Home Sweet Home #7: The Grand Finale

Well, here it is! Our new home. Though our home buying adventure wasn't without a healthy dose of drama (see previous posts), it's finally over, and we've officially moved in.

We still have lots of boxes to unpack, but are settled enough to be able to relax a little, and move around somewhat more freely without stacks and stacks of boxes around us. We are all sore and exhausted, but are enjoying our new place.

We hope to have a housewarming sometime this spring, once the blinds and the new couch are delivered, and these final boxes worth of stuff have finally found a home. Now, if I could just have another spring vacation to recover from this one!

Goodbye, little house

As excited as I am to have the house buying/packing/moving process over with, and to be settling into our new digs, I have to say that I am a bit sad to leave our little house. Though I'm not disappointed to leave the outdated kitchen, the cramped quarters, or the '70s shower (that's one project we never got around to), I am finding myself a bit sentimental about leaving what our little house represents.

It was our first "home." Our first shot at owning something more than a car or a stereo. It's where I spent three months on bed rest, hoping and praying that Camryn would arrive on time and not too early. It's where we brought both of our brand new baby girls home from the hospital. It's a place that we worked really hard on, together, to improve.

I am proud to say that it's definitely in better shape than when we moved in. We've truly loved this home, and have tried to care for it to the best of our ability. If we were to stay here forever, there is still so much we would do, but it's just time. Time to move on, spread out, and let another family get their start in our former home. So, goodbye, little house. We'll miss you.

Home Sweet Home #6 (Update)

It feels as though the "fast forward" button was finally hit this week. The builder really did follow through and complete nearly everything by the date he said he would. We got a call Thursday that our Escrow paperwork was ready, so we dashed to the title company, (with the girls and their PBJ dinners in tow) and signed our lives away.

Friday, we did our final walk-through with the builder, also known as the "blue tape walk," where we got to inspect everything with our own eyes, make sure everything was completed to our satisfaction, and mark things with blue tape that we want fixed by next week. Most of the issues were minor, like paint touch ups, and the installation of closet door floor guides. While we were there, the painters were literally following behind us, fixing our requested touch ups, the lighting guy returned with the final light and some bulbs to replace ones that were defective, and two county inspectors were wandering around too, giving the place a final thumbs up.

By Monday, they should have mirrors and towel bars up, and the front door repainted (YES, another wrong-color issue...don't get me started...) By Tuesday, the bank should have all of the funding in place, and the keys should be ours! Now, we're just packing, packing, packing, and trying to entertain the girls with limited toys and items on hand. Anybody wanna babysit??? :)

Animal classification

Camryn has been learning about mammals at school lately, and she's gotten pretty good at identifying them. So over our spaghetti dinner this evening we quizzed her, and the conversation went something like this:

Daddy: How do you know if an animal is a mammal?
Camryn: It doesn't lay eggs.
Mom: That's right. Is a dog a mammal?
C: Yep.
M: How about a duck?
C: No!
M: A frog?
C: Nope. But Mommy is a mammal!
D (laughing): Yes, she is.
C: And Daddy is a meat-eater!

If she only knew how funny she is... :)

Home Sweet Home #5

Can you tell that the house has been eating up most of our time and attention lately? Gone are the days of the cute little girls on our blog... Our new obsession is getting this stupid house thing wrapped up. I want nothing more right now than to have that house finished, and all of our belongings inside. If I only had a slight bit of knowledge about home construction, I might very well sneak inside at night and continue the job with my own hands, just to get it done faster...

With last week's house drama resolved, (we agreed to leave the style of woodwork they installed; they agreed to change out the doors that I can't stand AND add on some custom work to the house at no additional cost), we are supposedly still "on time," whatever that means in the construction world...

As of today, the tile and granite are installed and ready for grout, the hardwoods are in, the woodwork is taped off for a final painting, the exterior is (almost) completely painted, and all of the appliances and plumbing fixtures are in the garage, waiting to be installed. The lighting arrives Monday, and after that comes carpet and landscaping.

As if we didn't have enough going on, this week Camryn caught the cold that has been lingering with Brian and I for awhile now, so the crabbiness in the Bailey household continues. Also, Brian had jury duty, and somehow managed to get his number called, get selected for the jury, and also become the lead juror. Thank goodness the case only lasted one day. Though on his way back to work yesterday, ready to work hard and make up for being gone, he was rear-ended at a stoplight. (Because we just have all kinds of time to deal with this sort of thing, right?) Thankfully he is OK, but the car will need some work done, and there is lots of paperwork to do and phone calls to be made. Awesome.

So hopefully all of this will be over soon, we'll be back to our regular old boring lives, and when you visit our blog, you'll be seeing photos again of the girls, instead of unfinished construction. Which is what you came here for in the first place, right?

Home Sweet Home #4 (a.k.a. I hate stupid people)

Although I have no photo to post this time around (the outside looks pretty much like it did a week ago), progress HAS been made at the house. (And it better have, with just over two weeks to go before we're supposed to move in!)

We had our first major hiccup this past week, though. It's a long and tedious story. One I'm sure no one cares to hear the finer details of. The short version, in a nutshell, is that the builder installed the WRONG woodwork, doors, hinges, and hardware in the ENTIRE HOUSE. Now this wouldn't be such a big deal if we had a little time to play with here. But we are supposed to move into the place in TWO WEEKS, people! And we have to be out of our "old" house 3 days after that. And they say that placing a new order and replacing everything will put us back at least 4-5 days. Um, WRONG. Not. An. Option.

So.......even longer story shorter, we have proposed a compromise to the builder, to compensate for their stupidity. We will live with the woodwork (SIGH. It's actually very nice, just not the style we originally chose), and hinges and hardware (I actually kind of like those...don't tell the builder), but they WILL replace those darn doors. Because I don't want to look at every door in every room of my house every day for the rest of my life and hate them and wish I had had my monstrous temper tantrum in front of the builder himself instead of in front of my co-workers, which is what happened last Friday. (Whew!)

The broker/rep we work with seemed to think that was "reasonable," but of course, has to clear everything through the builder boss-man, so we should hear by Monday whether this is acceptable. (Just to be clear...if it's not "acceptable," then he's going to wish he had left town, because the catastrophic damage caused by the epic limb-flinging, obscenity-screaming, and general hysterics coming from my direction will in fact, affect him greatly. And Lord help the man if I ever lay eyes on him myself.

In any case, I'm still learning the art of being flexible (I like things my way) and adapting to change (not my forte), as well as being patient (I pretty much suck at it), while we continue to pack boxes, order blinds, clean up the house, hire movers, ease anxiety, go to the dump, etc, etc, etc...

Wish me luck.

Recent pics

Life has been so crazy around here lately, that I haven't been very good about posting anecdotes, funny things the girls have said, etc. BUT, we have managed to get a few good photos of them, while learning how to use our Christmas gift to each other (aka, new camera). Enjoy...

Enjoying a belated "3-way birthday" for Camryn, Aubs, and their Mimi

Being silly at the park...

Swinging on the big girl swing

Opening gifts together

Mimi Sandwich!!!

So happy!

Grouchy face

Gymboree bubbles

Big girl