney, who was a college friend of Dave's, was very patient, and did a great job of explaining each paper we were signing in simple terms. I still don't understand everything we signed, but I trusted the attorney, our realtor, and our mortgage agent, who were all there to cheer us on. I really don't think they would have let us sign anything that would end up biting us in the ass later. The bottom line of it all was: make your mortgage payments on time, the property is being sold "as is," and make sure you get your property tax bill when it is issued. Oh, and now you are in debt for the rest of your life! Aaaaahhh!! (But actually, it wasn't really that scary to think about. The much more daunting task right now is making the place liveable.)
After our closing, we went to visit our new house just for fun (and we had to go and get the keys anyways). We walked around a little bit, making mental notes of the work ahead of us. As we were standing in the kitchen talking, all of a sudden we heard a scratching noise in the ceiling above our heads. My heart sunk, as I imagined some horrible rat chewing up the rafters and making a nest in our new house! I wondered to myself if we had just made a big mistake. And then to top it all off, when we were pulling out of the driveway a few minutes later, I noticed that we have a fire hydrant in our front yard. Well where the hell did that come from? I totally had never seen it until right then. It's weird the things you notice after it is too late. But truthfully, I'm not sure that would have turned me off enough to not want to buy the house. It is what it is.
The next morning we started out bright and early, attacking the task of.......
Oh wait, sorry, wrong story.
We meant to start out bright and early the next morning attacking the task of ripping the horribly ugly wallpaper out of the kitchen and the two bathrooms. But those who really know us would not be surprised to find out that we actually went out with friends in Decatur the previous evening, stayed out later than we meant to, slept later than we meant to, and didn't make it to Roswell until the mid afternoon. Then, the Home Depot that we were planning on renting a wallpaper steamer from told us that they don't rent tools there. Doh. So, instead we worked on picking out a few paint colors that we thought might look good in the living room and picked up some new locks and doorknobs for the exterior doors. Hoping to make some use of the rest of the day, we drove over to the house, only to discover that we had forgotten the tool box. Damn, we suck at home improvement. So we couldn't change the locks out, but at least we threw some paint on the wall to see how it would look. We also scared the shit out of the poor squirrel that was scratching around in our ceiling, probably trying to make a nest. Take that Mr. Squirrel!
The next day, after sleeping off the double UGA victory hangover, we again headed back to the house, after renting a wallpaper steamer from the other Home Depot store in the area that does actually rent tools. We lugged the contraption home, filled it with water, turned it on, and waited....and waited...and waited. NO fricking steam. The damn thing was broken. So then we had to go and exchange it for another one, which kind of worked out, because we would have had to go back anyway to buy the rest of the other tools we would need. I guess at first we thought we would just steam the wallpaper, and it would fall right off. HAHA! Now that is funny. Looking back on it, I am sooo glad we had to go back the second time, because we bought some chemical wallpaper remover and a scraper, which ending up really helping (but at the time, we bought them "just in case.")
Tomorrow: Wallpaper fun, working with a contractor, and pictures!
posted by Bean at
2:51 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home