We are homeowners!

We did it! We closed today, got the keys and even moved in our very first box! We are filled with ideas for things to do to make the place our own and to update some of the original items. We were at Home Depot until they closed tonight, just wandering the aisles and dreaming. Very fun. We think we can probably give the kitchen a pretty nice face-lift for relatively little.

Off to dream of countertops, sinks and hardware!

Pictures to come.

Lots of stress

You know how they say even good things can be stressful? I'm getting that in spades. Within the next month, we will be closing on our first home, moving into a new place, I will be finishing my internship (but it just started!), and looming above it all, I will need to finish my thesis. I want to vomit just thinking about it all.

Every time I get excited about decorating or moving, the specter of my unfinished thesis immediately rises up to remind me of more important things I should be doing (like, instead of blogging, I should be writing). In order to have a nice place with nice things and prepare for a nice life, I need to have a job. To have a job, I need to graduate. To graduate, I need to finish a thesis. To finish this fricking thesis, I need to work every waking hour, and then stay awake for some hours I would rather sleep through. Ugh.

Wish me luck!

Is it safe to post now?

I haven't given any updates on the dwelling-purchasing front, as I didn't want to jinx anything. However, things are looking good, so I will cautiously post an update. You probably won't get it all until we close and I can safely blog within our own new home (condo, but who's counting?).

So. Offer countered, counter accepted. Loan applied for, almost denied on basis of rental rate of building, rental exception approved. Loan almost denied due to change in income, alternative loan situation approved, with massive conditions. Conditions met, now loan in process. Inspection done, pretty good, request to sellers to fix a few minor things. Will hear by tomorrow with any counters to inspection requests.

I think we are all caught up now! Thrilling, no? Trust me, you really didn't want to have to go through all of those ups and downs and waiting periods in real time with us. Recap is much better (now apparently talking like Rorschach).

Currently daydreaming of painting cabinets, furniture placement and purging current possessions to make room for the lovely flat I have envisioned. However, my packrat tendencies may win out. We shall see.

Success? (!)

Well, so far so good! They countered our offer, and we accepted their counter. I know there is still a long way to go before this really happens, but this is the most important first step! I'm really excited about this place and think it will be great. Fingers crossed everything else goes well!

House Hunting: The end?

We're putting in what we think is a strong bid on an apartment here in town that we really like. Fingers crossed for this one to stick! I'll let you know what happens.

Fun and exciting times!

I actually have something happening in our lives to write about! We have officially begun the hunt for a house, which is exciting and frightening all at once. We have been sort of half-ass-edly beginning the process, looking into affordable housing, vaguely investigating mortgage options, and occasionally randomly perusing home listings, but things kicked into a much higher gear this week.

A few weeks ago, we went out on our first "shopping trip" with a wonderful Realtor (apparently that MUST be capitalized!) Peter met at a housing seminar. Since then, we've looked at houses in two different towns, as well as condos here in Boulder.

It's pretty amazing to see the difference in what we can get in our price range, based on the locations. In Boulder, we can afford older condos with two bedrooms, two baths (our minimum requirements) in less than 1000 square feet, usually not in great locations in Boulder. Twenty to thirty minutes outside of Boulder (i.e., the next towns over), we can get a four bedroom, two bathroom house with a bigger yard than practically any in Nevada. With trees. And grass. And usually a fireplace and/or wet bar (those seem remarkably common in the houses we've seen).

I will try to record some of our house-hunting trips here, especially the funny ones, wherein you get to see the obsessively staged house with the fresh-baked cookies artfully arranged for us, the house with a creature spotted in the crawl space, and the several houses where owners were surprised by our arrival (yay awkwardness!). Stay tuned!