Welcome to Our New Home!

Finally.  After 3.5 months of putting the condo on the market, moving, searching for a new place, and imposing on my mother, we closed on the new house yesterday.  We didn't look at many houses, but I knew I wanted this one from the start.  Who knows why I like ranch houses lately...I like the whole mid-century modern/retro/vintage vibe and after a total of 6.5 years living in second floor apartments/condos, I was loving the idea of the main living space on one floor.  This house needs a lot of updating, but nothing about it is so horrendous that we can't live in it and enjoy it right from the start.

So, here are the BEFORE pictures.  We have big plans for this house, so I hope that in a few years it will look totally different!

Definitely doesn't look like my dream house from the outside.  But, with some new landscaping, a new paint color, and some improvements to the porch, I think it has potential to be a lot cuter!

View of back/side yard from the kitchen entrance

backyard

Side kitchen entrance

backyard--I love the size!  Room for an addition (septic is in front so backyard is open for improvements), swing set, garden, fort, shed, whatever we want.

View from side of the house of backyard and screened in porch

backyard

Porch

View of living room from front hallway

hallway--view of front door.  There's a small coat closet on the left.

Living room

Living room.  I love the blue stone fireplace and the built-ins

guest bath.  Needs some work, but again, not too horrible.  The embroidered toilet seat cover has to go...

View from hallway towards the kitchen and the broom closet

Another hall closet (that's 3 already) right off the guest bathroom

Another shot of guest bath.  Hate that sink and faucet too.

Hall to the bedrooms

Full bath

I actually like the tile in this bathroom.  Looks like new.

The only two things I don't like about this bathroom are the lights and medicine cabinet.  We'll get to it eventually.  

Master bedroom.  

Another shot of master

Master bedroom from the other corner.  Windows are to the right.

Master closet.  It's weird that it's so tiny given how many closets there are in the house.  But we have some ideas for this too...

Back bedroom across from master.  

back bedroom from the door

Middle bedroom, also opposite the master.  Not sure how this ended up so dark!

Middle bedroom again

middle bedroom closet

Kitchen eating area/pantry

Kitchen from the dining area

The pantry is HUUUGE.  Deep shelves...

Broom closet.  The house has central vac!  It's about 30 years old, but it works (knock on wood).

View from kitchen side entrance and basement stairs

Yikes.  This blurry picture is enough to make you think I was falling down the stairs when I took it.  Basement staircase.  

View of backyard (and the top of porch) from the kitchen sink window.

Basement.  Door to garage in front and door out to backyard and porch on right

View of porch and backyard

Landry room with cedar closet

View from garage entrance

Other side of basement

View of hallway to bathroom and furnace from the porch windows.  That ugly slat wall has to be modified...

hard to describe...in the middle of the basement.  The door you see is the entrance to the hall where the bathroom is.

from the other side of the basement

view from the bathroom hallway

ugly basement bathroom.  but hey, it's a full bath!  So there are 2.5 in the house.  That sounds like heaven when you've been living in a one bathroom apartment and then condo for the past 6.5 years!

view of hallway from bathroom

another shot from the bathroom looking out

I just realized I forgot to take pictures of the garage!  The garage is AWESOME.  It has room for one car, but it's a 2-car size.  So the whole other half is storage, work benches (yes two!), peg board, and cabinets.  It even has a sink?!!  

I want to put a playroom, TV area, and bar in the basement.  I have a few ideas as to the configuration.  We want to paint the walls in the basement white and change out the rug for some sort of engineered hardwood or something easy to clean.  We'll see.  That basement/porch is going to be the best hang out spot ever to have parties!!!

That's it for now.

Condo Video

I just found the link to the video that the agent had done of the condo...it's pretty cool!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8W3kUQcnOs&feature=youtu.be

Carlos is back

Now that Carlos is home, the boys have a serious case of papitis, meaning they cannot let their Papi out of their sight.  If he leaves them to go to the bathroom, they cry.  When they see him, they stretch out their arms so he will pick them up.  They cling to him and hug him and Sebastian even pats him.  Poor things---they definitely pick up on more than I give them credit for.  They missed that man!

Sebastian is now walking pretty well, although again, he seems to be affected by Papi's absence--he was walking a lot better and much more before Carlos came home.  He seems to have regressed slightly now that he's back.  Weird.  Adrian continues to walk like Frankenstein, but seems to be showing more interest in actually walking.

