Boxes, Boxes, More Boxes and A Speedy Cigar Puffer

Seriously, there are boxes everywhere! For the past five days they have ruled my life. A life that I neatly boxed up at my old apartment, then hauled over to our fantabulous new house and that is now randomly half unpacked. Oh, and we are now forever indebted to our awesome friends who helped move. Add zee man’s boxes and furniture and we are in the middle of what looks like a Serbian minefield. But it’s our Serbian minefield and it feels really good! I’m super excited to put together all the rooms and get rid of the chaos so we can start our new life.

The one thing we got off the to-do list was our lawn. Since the sellers had moved three weeks ago it looked like the Hillbillies were living at our home. It was friggin’ tall grass (and weeds)! And though the boyfriend bought an oh so snazzy mower (as far as he is concerned – they all seem the same to me in all honesty… ;-)), this week has been way too stressful to even think about tackling that project.

Well, bright and early Tuesday morning, I was still rubbing the sand out of my eyes, we heard a lawnmower next door. Fancy that, a pick-up with trailer and an unfamiliar looking, old man pushing an industrial mower at what seemed like 100 miles per hour. All the while he is happily puffing on a cigar. You betcha’ I sprinted out there and flailed my arms to make sure he saw us in all his cigar and lawn bliss. “Yup, no prob, will come right over,” he said. Fantastic. We now have a fill-in lawn mower that speaks English, is very reasonable and will most definitely wake us up at 7am every time we call him. Youtsh. Small price to pay. Didn’t think I’d ever be so excited about a lawn-mowing, cigar-puffing silver-haired man. Oh homeownership…

 

 

Continue Reading

House Hunters North Carolina

CuteHouseSoldSoooo, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!! Oh-Em-Gee! I get so giddy every time I think about it. OMG! Bounce around!

We had been browsing the real estate market online for some time just to see what was out there and figure out what we both liked and could afford. Complete nightmare to find a common denominator seeing that He lives in the suburbs and I live close to the city center? Nope, we actually agreed on most things (though I vetoed that cute house that was on a four lane road). This was our must have list:

  • 4 Bedrooms (or 3 and a bonus room)
  • 2.5 Baths
  • Renovated to our liking (or renovatable and super cheap)
  • Close-ish to the city center and our friends
  • Great schools
  • Natural light
  • Charming, established neighborhood

And then of course our long wish-list:

  • Screened-in porch
  • A nice yard
  • Hard-wood floors (preferably original, decades-old)
  • A window over the kitchen sink
  • Garages
  • Lots of closet space
  • Subway tiles (believe it or not, he wanted those)
  • Open-ish floor plan for entertaining
  • A breakfast bar
  • NOT a wood-paneled hunters’ lodge type family room
  • ….. and of course tons of more things one could wish for like that jewelry making studio and a golf putting hole but hey, do you still believe in Santa Claus?!

I’d  heard some horror stories about house hunting that included looking at dozens and dozens of houses or the most evil sellers so I was just a bit anxious about the process. In all honesty, we were just going to check some out just in case one came on the market that was an absolute must-get-now-before-someone-else-gets-it house. I think our proper time line was to buy a house in half a year to a year. But when am I ever proper?! 😉

So surprisingly enough, we only looked at a total of four houses before we made an offer on The One: The Wallpaper House, The Blue House, The White House, and The Renovated House. How many hours we spent browsing online listings though, well, we’ll just keep that confidential. Too many. But in the end, it was actually that browsing that got us our LoveHouse.

So we’ll be moving lots and lots and lots of things from my apartment and his storage unit in the next couple of days. I can’t tell you how excited I am! It definitely feels very grown up and just a bit weird to get so excited about washing machines, mortgage rates, and paint colors. I draw the line at lawn mowers though. They’re still as lame as ever.

Oh, which one is the LoveHouse?! Well I’ll tell you about that in another blog post – back to packing boxes for tomorrow’s move! 😀

Continue Reading