Interesting Closing And Move In

Hi, Friends,

I'm so glad that you are here. 

Let me preface this by saying that I have been patient in this process. 

There are a lot of "hurry up and waits" with buying a house. 

Urgent document signings, inspections, surveys, etc, and then you wait. I have been living in the moment and doing what needs to be done in the present instead of thinking about future events but we were ready. 

Our closing was delayed by a weekend. That was okay. It turns out that we needed the weekend anyway. 

We spent Sunday morning loading up the Uhaul. We were done in enough time to have a leisurely afternoon. 

Our closing was at 1:30 so we could leave in enough time in case we encountered trouble with the truck. I followed Bill in the Mazda. 

We thought that the seller would have already closed. She was in the parking lot when we pulled up. 

The title company said that she would close us all at the same time. That was weird. 

The seller's realtor was there and he asked her if she was all moved out. We were supposed to be taking possession after closing. There was no talk of a delay. 

She said no but that she was all packed and ready to go. 

Bill and I almost fell over. Bill looked at me. He says that my eyes were as big as saucers. 

We sat for a minute and Bill said that we were under the impression that we were getting the keys.

 "Oh, I've got the keys." 

Bill finally said that we had a truck in the Brookshire's parking lot and it was ready to be unloaded. 

We expressed that the truck needed to be returned and Bill had to work the next day. Her realtor asked her about her kids helping. They were all at work. He got on the phone and lined up a guy to help her move. He said that she should be all out by 6:00 that evening. 

We were dumbfounded. My patience went out the window. Bill is exceedingly patient and he was furious. We made it through closing and we had the keys. 

Bill got me the sweetest James Avery key chain for my set. 

He got a different one for his keys. 

Of course we probably don't have all the keys because she has a million children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. They probably all have keys. 

I exaggerate but only by a small amount. 

Where were they this past weekend when she needed help moving? 

We went to the downtown area. Bill needed coffee. We both needed to clear our heads. He put me in a cute shop in Winnsborro while he called our realtor. She called the seller's realtor. Bill called the seller's realtor and he expressed his dissatisfaction. 

When he returned, he spotted a darling umbrella stand. He told the shop owner that he wanted it unless I said no. 

I didn't say no. It's adorable. 

We drove out to the house to see how they were coming along. She said she had a trailer already loaded. 

It wasn't loaded with furniture or appliances. It was loaded with knick knacks. 

Let me just say right now that I need to purge some knick knack ASAP so that this doesn't happen to me in 10 or 15 years. 

When we got to the house, they were loading the refrigerator, washer and dryer. The house looked almost empty. "Good, maybe we can unload soon." 

We decided to walk the property to pass the time. 

 

We have an abundance of pine trees and junipers. Junipers are native and are plentiful around here. 

I have wild flowers! I'm so excited about that. There are also oak trees in the mix. I was told there is a dogwood. 

We found some deer blinds and deer feeders that the son needed to come get. 

 He's had a month! 

The guest house (if you can call it that) was empty. We decided to have a closer look at that. 

It's not been living its best life. 

It needs a really good cleaning which it didn't get when the renters moved out. 

The window used to be to the outside. It will be adorable when I'm done with it. 

Why? Why did you put the pulls on like that? What is that cabinet configuration? 

Originally Bill liked the wood in the bathroom but he's backtracked on that after using this bathroom.  

We have some work to do out here but it is lower on the priority list. 

I hope we don't have to gut the bathroom and start over. 

Currently it seems more like a mancave than the she shed I had in mind. 

We waited around some more but finally went to get some dinner. Of course, there's no dining in for us so we ate in the car in the tractor supply parking lot. 

Interestingly, when we went to the McDonalds, I saw the seller's daughter with the trailer in front of a house. We  know exactly where our seller moved. Small towns are weird. 

We came back from dinner and got out two of our chairs. 

It was taking forever. They kept bringing stuff out of that house like I've never seen. It just kept coming and coming. It isn't that big of a house. 

The giant statue of John Wayne was interesting. 

Finally, Bill told them that we had to unload. It was 7:00. The house still had a few more things but it was almost empty. We unloaded our truck which took about an hour. 

We left there at almost 9:00. Bill's map took him a different way so we were briefly separated on the drive home. I pulled off to wait for him but he ended up getting ahead of me. We finally found each other again. 

We talked on the phone once we were on the highway and out of deer country.

We talked about our frustrations from the day and about the house. 

The floor is stained concrete and it is horrible. It has worn off in all the high traffic areas. It is orange. If you have been around for a while, you know how I feel about orange. 

The floors, walls, and ceiling are all shiny paint. I abhor shiny paint. 

Every inch needs to be repainted.  

The fixtures aren't bad. There is nothing that urgently needs to be replaced. 

The trim is very basic mid-century trim. It will all be replaced at some point but in the mean time it will be painted. Bill hates the counters in the kitchen. They are orangish.  

There is some trash clean up on the land. 

There is some maintenance work on the screened in porch in addition to what needs to be done to the guest house. 

When a house is full of stuff it is hard to see the actual condition. Bill and I both felt that there were more projects than we originally thought but nothing too terrible. It will keep us occupied during the remainder of this pandemic situation. 

Guest House Ceiling. 

Like I said at the beginning of this post. I was patient throughout this process. Occasionally, my mind would wander to what we would find when we pulled up to the house for the first time.  

Never in our wildest dreams did I imagine that we would would be waiting around for four hours after closing. 

Some lessons so far. 

The Texas mask mandate is not being followed out there. 

Those people don't care a lick about social distancing. Bill and I were the odd ones standing away from everyone else. 

People move at a much slower pace.

When it gets dark. It is really, really dark. 

Our cell service is not good at all. 

I've gone to get paint this morning. I just got some grab and go for the time being so we can cover up all the horrible shiny tan. I still need to get some oil based trim paint and exterior paint.

All complaining aside,  I feel very blessed. This has been a dream of ours for a very long time. 

It's hard to believe that it is ours. 

We are both so excited to get working on this place. 

 Thank you so much for stopping by.  

Katie