In our infinite wisdom, Dana and I decided that it would be a good idea to paint the house before we take residence. For the most part, it’s the best thing to do. We paint when nothing is ini the house, so we don’t have to work around stuff, and in the end, the house is “ours.” The only bad part about this is the actual painting. Aside from the fact that we spent a buttload of money on paint and supplies (10 gallons of paint, 2 gallons of primer, and enough painters tape wrap a small car), it’s a lot of work to get the trim taped off and painted. Plus, the ceilings are about 8.5′ high, so even I need a little step stool to comfortable paint the top trim. It was a very long weekend, but we got a ton of painting done. Read on for our “paint journal.”
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But it’s really not a bad thing. Dana and I closed on our townhouse on Friday, which was an experience in and of itself. We arrived very early (around 3:15 for a 4:00 closing) so ended up sitting in the “lobby” (see hallway) of the mortage building until around 4, at which point the took us into what seemed to be a 9×9 room with one window. We sat there until almost 6:00 pm. The problem with that is that we didn’t sign papers for 2 hours, we signed papers for a grand total of 45 minutes, and waited in the room the rest of the time. Apparently, another couple who were closing didn’t bother to check with their mortgage agent prior to attending the close, and they were not clear to close on the home. So we had to wait while the closer and other agents ran around and tried to get them cleared. But we got out of there at about 6, picked Deuce up from Grandma A’s house, and went to the apartment. The townhouse will be there tomorrow.

Well, we are supposed to close on our townhouse tomorrow, which is nothing but excellent as we can paint and finally start getting all our stuff out of this apartment.

However, our mortgage agent, who kinda sounds like a Valley Girl, decided to wait until the very last minute to do anything. I’ll put the full story below, but the basics are that we may not close because our mortgage may not be clear to close. So Dana and I are waiting for word from the mortgage company today to see if we can even close tomorrow. I hope we can, we really want to get in there.
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Dana and I went to our presettlement walkthrough yesterday. While we’ve been to the model home a half a dozen times, this is the first we’ve actually seen the space we’ll be living for a good while. We were pretty much given the guided tour of our house including all the plumibing and electrical stuff, as well as the warranty information (yep, our house has a warranty, which is pretty nice).

I have to say that I don’t we have fully come to terms with the fact that next week we will own a home. It’s a little scary, I must admit, but with all the crap our rental agency has pulled these last few weeks, I’ll be happy to get out of there.

Deuce is doing really well. He is really motoring around, and he’s really trying to get the courage up to take his first steps without help. He loves to cruise around, and he’ll even walk by himself if someone holds his hand, but he doesn’t quite have the courage to let go and motor on his own. It will come, and probably sooner than we think. After that, well, Dana and I better start running to train, because we’ll be chasing him constantly.

As a side, we’ve been pretty lazy with the camera’s as of late, but with the new house I’m sure we’ll get some more pictures up quick. Also, be aware that there may be some down time for the site’s because of moving. You’ll just have to deal with it.

So, Dana and I turned in our 60 day notice to our landlord. Unfortunately, we though we only needed 30 or 45 days, so we didn’t turn it in until May 2. We figured we had enough time. Since it’s 60 days, we have to be there until July 3. Kinda sucks.

But, we got a letter yesterday saying that they were showing our apartment to two potential renters TODAY. Yes, that’s right, at 5:15 pm yesterday we got a letter slid under our door stating that they we going to show our apartment at 11:00 am today. Now, between running around with Deuce and trying to pack, our house was a disaster. So Grandma and Grandpa A came over to watch Deuce while the “cleaning tornado” of Dana and I swept through our house and did a semi-thorough cleaning of the entire house. I say semi-thorough because we had to skip over a few spots which have packed boxes (like the living room).

Needless to say, there will be yet another letter written (and maybe even an open letter, but not until after we move out).