Updates continue - Home purchase!
So, right before I fled the country to Turkey for a lovely Spring Break with whymc, I sold my house to my #1 apprentice. Almost immediately after the Mister and I returned from Istanbul, newly betrothed, we bought a house in Sun Prairie, a suburb just north of Madison. We are one door down from a big park and have a large city-owned empty lot behind us. One GIANT bonus of the location is that some of our good friends (goldfrog and her family) live just on the other side of the park!
The house itself is very nice and I liked it well enough, but not really any more than any of the other houses we had seen.The Mister, on the other hand, was entirely enchanted. I struck the deal with him that, since the new place did not have many hardwood floors and that was the thing I would most miss about my old place, that if we could replace the worn-out carpet in the library with a new hardwood floor, we could get this house. He agreed and so we signed the paperwork in April. The only real hitch* we had was needing to have a radon mitigation system put in to the basement, since the reading was *just* over what had been specified in the offer, but that was done reasonably quickly and did not delay the deal.
Then it was on to the cleaning and painting and flooring replacements, which took somewhat longer than we had initially anticipated, but really made the place feel more OURS. The entryway is pretty nice - it opens into a hall that runs perpendicular to the door, so winter winds don't get funnelled directly into the living spaces. There is a great big closet - the only walk-in closet in the house - for a cloakroom. There's a lot of room for coats, plus a cabinet and shelves for storage of caps and gloves and such. The living room is a scrumptious warm chili red and the dining room a bright turmeric, the spiciness meant to sort of tie the two rooms together. The living room is sort of a Victorian apothecary theme and is where all the pharmacy glasswear and assorted antiques live - we usually refer to it as the parlor. There is a really charming window seat, under which are the bins where toys are kept for visiting kiddles. The dining room is full of momentos from our various travels and so is bringht and busy and full of all sorts of curiosities from around the globe. There's a great big oak reading table and all the photo albums in there as well. The library is mostly covered in bookshelves, so we didn't bother painting it. We have a really lovely gas fireplace and a big TV hidden in an armoire, but it is the birdie TV that is generally most entertaining - you wouldn't think 3 oz parakeets would be big enough to have so much drama, and yet they are enlessly entertaining! The kitchen had just been remodeled, so we just adjused a teal accent wall to a stone blue to tone it down a bit, but otherwise left it alone. I'm still getting used to the stove built into the middle of the island thing, but it's growing on me - if nothing else, it makes it easier for two people to use the stovetop at the same time. Upstairs, Greg's office got a bright, deep blue (think American flag blue) whreas the guest bathroom is a cheerful bright orange. The master bedroom uses two restful blues, the master bath a pleasant mauve-y brown and the guest bedroom a calm, neutral "gallery taupe." The sewing room was left a fern green as it was an appealing color and still in good shape. We had wanted to replace a lot of the carpet, but after getting the estimate, only replaced the master bedroom's carpet and had the rest steam cleaned. The hardwood floor installation took A LOT longer than we had planned, because the saleslady had not been particularly clear on ordering and wait installation times being sequential, not concurrent. This meant that my move date came before the floor and we ended up having my books in boxes in the garage for some weeks.
We are now mostly moved in. I was lucky that since it was #1 apprentice who bought my house, I could slowly move stuff out and only hired a moving crew for the very large items. Unfortunately, this meant it took me a very long time to get most of my stuff out... and there are still a few things there, I have to shamefully confess. I need to finish weaving the project that is on the loom and then sell it and get the last of the crap out of the garage... *sigh* So Much Stuff. On the up side, there was A LOT of stuff I left there on purpose. G and I had been living apart as adults for many years and so we had two of nearly everything. We pretty much chose which set we liked better and then left the other one for #1 apprentice, who was moving in from his parents' house, having never really lived on his own. So, from furniture to bedding to tools to housewears to cleaning supplies to the roofrake and snowblower, I just left a ton of stuff that he thought he could use. It saved me moving or donating it all and saved him needing to make those major living-alone-not-in-the-dorm layouts. Win-win.
Anyway, we moved in toward the end of May and have been nesting ever since. There are still boxes to be unpacked in the garage and a few areas in the basement that need organizing and tidying, but they sort of took back seat to the other planning and organizing we had to do for the wedding!
