Home Update #2

I've occasionally written about our current living situation. Here's a quick recap:

In Sept 2012, my husband and I sold our home that we dubbed "The T-ton Tear Down" / "TTD." We bought this house in 2010 and in one weekend had a group of our friends and family help us tear out all the flooring and kitchen out so that we started with a blank canvas for our renovation. Perhaps not the best plan of attack, but hey - it was a learning process!

That month we put an offer on New Home #1, which was a foreclosure and vacant so we rented it from the bank during the purchasing process. We ended up moving out after 3 months and abandoning our offer due to a few things coming to light about the house that weren't caught during the inspection. Like a failing septic system.

We moved out and moved into a temporary rental through our friend and are now in the process of our offer on a house that we have very high hopes for. Just like our last house, it has good bones but is in need of some major repairs. We like to capitalize on these kinds of houses because the typical homebuyer shies away from them. New paint, flooring, kitchens, etc don't scare us. My husband and I have learned that there are many aspects of renovations that are completely doable, given the right skill set. Like understanding basic construction, being comfortable with power tools, being friendly with your local hardware store, and able to watch YouTube videos. Not kidding on that one. Oh, and maintain a Pinterest account ;) Of course, even we have our limitations - we had our TTD kitchen's electrical work professionally installed and the granite counter tops were installed by a fabricator as well. But that's pretty much the extent of it.

Last Thursday we had the inspection on the prospective home. Luckily, there wasn't anything we learned that we hadn't known. It's going to need a new roof, likely new siding (which we will wait to do next summer). It needs new flooring and paint inside - immediately. The current family (parents, 4 teens, 2 dogs and I can detect the presence of rodents or ferrets in the past) has lived in this house hard. Although it's been made tidy for our walk throughs and the inspection, it very clearly hasn't had a deep cleaning in years. Mold and mildew on all the windows, clogged drains, nasty growths in caulking around the toilets and sinks. Nothing we can't handle.

It's been fun walking through this house and dreaming up what we'd do to it to not only fix current issues but to make it better. We've been given a tentative closing date of August 4th, which if course can change quickly, but we're hopeful. We'd love to move in before the end of the summer to take advantage of the good weather and tidy up the outside of the house before the rain sets in.

All of the potential in this house has got us so excited. The ability to test our chops on another renovation, a great sized shop in the backyard (that doesn't overshadow the space at all), being in a family friendly neighborhood with 2 parks within a couple blocks and a large park with a lake, shelters and skate park within a mile walking distance away, and a shorter commute to work for Adam.

So send up a little prayer for us, cross your fingers and toes, and keep an eye for more updates. Also, you can follow my I Have a PhD in Renovating Pinterest board to see some of the inspiration we've got in store for this new house!

A house update...

This weekend is going to be a marathon weekend of sorts.. we are throwing Penny's first birthday party and then moving the following day.

So about 3 months ago we settled into renting the house that we had an offer on and ever since have been battling with the bank (the house is on its way to foreclosure) to get a price locked in. About a month ago Adam and I finally decided that enough is enough; it's clear that we are not going to come to terms on a price that works for us. We weren't terribly heartbroken because there's been a few things that have come to light that have left us a little disenchanted with this house. Such as ... a failing septic system. And weird electrical issues. To sort of cement our plans into place, we decided that we're hightailing it out of Dodge and Adam is looking to transfer to Paccar's technical center in Mount Vernon.  Housing is much more affordable, it seems like there is a ton more available on the market (houses and land), we'll be closer to his family and we both love the northern part of Washington state, as we met and fell in love in Bellingham.

In the meantime, since obviously he hasn't secured a new position yet, we will be renting our friend's house about 5 miles from where we live now for the next 6ish months.  This buys us a little time for Adam to apply / accept a new position and also keep an eye out for the next house that we will move into. And live in for the next 500 years (fingers crossed). This will be our 3rd move in 1 1/2 years.

I was looking through some of our boxes o' stuff and realized that I haven't even seen some of these things in almost 3 years. Makes me want to purge all of our stuff in a really bad way. Obviously we've done just fine without it, and yet we still break out backs moving it around.

Anywho.. So that's what is going on for the next couple weeks, in case you were wondering why it was all quiet over in The Pierogie Mama land ;)

All I want for Christmas... I already got!

You can go ahead and bypass my stocking, Santa - I've already gotten what I asked for this year! Isn't that convenient?

Our living situation over the last year was a little outside of the norm. Living with my parents while our house sold has definitely been a huge blessing - it was a TON of help during Penny's first couple months and I know that the grandparents have appreciated getting to see every day for most of her first year. And now the fun can step up a notch! My biggest hope for this holiday season was for us to be settled into our new home - and although it is not ours on paper, I'm still so thankful for the rental situation.

