The Waitin’ Is The Hardest Part

And “waiting” is indeed the operative word. First, I couldn’t find my camera, so no blog. Then, house stuff happened, and I didn’t want to blog. I know this is a ridiculous fear…but I’m afraid to jinx anything by posting too much about the house before the keys are in our hands. Also, I don’t want to post too much (i.e. pics with details) and compromise the sellers’ privacy.

But it has to work out. I already bought a sofa (modeled by mom)! Got it for $750 off because it had been in the store for more than a year. I know, because I’ve been coveting it for that long. 😀

That said, the inspection was last week and it went well about as expected. I mean, we’re suckers for old houses and because of the age of the houses in the neighborhood in which we want to live, we knew there would be asbestos (big duh, the asbestos exterior shingles are in plain view) and a lot of maintenance work (like rerouting water from the gutters and sealing up some minor surface cracks in the cement, etc.).

BUT—what we weren’t prepared for—the windows. THE WINDOWS! They are bad. Badder (yes, bad enough to validate word creation) than we initially realized. And even though we were prepared to replace them, lead-based paint (which is a concern due to the age of the house: built in 1940) has become an abatement issue in our state. This means we have to pay specialists to tent each window and go at them while wearing hazmat suits and filtered masks. What does this really mean? $$$ MONEY $$$.

Brings to mind that delicious song by The Heavy called Colleen (where “she” is apparently “our house”):

“And she won’t give it up, until she’s had just about enough; That girl’s so dangerous, it’s enough to make a lover broke…”

The one thing we could do before the appraisal was to obliterate the soggy porch. So we met up on sunny Saturday afternoon with the sellers (and our agents), wielding sledge hammers, prepared to make a mess. I think this is what’s called “sweat equity?”

Chris let the seller take the first blow before we all went to town. I assured the sellers, who were worried about their construction skills, that destruction is much easier than construction.

It came down super easy. And lucky us, there were cement steps underneath, so we don’t have to worry about a long fall out the back door anytime soon.

And we wait. Now waiting for the appraiser to do his/her business on the place. Then will it feel more real?