This weekend was GREAT because, while it wasn't very sunny, it was creepily warm out.  My luck also seems to have changed--for the better.  Everything went our way this weekend.  Saturday we went to breakfast at Brianna's.  The boys enjoyed being out and eating their "black" toast.  After that, we went to have the van's windshield wipers fixed.  I thought I had burned out the motor because the driver's side wiper wasn't moving.  They broke in the really cold weather we had while Carlos was gone and I couldn't find the time to drop the car off at the dealer to have it fixed.  But, we also had to drop the Vibe off at Maaco to have the back bumper replaced.  We've been rear-ended twice this fall!  So we went to the Honda dealer first and they fixed the wiper in 30 seconds!  Turns out, the motor was fine!  Something just needed to be tightened.  They didn't even charge us!  Lucky!  Then we dropped off the Vibe and it was ready by 11am.  To kill time we went to Lowe's and I found some nice Christmas stuff at 75% off.  Then we went to Ikea to look around.  The boys enjoyed their second breakfast of the day...french toast sticks.  They smelled like maple syrup the rest of the day!

We bumped into our friend Dana who works at Ikea.  He took this picture of us.

We didn't buy much at Ikea--just an outdoor mat and a hall runner for the new house.  My dad came over at night to visit the boys, and I also watched The Witness with Carlos on TV.  I have always liked that movie....Carlos had never seen it before.  That was the first movie I've watched since bedrest over a year ago....!

Sunday, we went to breakfast again, but at Stonebridge.  Then we went up to Watertown to spy.  The new owners were supposedly moving in on Saturday and we wanted to see if there was any evidence they'd moved in.  Not sure why....just because we're nosy I guess.  And, driving to Watertown is a huge waste of gas, but it's a good nap distance for the boys!  When we got there it looked like the new people hadn't moved in?  No car in the driveway and all the shades up like I'd left them.  Hmmmm.  Oh well.  After a trip to BJs we went to South Shore Plaza to walk around with the boys and kill more time.  (It's rough being cooped up in the house with the boys all day!)  The boys ate a grilled cheese sandwich at the food court--it's so nice that they eat people food now and we don't have to worry about carting bottles and baby food around everywhere.  In fact, we forgot their sippy cups at home Saturday, but because they know how to drink out of a straw, we can make do as long as we can get our hands on some kind of straw. 

Sebastian was up to no good at the mall.  Shame on him!!!

The boys are either holding hands or hitting each other when in the stroller these days....

That's it.  I will post LOTS of pictures of the house as soon as we get in there.

Bye-Bye Condo!

Our prayers were answered.  We finally got rid of the condo.  It felt absolutely liberating.  I feel 100 pounds lighter and 100 times happier than I did all fall while we were trying to sell it. 

Our buyers got their financing through Wells Fargo--big mistake.  It took FOREVER for the financing to come through.  We were supposed to close 12/28.  On 12/20, The day before the mortgage commitment was due on 12/21, I was still getting emails from my agent that the loan officer at Wells Fargo needed more condo paperwork.  I sent the loan officer the same form about the condo 2 or 3 times...I knew something was up.  On 12/21, the loan officer abruptly emailed all of us with a very curt, brief email saying that the closing was being pushed back to 1/4.  We never received a commitment or signed an extension, so technically (or so our lawyer and agent told us), the buyers had violated the P&S.  We could have walked with their $14,500 deposit!!   But of course, we didn't want their money--just to get rid of the condo so we could buy our house. 

Throughout the process and the delays, we never got straight answers from Wells Fargo, and they kept saying that we might close on X day and then it kept getting pushed back.  Thank God for Adriano, our agent, and Jared, our lawyer.  They took really good care of us and really stayed on the bank and everyone to keep things moving.  Well, a lot more went on behind the scenes, but finally last week, we got word that their loan was clear to close and that we'd close on Thursday in Cambridge at the Registry of Deeds. 

It was the first time I'd met the buyers--it seemed weird to have us all there at the table.  I liked them.  They are a young couple that just had a baby in November.  They seemed like people we could have lived with nicely.  They were excited about the condo, and I hope that they enjoy living there.  We loved the space itself, but haven't felt comfortable there for some time now because of the stresses of living with others.  It's just too hard to live in a second-floor condo with 2 toddlers and a dog.  I'm sure they will make quite a bit of noise too, though, given they will have a toddler on their hands soon enough too....I wish them well.