There's nothing like getting to decorate your home for the first time, and I think it's even more special this time around because it is right in time for the holidays :) I also get to do it all again when the Christmas decorations come down and get settle into our "every day" style. And if my heart isn't content then, I will get to think of fun decorations for Penny's first birthday in March! Hold up- I am getting waaaaay ahead of myself.. I am not ready for my little girl to turn one yet.

But since I've technically gotten my Christmas wish.. can I sneak in another one, Santa? Just a small one. Come close so I can whisper in your ear -

Gerard Butler.

I hope my husband doesn't read this post ;)  But then again, maybe I do?

There's a new Gerard Butler movie coming out this holiday season- Playing for Keeps. I'm pretty interested because not only does it feature my heart throb but it also has other big movie stars like Uma Thurman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dennis Quaid and Jessica Biel (now Timberlake).

That isn't too much to ask for, is it? Go ahead and find a way to wrap Gerard up for me, Santa baby. What are you wishing for this holiday season? Spending more time with your family? Spending less time with your family? ;) A new bag, a date to the movies?

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, 

and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Moving!

So if you've been reading along for the last 9ish months or so, you've probably heard me mention that we've been living in limbo somewhat. To bring you up to speed, about a year ago Adam accepted a position which relocated us 3 hours north of where we owned our home that we had been renovating. He started at that job, while I stayed down south and finished working at my job until I went on maternity leave. In February, while our house was put on the market, we made the semi-permanent move north with my parents (the hubs *hates* it when I say "we live with my parents" but is there a different way to put it? not really.). This put our new home base about 1 1/2 hours south of where Adam works.

Then, in September OUR HOUSE SOLD and very soon after we had our offer in on a house that is much closer to his work. It listed as a foreclosure and was outside of our price range but it had been on the market for about a year and hadn't had any offers. So we suuuuuuuper lowballed it with little expectation to be taken seriously. But, we were and after a few counter offers we agreed upon a price. We learned that we were negotiating with a bankruptcy trustee who was in charge of the estate.  We were even given a closing date. We prepared to move into our new home and then were hit out of left field. The house was not a foreclosure - but a short sale. The price we negotiated with the trustee was not the final say and that the bank hadn't even seen the offer yet. That closing date we were given - completely fabricated. At least it feels that way. There isn't any other way to explain it. Somewhere, someone (likely the listing agent) dropped the ball. Who lists a house as a foreclosure and allows an offer to go through as such and then 2 weeks before the closing date have something like this fall through the cracks?

We were told that the new plan is to wait til November 30th, where our offer will be brought to bankruptcy court for the bank to see our offer. Then we were told that it could be another 120 days until we hear a final decision. Frustration does not even begin to explain it.  (2 second rant: WHY oh WHY can't there be like 10 routes for buying/selling homes? Why does each and every transaction have to be unique??)

Then we got the bright idea to see if the bank would be willing to rent us the property - after all, the house had been vacant for a long time and our personal interest in moving in (beyond having our own space) was that winter is coming - and the heat had been turned off long ago. Because we are under contract to purchase this home, it is in our best interest to keep that house safe during the winter.

So we proposed the idea and were quickly hooked up with the property manager who works for the bank and we negotiated a rental agreement and guess what? WE MOVED IN YESTERDAY!

Oh man. Words cannot explain how great it was! What made it even better was that typically Adam and I have very bad luck when having to deal with contracted work (such as our kitchen designer, title companies - on 3 counts - sellers/buyers, etc) but this time - everything went so smoothly. The movers were professional, polite and careful with our stuff, we got the water and electrical back up and running as it should. The house warmed up quickly and after cleaning up the floors, we let Penelope crawl around and explore her new home, while Adam and I basked in gratitude and accomplishment.

Penny and Daddy walking the property

This move was very last minute (like - less than 12 hours notice) so there was quite a bit that we left behind at my parents' (namely, the dogs!). I'll be here through the end of the week, finalizing our packing and we'll all be back up at the house this weekend. BIG SIGH of happiness. I even found my Christmas decorations - I'm totally putting them out before Thanksgiving.

It's a really weird position to be in, to rent one's home prior to owning it. Basically we've been told to expect sometime in early Spring for a closing date. It's even stranger because we're big DIY'ers - we renovate for fun. However, we won't be touching this house until it is ours.

And so there you have it. A little over a year and we're back to "normal life," as I call it. I'll be posting pictures soon... blogging will be somewhat intermittent because we don't have internet at the house yet, and apparently it is rural enough that Comcast/Century Link etc don't service out there (??? but it's really not THAT rural!).