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.

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!

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!

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.

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…

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.

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…

My high hopes of a lush new house were crushed last night when we met with the realtor.  Turns out, the market is at an ALL TIME low.  Like, lower than I thought, low.  So low, that where my neighbors turned down an offer of $260K for their house in July, I can’t even START at that much.

AND!  And, the fees to sell are $20K! I did not take that into consideration.  I knew there were fees, but holy hell, that’s almost 10% just *gulp* gone.  Gone and not put towards a new down payment.

Soooooo…we pay out the backside for the PMI.  Or settle with something A LOT farther away from the lake.  Poop.

Hmm…wonder if we could do it without the realtor? Fee free. Anyone you know want a great townhouse in North Seattle?  It’s a great time to buy!  With the tax credit, you’re practically stealing it!