The Contract Saga Continues...

Well folks, I believe we have made some headway.

On the house-buying, that is.

Our landlady is apparently "taking tomorrow off work so she can finish the contract." Exact words there. Hooray!

Mike called her today to ask about things. He also told her that we have a small leak behind our shower. He told her that he could fix it, but wanted to sign the contract first, since it's technically not our responsibility to do deal with yet. I think that may have nudged her on a little more than just another update call.

So she is supposed to be coming by sometime this weekend to talk to us.

And to sign away her house. To us. Homeowners, finally.

I'm trying to be realistic about the situation still... not getting my hopes up...not counting my chickens before they hatch. But honestly, people, I've been counting these chickens since June. I am beyond excited! Thoughts of remodeling and decorating have been dancing through my head once again, and I am now secretly pricing dishwashers.

So I suppose now we just wait and see what happens.

And keep adding money to that dishwasher fund :o)

House Update!

So we called our landlord again today, asking about that wonderful little contract again.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that we have made progress.

She said that she will have it to us at the beginning of the year and she will back-date the contract to June.

That means everything we've paid since June will go towards the cost of the house. That's 7 months of rent going towards our house... a whopping $4200 going towards our house. A wonderful, most unexpected surprise!

So that's the scoop. Mike keeps saying good things will happen to those who wait. We shall see!

House Update

Bad News: No contract yet. Sigh.

Good News: Everyday we are living less and less like the Beverly Hillbillies gone to college!

Today we got curtains! Ooh la la!







Next on our list is to get some artwork on the walls and maybe a new coffee table. We'll be headed up to Bloomington area next weekend (for the concert yaay!) so maybe we'll find something interesting up there.

A peek into my kitchen

Today I waged war on my house and cleaned every room top to bottom. Since I was doing that, I decided to go the extra mile and get my kitchen back in order from all of the painting and stuff. Although there is still a little paint tape up since we still have to do some touch ups, and no curtains yet, I can honestly say it looks much much much better than before. See for yourself!

First off, the table area.

BEFORE:

Glaring white walls. Bunny foo foo wall border. A random blue bucket on the table. Not a pretty sight.

AFTER:

Much better, see? Nice bright walls, a new ceiling fan, and a shelf with some of my fiestaware. I heart fiestaware.

Alright... next is the actual kitchen area... this is where the magic happens.

BEFORE:

The bunny foo foos are back. Really, not too shabby, just white, cluttered and messy.

AFTER:

Ooh la la! More color, less clutter. Even Ringo is enjoying the cleanness.

It's here!

It's here! It's here! I never thought I'd be so excited about a piece of furniture!



Absolutely fabulous.

Most of the living room work is done. The walls are painted and most of the physical labor is done. We rearranged some things and got rid of some clutter. We still need to get curtain, better wall art, other non-ghetto furniture, etc. but all in good time.

Here's a before and after.


Before. What a sad sad white little room.



After! So much better! Notice Scout has already claimed her spot by the window.

We're in the works of doing the kitchen too. We put in a new ceiling fan and painted in there too. I'll post pictures of that once it's finished. But for now, I am going to lounge on the couch and watch CSI. Ahhhh, feels good!

Our couch comes tomorrow!

Our couch comes tomorrow!

Our couch comes tomorrow!

Our couch comes tomorrow!

I'm so excited... it's like Christmas... in September! YAY!!!!

That is all.

And so it begins...

We have officially started working on the house. We contacted our landlord and got the okay to paint our walls. Apparently she really is working on a contract for us (hooray!) and we can go ahead and start fixing the place up. So our first project is the living room. Mike wanted to fix a leak in the bathroom... but our new couch needs a pretty room to live in first, right?

Anyways, the seemingly straight forward job of painting a couple of walls has grown into quite a project. Our walls are gross and bumpy, so we have to sand, spackle, and wash everything down before we paint. So my day off of work today has been deemed prep day. Mike helped out for a while, but then he had to leave for work. So here I am alone.... with power tools.



Yes. Scary, I know.

I know nothing of power tools. I was the girl who dropped my shop class because I was scared of them. Mike must have faith in me, but I think he might be a little too trusting. Just look at me... I've been using my sunglasses as safety goggles. Stylish, maybe. A handy man, I'm not so sure.

Waiting and waiting and waiting....

Oh yes, we're still waiting on our landlord to get us the contract for our house. Two weeks ago, she told us that she was waiting on her lawyer to finish up the contract and would drop it off to us within the week. She also said to hold off on paying July's rent so that it would go towards the payment of the house. Mind you, that was two weeks ago. Tired of waiting on her, Mike called today to see when we could expect to see a contract. Apparently she hasn't even gotten it started because doesn't want to pay a lawyer $300 to make one and wants us to pay July's rent before we sign anything because she's got bills to pay. Hmmm... funny how much her story has changed...

So the newest story is that she's having a friend write something up for her this weekend and she'll try to get a hold of us on Monday so we can look it over. I hope she follows through this time, although I'm not really holding my breathe, but I guess we'll see. We're starting to get really irritated with this. We started this whole process in May, were told we'd have things done by the end of June, and it's now the middle of July and still no progress. She's just made one excuse after the other about why things haven't gotten done, and while we've been very patient and understanding about the situation, we're getting kind of fed up and frustrated because we are soooo ready to start working on things before the hectic school year starts up again.

Grrr. I suppose it will happen when it's meant to happen, but dang it, I'm too impatient for this! Our plan of action now is just to keep calling every few days until we annoy the bajeez out of her enough to get something done. Please pray that this deal happens quickly and without much more hassle... hopefully we'll be homeowners by the end of the month!