I picked Carlos up from the airport on Friday--his 17-day trip to Mexico to visit his family was finally over.  It was nice to have him back and have his help with the boys and dog again!  We went straight from the Logan Express in Braintree to South Shore Plaza because they have a Bank of America that's open until 8pm.  We cashed our big checks (never held a check that large in my hands before, and it wasn't THAT big) so that the funds would be clear for the purchase of our home this week.

It looks like our closing will be Friday 1/18.  We were originally supposed to clear 1/14 (today) and move 1/15, but the lady didn't want to move all her stuff out of the house until she was sure when we'd close on our condo.  I can't blame her.  So she asked for some extra time this week.  Plus our lawyer wanted to make sure there would be enough time to get everything in order for the closing so we wouldn't have to delay or push it back because something wasn't ready.  So as of now, the plan is to close Friday, meet our NICU nurses and pack the stuff at my mom's house on Saturday, move the stuff with movers out of storage on Sunday, and take everything out of my mom's house with a UHaul on Monday.  Luckily it's a holiday weekend!  The daycare is open on Monday, though, which means we should be able to leave them and move without having to watch them, too. 

So, a week from today--if all goes well--we should be sleeping in our new place.  That is incredibly exciting to me!!  I can't wait to start in on the many many projects that we will want to do once we are living there.  And even more, I can't wait to be able to have people over in our own space and not have to worry about making noise or having enough room for everyone!  This is a great house for entertaining!  So, COME OVER AND VISIT! 

Happy 2013!

I thought I'd take a minute and put some goals for 2013 in writing--in other words, hold myself accountable for some of them.  Here they are in no particular order:

1. Post at least twice a week on the blog.  This is my equivalent of a baby book, photo album, and family diary.  I've gotten laxer and laxer about updating, and crappier and crappier about my posting when I do update.  Yet, it's one of the things that I enjoy doing the most.  So I have to get my priorities straight and make more time for blogging.

2. Be more mindful of starting and continuing family traditions.  When I was on bedrest, I made a really long, detailed list of all the traditions my family and I had as I was growing up.  Many of these I would like to continue with my own family.  I have to get started!  I don't know what I'm waiting for!

3. Worry less about things beyond my control.  I worry ALL THE TIME.  I worry in the middle of the night.  I worry as soon as I wake up and right before I go to bed.  I basically worry about all sorts of things that haven't happened yet and that are beyond my control.  I like to say I'm an optimist but that I plan for the worst.  The truth is I'm a pessimist with highly neurotic tendencies.  This is no surprise to anyone who knows me...except me, maybe.  I don't want to worry any more--it's taking a toll on me and probably my boys and definitely Carlos.

4. Take more photos; take better photos.  I take lousy photos and put them on the blog.  Who likes looking at blurry photos?  Why don't I spend the time to edit the photos before putting them up?  Plus, lately, I'm lazy about getting the good camera out.  I used to take pictures of everything.  That's not to say I should post more photos, but I'm hoping I will take more pictures of more events and have better quality photos to choose from!

5. Do some work-related things to further my career.  For example, go on some college tours so that I've seen more of the places I'm counseling students about.  These are usually free for counselors and you get to travel all over the place...I hate to leave the boys at this point, but I need to start thinking about short tours in the near future.  I was also recently invited to serve on a panel at the College Board regional meeting at the end of January.  I need to do more of this sort of thing at this point in my career...

6.  Read more.  I have completely let reading for pleasure fall by the wayside.  I used to never not have a book in my hands.  Yes, having children changes things, but I have free time every night after they go to bed.  I need to get into reading good stuff again.  Anyone with good suggestions let me know.  I need something meaty to get me back in the habit.  The last good book I read was Cutting for Stone--amazing read.

7.  Pay it forward.  Self explanitory.  I need to do more for others.

8. Make an updated budget after moving and stick to it.  Life has been so up in the air for the past few months that it's hard to have a budget and stick to it.  Once we settle into our new home (if it ever happens...more on that in another post), we need to figure out expenses and income and really be strict about our spending.  Daycare eats up such a huge chunk of our money that we have to really disciplined to keep things under control.

9.  Stop thinking that parenting will get easier when (fill in the blank) happens.  Parenting is going to consistently be hard.  I keep thinking things will be easier when they learn to walk, when they eat better, when they sleep better, etc.  The truth is there will always be a new challenge and I have to stop wondering what the next stage will bring and enjoy the present one more.  Not that I don't already enjoy each day, but I want to be more mindful of each and every phase that they go through and really appreciate it for what it is--and for the challenges and rewards it brings.

10.  See more of my friends.  There are too many people that I love very very much that I don't see enough of.  I need to make more time to see them.