I am nervooooous...

[Pensive Monkey]

So a few weeks ago we put an offer in on a house. We gave them 24 hours to respond. The listing agent was shady, said there'd been a death in the seller's family and asked for a 24 hour extension. Which we gave, of course. Well the next day we hear that they rejected our offer entirely and accepted someone else's. I was displeased. Every time I drove by that house after that, I would think about how much I wanted the contract to fall through so that we could have another stab at it.

Well, over the weekend that's just what happened. So we finally have dibs on the house. We're getting it at a good price, and I'm very excited. But man, I'm nervous. I'm just afraid that something will go wrong with the financing. I'm not nervous about the buying part...the payments will be the same as our current rent, or even less. And we know we like the location and the house. I'm just afraid that something won't go right...we're supposed to close September 10. I know that will be here before we know it, but it's a long time to be wondering if all will go well.

It's just been such a long process. We've been house hunting since February. We've liked a number of houses, and this is the furthest we've gotten so far. I am trying to only be cautiously optimistic, but I will be crushed if this doesn't work out.

[glatt]

September 10th! That's a long time to wait! I don't know how, but you need to come to terms with the limbo status you're in, or you're gonna go insane.

Congratulations, by the way, on finding your dream house for a good price.

[Pensive Monkey]

Thanks. It IS a long time. 55 days or something terrible like that. Long enough for me to dream of all the paint colors and improvements we're going to make, and yes, long enough for me to lose my mind.

[Aliantha]

You'll lose it even faster if you stick around here too much.

[capnhowdy]

Yeah. You don't have to be crazy to post here. But it helps.

[Pie]

Congrats! We went through that home-buying sequence back in December. Now our new lovely home needs a new roof. But hey, we knew it was coming -- we just thought we might have a year or two.

Best wishes with the wait for closing!

[Pensive Monkey]

That stinks, Pie. My husband took some convincing before agreeing to buy for that very reason...nervous about the extra expenses. But the basement in our rental has flooded two years in a row, and I think he finally understands that just because the landlord is technically responsible for repairs on a rented house doesn't mean those repairs will get done! So we're just going to try as hard as we can to keep some money in savings for emergencies and repairs.

[ZenGum]

Originally Posted by Pensive Monkey

just because the landlord is technically responsible for repairs on a rented house doesn't mean those repairs will get done!

[checks level of rainwater in tupperware tub on inside windowsill ]

uh-huh.

[Pie]

True, dat. We've got a list as long as my arm of all the things we're going to do with the house, but I keep telling myself it's under our control.

Fence the back yard (1-2 weeks from now)
New roof + 2 skylights (August)
Full interior paint job (Fall)
Full master bath remod (next spring)
Minor remods to 2nd bath & powder room -- new toilets and vanities (next spring)
Full kitchen remod (next fall? 2011?)

[Pensive Monkey]

Yup, we'll have 20 days between the time we close and the time we have to get out of our rental. In that time we have to refinish wood floors throughout the house, which are painted, mind you, try to paint every room (of course if this isn't done before we move, it's not as big of a deal), get a built-in dishwasher, and convert a giant pantry into a laundry room. The floors are probably the top priority since it's going to be a major messy project and we don't want to be living there or have our stuff there while that's going on. It's probably lead-based paint, too. So we'll have to be careful. Actually thinking of hiring someone to do just the sanding, then doing the staining ourselves. We'll see.

[glatt]

I've done floors before. It's scary and fun. Scary because you don't want to irreversible damage them with the giant freaking floor drum sander, and fun because it's such a dramatic change when you sand the nasty old finish off.

If you think there might be lead in the paint, absolutely do it before you move in. It will be so much easier to clean up all the dust without your stuff getting all contaminated.

20 days is a very long time. You can do the floors in a couple of days. Or a week, if you are using oil based poly.

[Pensive Monkey]

Yeah, I think we'll have time for it. Did you end up doing any irreversible damage? That's one of my fears. Honestly I haven't even seen the floors in two of the rooms. They're covered with old carpet now. We were just able to see that there's purple-painted wood beneath the carpet. I only hope it's salvageable. We're not carpet people.

Purple paint on wood. Who does that? And this was in the living and dining rooms. Not children's bedrooms or anything like that.

[glatt]

There were a couple of places where our wood floor was so uneven, sanding it down to the point where it would be level would have eaten away too much wood, so I kind of fudged it, using the edge sander, and you can tell.

I'd recommend starting off in the back rooms and doing the living room last so you have time to learn and make any mistakes in the back rooms that are less visible.

With paint, if there are any gaps between the floor boards, you will probably always have faint purple lines showing where you can't get it out of that crevice. You might want to scrape a small section to get an idea of how it's going to come out before you bother renting the sander and buying all that sandpaper.

[Pensive Monkey]

That's why I'm pondering just hiring someone.

[Pensive Monkey]

Met with our mortgage broker tonight and he said we should feel pretty confident about our loan. Yay!!