(*A funny hitch we had which was more along the lines of confusing our banker than any real problem, was that, as part of the loan application process, she asked me when I had bought the home on Goldfinch. I asked whether she meant the last time I refinanced it, the time I bought it from Greg, or the time we bought it together. She responded with "wait... what? You have done this before?!?" We cheerfully confirmed that we had and, after a moment of staring at us with a little confusion and horror, she proceeded with the application process.)
The house itself is very nice and I liked it well enough, but not really any more than any of the other houses we had seen.The Mister, on the other hand, was entirely enchanted. I struck the deal with him that, since the new place did not have many hardwood floors and that was the thing I would most miss about my old place, that if we could replace the worn-out carpet in the library with a new hardwood floor, we could get this house. He agreed and so we signed the paperwork in April. The only real hitch* we had was needing to have a radon mitigation system put in to the basement, since the reading was *just* over what had been specified in the offer, but that was done reasonably quickly and did not delay the deal.
Then it was on to the cleaning and painting and flooring replacements, which took somewhat longer than we had initially anticipated, but really made the place feel more OURS. The entryway is pretty nice - it opens into a hall that runs perpendicular to the door, so winter winds don't get funnelled directly into the living spaces. There is a great big closet - the only walk-in closet in the house - for a cloakroom. There's a lot of room for coats, plus a cabinet and shelves for storage of caps and gloves and such. The living room is a scrumptious warm chili red and the dining room a bright turmeric, the spiciness meant to sort of tie the two rooms together. The living room is sort of a Victorian apothecary theme and is where all the pharmacy glasswear and assorted antiques live - we usually refer to it as the parlor. There is a really charming window seat, under which are the bins where toys are kept for visiting kiddles. The dining room is full of momentos from our various travels and so is bringht and busy and full of all sorts of curiosities from around the globe. There's a great big oak reading table and all the photo albums in there as well. The library is mostly covered in bookshelves, so we didn't bother painting it. We have a really lovely gas fireplace and a big TV hidden in an armoire, but it is the birdie TV that is generally most entertaining - you wouldn't think 3 oz parakeets would be big enough to have so much drama, and yet they are enlessly entertaining! The kitchen had just been remodeled, so we just adjused a teal accent wall to a stone blue to tone it down a bit, but otherwise left it alone. I'm still getting used to the stove built into the middle of the island thing, but it's growing on me - if nothing else, it makes it easier for two people to use the stovetop at the same time. Upstairs, Greg's office got a bright, deep blue (think American flag blue) whreas the guest bathroom is a cheerful bright orange. The master bedroom uses two restful blues, the master bath a pleasant mauve-y brown and the guest bedroom a calm, neutral "gallery taupe." The sewing room was left a fern green as it was an appealing color and still in good shape. We had wanted to replace a lot of the carpet, but after getting the estimate, only replaced the master bedroom's carpet and had the rest steam cleaned. The hardwood floor installation took A LOT longer than we had planned, because the saleslady had not been particularly clear on ordering and wait installation times being sequential, not concurrent. This meant that my move date came before the floor and we ended up having my books in boxes in the garage for some weeks.
We are now mostly moved in. I was lucky that since it was #1 apprentice who bought my house, I could slowly move stuff out and only hired a moving crew for the very large items. Unfortunately, this meant it took me a very long time to get most of my stuff out... and there are still a few things there, I have to shamefully confess. I need to finish weaving the project that is on the loom and then sell it and get the last of the crap out of the garage... *sigh* So Much Stuff. On the up side, there was A LOT of stuff I left there on purpose. G and I had been living apart as adults for many years and so we had two of nearly everything. We pretty much chose which set we liked better and then left the other one for #1 apprentice, who was moving in from his parents' house, having never really lived on his own. So, from furniture to bedding to tools to housewears to cleaning supplies to the roofrake and snowblower, I just left a ton of stuff that he thought he could use. It saved me moving or donating it all and saved him needing to make those major living-alone-not-in-the-dorm layouts. Win-win.
Anyway, we moved in toward the end of May and have been nesting ever since. There are still boxes to be unpacked in the garage and a few areas in the basement that need organizing and tidying, but they sort of took back seat to the other planning and organizing we had to do for the wedding!
(*A funny hitch we had which was more along the lines of confusing our banker than any real problem, was that, as part of the loan application process, she asked me when I had bought the home on Goldfinch. I asked whether she meant the last time I refinanced it, the time I bought it from Greg, or the time we bought it together. She responded with "wait... what? You have done this before?!?" We cheerfully confirmed that we had and, after a moment of staring at us with a little confusion and horror, she proceeded with the application process.)