Cake & Ice Creams » house

Full House

Kelli — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:42:03 +0000

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love this quote (found on one of our housewarming cards – thanks Nins!). It’s so simple and so sweet and so true. At our open house last week I felt like I was running around, speaking to everyone while speaking to no one. I was exhausted the next day. Totally, 100%, beat. While swapping stories with Kevin, our shared sentiment was that we are very lucky to have so many wonderful people in our lives (that and how our wedding will be housewarming times three and it’s a good thing we’re hopeful to take a long honeymoon – details on that to come soon, I hope!).

It’s funny, as most of you saw, our house is barely furnished. And surprisingly, neither one of us really care. We aren’t in a hurry to buy stuff just to buy stuff. We want permanent stuff. Stuff that’s “us” and stuff that will be us for a while. Which is why, Ralph is right. We don’t need no stinkin’ furniture!

We’ll be better than fine with a house full of good people and good times.

Garden Party

Kelli — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 04:42:14 +0000

One of the things we were super excited about in our new house were the ready-made garden beds outside and the abundance of herbs scattered about the yard. We planted tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, peppers, squash and tried a cantaloupe. Admittedly, we cheated this year with starters but we are still very proud of our blooming little guys!

We had our first taste of garden love when we made this light, yummy summer dinner. We used our own mint and basil…but the zucchini isn’t ready yet and we don’t have peas. With or without your own garden goods, there will be a party in your mouth!

Peppers!

Tomatoes!

Life is still good, but…

Kelli — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 04:27:55 +0000

Remember when I said I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself without the packing and the cleaning? Well, that was naive of me. Very, very naive. I forgot it’s summer and we’re usually pretty busy in the summer. On top of summertime schedule we now get to care for a giant yard. Filled with beautiful plants and flowers… and many many weeds. I filled our yard waste bucket last night of weeds (At least I hope they were all weeds. I’m not positive on that.) and I only covered about half of the yard. Oye.

Our first purchase

Kelli — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:09:03 +0000

This is the first thing we bought for our new place. I just love it!

One clock down. Microwave, lawn mower, curtains, BBQ, patio furniture, couch, dining table, dining chairs, bed, etc., etc. to go!

A-Team

Kelli — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 05:04:35 +0000

We are so lucky to have such great friends. Thank you to our A-Team for the fabulous moving help! We couldn’t have done it without you!

Keys!

Kelli — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 04:17:46 +0000

Life is Good

Kelli — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 01:47:53 +0000

I don’t really stress out. I don’t think I do anyway. My face that looks like a thirteen year old boy going through puberty would say otherwise though.

There’s been a lot going on the last couple of months. Topsy turvy first *blech* house adventure. Easy peasy “our house” adventure. Finding renters worried me to death. We found some though, a great pair that we’re really excited about. We’ve been painting, cleaning, packing, cleaning, fixing things (we have a doorbell, people!), more cleaning and now that all that hard work and worry is just about to come to an end; I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with myself!

Perhaps, we do what all grown-ups do when they’re happy. We do the dance of joy! And hope this thirteen year old pre-pubescent thing doesn’t stick around too long.

Quebec Livin’

Kelli — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:22:37 +0000

Well, we decided it might be worth living in Quebec for a house we absolutely adore. Yes, it’s crazy far. But the people who love us will still come visit – I swear to God you guys better come visit!

HERE are many pictures of our new house! The first fifteen are from the listing. The rest are ones I snapped during the inspection. There are a lot of pictures of random stuff I liked and want to find (love that rug in the living room!) so just ignore those. I have given myself permission to share with you all because so far, everything has gone super smooth – just like it’s supposed to.

We had our first sign of “this is our house” when the seller’s agent called us to tell us he was expecting another offer on the house. Kevin was really nervous that we would outbid ourselves so we were just going to take our chances. If it’s “our house” it will all work out and the other offer won’t be as good. Well, it was just as good. In fact, it was slightly better. But we and our agent had made an impression on the sellers agent so he told us what we needed to do to get the house if we really wanted it. All we had to do was match it and they’d pick us. He didn’t have to do that. They could have very easily just taken the other offer and called it a day. But he wanted to work with us.

Our second “this is our house” moment was the immaculate inspection. Compared to that *blech* other place, it was a difference of night and day. We feel quite lucky how much thought and care was put into the re-model. There’s practically nothing we need to do to move in…except buy a lot of furniture.*

Now all that’s left is the appraisal and financing. Fingers crossed, we’ll be moving June 26!

* As you’re looking at these pictures, note how adorable the furnishing is. It will not look like this when we move in. In fact, it probably won’t look like that for many many years…

Location, location, location

Kelli — Sun, 16 May 2010 06:30:07 +0000

When we first started looking at houses, Kevin and I had it all figured out. The market is crap right now. Of course we can find a house with three plus bedrooms, one plus bath, a yard, a garage for our boards, a basement (preferably finished but hey, we’re not that picky). Oh yeah, and we want to live by the lake, where it’s an easy commute with quick access to main roads.

Well…four months later, one very petite house down (see previous post), our search continues. In Canada speak, our search has taken us to the Quebec of Seattle. Who the hell has heard of Cedar Park? Not us. But ironically enough, it’s close to a lake and there is access to main roads….just not the lake or roads we originally had in mind.

What a compromise. Do we stick to the city in a house we will probably grow out of sooner than later? Or uproot and grow into a beautiful home in Quebec? Decisions, decisions.

Roller Coaster

Kelli — Mon, 10 May 2010 04:26:43 +0000

Kevin and I have been house hunting for several months. Some would say we are picky….we say we’re not in any hurry so we’re waiting for that perfect house. Four months in I was beginning to believe that perfect house just didn’t exist for us (in our price range!). Until…we found it! What is supposed to be an exciting process turned into an emotional roller coaster right from the get go, which should have been our first sign. But instead, we persevered until we got what we wanted and headed into the next phase – inspection.

The inspection wasn’t that bad really. But there were quite a few unknowns on our end that we needed to know before committing to such a huge purchase. Part of the crawl space wasn’t cleared out for us, so we needed to get into that, they weren’t sure about an oil tank (if one existed or not) or the sewer lines so we were going to have specialty inspectors in to check it out. We didn’t even get to the negotiating phase. We were just being courteous by telling them our initial findings and letting them know we were going to have additional inspections. With that, they decided they didn’t want to deal with us. They wanted to “roll the dice” and put the house back on the market. Evidently hoping for buyers that don’t mind the unknowns. It’s not really realistic to us, but maybe they’ll luck out.

Our wishful thinking, spiteful hope is that they won’t get any takers and they’ll have to come crawling back to us. Then we’ll remind them why you should always be nice to people who want to buy something very expensive from you. Karma’s a bitch.

Sadly and realistically though, Jay Z says it best. On to the next one. We just hope the next one doesn’t take us four months to find…