Hello, Sunnyside

It's been an exciting and exhausting couple of weeks. We haven't started demo on the house...yet. But, soon! I've met with the contractor and designer several times, and we have a door/window guy in place making plans, too. I couldn't make the meeting with the cabinet designer on Thursday, but the contractor and designer were there, and we'll get those plans back very soon. She will put together a couple of different plans for the kitchen, as well as plans for banquet seating and a mudroom/pantry. FYI, we're working with Princeton Construction  as our GC. They are really, really good at this. Greg with The Arizona Door Store  will be installing new interior door hardware and a couple of new interior and exterior doors. But his biggest project will be the entryway. This is a superimposed image of the door we picked (or one like it). The new door will be eight feet tall, which is a couple of feet taller than the original door. The windows flanking the door will ...

We had waiting for this week to arrive for a long time. On Monday, we signed the papers and did the final walk-through, on Tuesday the loan was funded, and by Wednesday the house was ours! Dylan was out of town, but I dropped off our first load of boxes on Wednesday with the boys. D got home Thursday night, and on Friday we met at the house with the contractors and interior designers. This was the day that I could finally feel it...I really felt like the house belonged to us. I could always see the potential in the house, of course, but I grew really excited as minds came together to formulate some really awesome ideas for the renovation. Final walk-through. I stopped by on Wednesday- the house had officially sold! Gavin took a bunch of pictures of me after our meeting with the contractors and designers. Our plans include completely re-doing the entryway doors and windows, new floors, interior and exterior paint, new kitchen, some work in the laundry room, building...

We got an offer on Morning Vista! And this time, we might really be able to make a deal. We countered today, and we'll hear back tomorrow. I am so nervous- I'm afraid we were too aggressive with our counter offer, but everyone else involved seems to think it is reasonable. Even if we do get a contract, we still have to pass a due diligence period. Fingers crossed nothing major turns up on the inspection. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I am hopeful that something will actually come of this. Our counter offer pushed the closing date from the end of December into January, which will be helpful considering we'll be packing and moving over the holidays. Our house on Sunnyside will still not be livable by then, but my parents agreed to take us on as roommates for a few weeks. Our plan, regardless of whether or not this deal comes together, is to get one of those Pods and just park it at Sunnyside until we're completely ready to unload. We have a lot of furnitu...

It's been a few weeks since we barely hung onto the deal with the Sunnyside house, and the good news is that I don't have much to report. The financing part of things is chugging along, and we haven't hit any major snags. The most exciting thing was that we met with the designer and contractor last week to get a plan in place for repairs and renovations. The estimate came back today, and we should be able to get a fair amount of work done! Not everything...but at least the important things. The master bathroom and closets are really small. And really, the bathroom is in need of updating. The project to expand on that, however, is going to have to be put on hold for now. I have no earthly idea what I'll do with my expansive clothing and shoe collection. I've been working hard to get rid of a lot of clothes and other stuff, too, but there's no way I'll pare it down to fit into the closets at this house. I guess the non-seasonal stuff will live in the attic, ...

We ran into one minor hiccup with our financing, but all is well and we are moving full steam ahead on the Sunnyside house. Our mortgage broker wanted to lock in a rate that was a half point above what the credit union was currently offering. We couldn't just ignore the fact that we could do so much better. After presenting him with this, we were able to bring the rate down slightly, and we were comfortable with proceeding with the new rate. We would have saved money to drop everything and go with the credit union, but that would have been more stress and headache than it's worth. At this point, we don't even know if we would qualify for the loan through the credit union while we still own our current home. We've already written letters, made phone calls and presented all kinds of paperwork to our current lender. We've emailed with him no less than five times a day for the last two weeks. It would be awful to kick him to the curb after he's done so much work, an...

The deal came through at the last second, and it looks like we are on track to get the house on Sunnyside. I can't believe it. We thought the deal was dead. Totally off the table. We signed the paperwork killing it...but waited to submit it until closer to the deadline. That's when the seller came back and offered just a little bit more off the sale price of the house as a final offer. I don't know how it made the difference for us, but it did. Ultimately, the seller and us were only apart by an amount of money that, while still a LOT of money, would not make a difference in the long run. We knew we'd regret it if we didn't get the house. We've been shopping for houses high and low for the better part of a year, and we know enough to know that a house this perfect for us would not come around again. The solar lease deal is not optimal, but the seller gave us just enough of a concession during our negotiations that we can kind of justify it. We will buy out the...