It happens on rare occasion that I get complaints on the blog,
comments yes, more questions yes, spell check corrections (too many), but complaints are rare!
The issue was writing on green beans before the house, I don’t get the complaint, green beans are obviously a more important event in the large scheme of life.
But you asked, so let’s focus on the apple house.
It became officially ours on Tuesday November 9th. Which was the anniversary of our 1st weddingJ
Our documents were signed on Friday, but a special courier had to pick them up from and drop them off at the court house for registry purposes. If you like you can get insurance for these 3 days, just in case something happens to our payment, the courier or random acts of violence for the other side’s agent. You pay an enormous amount and they ask you for another insurance right at the point of signing, most annoying. We didn’t, and we started imagining what can happen to our payment (it’s a non transferable check, but today’s criminal are sophisticated, I must have seen something like it in a movie). To verify that we indeed got the greatest house, my co home owner still looked at more houses!!! We already bought it… crazy, but now we had an option of tracking down that agent or putting oil in front of the courier motorcycle and prevent delivery, see how a simple need makes you have criminal thoughts? Oh, of course there is a courier fee, why shouldn’t it have that fee.
In the end the courier and the agent remain alive, unharmed as far as I know and the document reached the court house and apparently got processed since you can see our names on the official web site.
I never thought I would own a house, I like to be mobile and a house seems so permanent, but now the deed is done (literally).
This is a 2 story house , 4 bedrooms on the 2nd floor; our room with the master bed room and enough closet space for co owner to be happy and a light in the middle of the room (the previous apartment did not have this feature!!!) which makes me happy. Another bath room for guests, 1 bed room is becoming an office, 1 is a guest room (which has no guest bed at the moment) and 1 future use room (which has no known purpose at this time, and despite the subject of this blog, has no plans at this time). Oh boy is a term used in the show ‘Quantum leap’ just before something happened (to me that something was the complaint).
There is obviously stairs to the 2nd floor.
1st floor has a foyer (few years ago I didn’t know what a foyer was, now I do) and 3 stairs lead to the kitchen\ living room. The living room area has high ceilings which makes it look larger (at least, this is what I was told). Part of the living room is a shaggy carpet and the other part is carpet floor, just like the kitchen. The kitchen is the main attraction in the house. Everything is built in, the ovens (2 of them) the dish washers (2 of them) the fridge (1 of them), the faucets( 2 of them), the sinks (3 of them), the electrical cooking area (1 of them) the vents (never had vents before in the kitchen).
The only one not build in thing is the microwave (we are most disappointed with this fact), next to the kitchen there is a small dining area and next to it the everyday living room, which is more or less where we spend our afternoons, since it has our only regular, not flat screen TV. From this room you can get to the back yard that has a deck, a shed, lots of grass, trees, squirrels, bird house, a kids play area (slides, swings etc..but no one to play on it). Not much to tell on the back yard since its covered in some sort of cold powder most of the time lately. We have a guest bathroom on the main floor, a utility room for the not built in washer and drier, a big garage with a ping pong table that is unopened since the cars take all the space, a long drive way with grass in front, an apple tree and a frozen vegetable garden.
There is also a basement with 3 rooms, 2 with wall to wall carpets and one storage area; all 3 rooms are way under used at this point, one room has a whole in them , more on that in a later blog.
Ok , enough about the house, it’s the experience that matters. So let’s move on to moving day.
For a while before I was gathering boxes at work in all shapes and sizes, with some padding materials for the many fragile items (all the little souvenirs I have), few weeks prior I thought I did almost everything, except the kitchen and some miscellaneous items, those items took forever to pack, but in the end everything was put in to a box, bag, suitcase, basket or others means of transport and were ready. A few days before we called the moving company asking them to come an hour early, they agreed, told us “let us worry” and “it will be ok” so of course we worried and assumed everything is not ok, they came at the original time since the dispatcher didn’t notify the crew or some other excuse. The guys who came didn’t look ready for work, they were kind of slow and we wanted to hurry the process (and save money) so we took a big trolley from the building and unloaded most of the boxes ourselves and placed them down by the truck. Moving is hard! My back, my knees and my hip were all sore at the end of the day, but it’s a great work out. Inna and Igor were there that whole day, carrying, loading, unloading , so thank you both for the amazing help. The delivery guys took a part the table, couches and the bed and all the other large items, and also loaded the truck. After that we went to get the ping pong table from Igor. This table was not in use for years, and so far has seen no action at our house.
We drove to our new place and heard that a neighbor came over to introduce himself, I missed it. We started unloading and putting the boxes in the right place by the instruction of General alla. Dina and Aaron joined the work force at this time (with a most welcome Pizza), thank you both as well. The unloading was some much quicker than the loading, with more people to work and less distance from apartment to truck. Together we reassembled the shelves (my IKEA shelf is a survivor of 3 places, impressive). The delivery guys assembled the bed, Igor assembled my chair. And the process was complete with a big (possibly undeserving) tip for the delivery guys.
Our amazing support crew went to their homes and now we had to un box. We did the kitchen first while I was trying to focus on the souvenirs, it is important that they would feel home too. One piece drowned in the process. A figuring of a Viking on a boat, a gift from my dad broke, the Viking is no longer connected to the boat, but other than that, survival rate was very high.
Now most of the souvenirs are where they should be, pictures are hung, the kitchen is done, most of the basement is organized, the clothes are all in place and the house looks and feels most livable.
What we like about the house is that everything in it is quality; the fancy light dimmers, the built in kitchen, the alarm system (detector on every door or window, motion sensor, glass break indicator, 2 fire sensors, CO detector), very good windows, quality carpeting, blinds IN the windows. The previous owners invested a lot, and we were lucky to get this house. However…
It was time for home ownership 101.
Neither of us owned a home before and we are quickly finding out the costs.
We just got the electric bill L, we had visits from 3 security companies, they are now checking the house for Radon gas (answer in 3 months), our water froze yesterday and we had no water for an hour, which is more critical at the time since you don’t know the water will return in an hour. We already called the chimney guy (oh yes, we have a gas fire place and chimney) to help us close lid. We already took care of a mold in the attic, improved ventilation there to prevent mold, cleaned the gutter (we have a gutters guy) but the main cost is going to be water proofing the basement.
We had 4 companies each with a different solution, each saying the system of the others is not good, each giving conflicting info, making promises and we are unsure of the proper company and process to go with, this will be a tough decision, but come spring, someone will be digging.
Recently the weather was bad, so so so much snow, and so far we are not paying the plowman but we are plowing ourselves, it saves very little, its hard work, but so far we manage. We have one shovel and we take turns shoveling, we even have pictures to prove it, all the rest of the street uses the plowman service, we would probably join them at some point.
I managed to get home before completing this, will report more on the house at some point
Cheers for now
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