Thursday, April 22
In the tradition of apparently forgetting the blog until I have something big to announce:
We bought a house.
This house:
So yeah. We'd been batting the idea of this back and forth for, oh, a year or so. On the one hand we are in a pretty decent position, financially, and between the depressed housing market and the Federal tax credit and the rock-bottom mortgage interest rates it would be hard to find a better time to buy. On the other hand, neither Dan nor I really wants to be in Galax for the rest of our lives, and Galax is... well. Shall we say not the most architecturally enlightened place ever. We went and looked at a few places in an idle way, but they were either uninspiring or possessed of many expensive house problems or (most often) both.
Then I got pregnant and the whole "buy a house" thing got revisited in a hurry. Two introverts, one bird, and a kid is pretty much more than I care to jam into an apartment*, especially one I'm renting and have to worry about the kid/bird/introverts accidentally destroying. When the kid didn't, we talked it over and decided to keep going on the house. We were going to end up with a kid eventually, after all, and it was something positive for us -- and especially me -- to focus on.
And we found a house. Actually two. And there was angst, over which house was better, and angst over where the down payment would come from, and how much could we afford, and paperwork, and then mortgage preapproval and looking over the houses again, and offering, and being turned down (both houses), and more angst and a second offer on the house we decided really truly was a better deal, and....
Long story short: we bought the house, at a price that more or less made both parties happy, and all was well with the world. (And Kat signed her name to more papers than she even wants to think about, but we won't go into that.)
It's a good house. Not flashy (the second house under consideration was much more interesting layout-wise) but sound (the second house wasn't), sturdy, well-kept, and a decent compromise between being close to the farm and being able to run screaming for civilization via the major highways. And the lot, basically, rocks. Dan and I both agreed we wanted privacy -- seriously, what is the point of living way out in the boonies if you've got houses ten feet from you on all sides? And we wanted a bit of land to garden and run around and basically hang out on. While the new house has neighbors I could, technically, throw a rock at, the arrangement of houses and trees lets us all comfortably ignore each other, and both directly in front and behind we have farmland. And an acre of our own besides. It's a lot of lot.
Also, well water. Yes, I'm a spoilt country brat, but it's one of my marks of civilization: I can now walk out of the shower not smelling like a swimming pool. And potentially even drink from the tap. Bliss.
Now all I have to do is pack up and clean out an apartment we've lived in for five years, paint, clean, and arrange minor fixery on the new house despite knowing fuck-all about houses, and get all the stuff into the new house. By June 1st. Did I mention I have around seventeen hundred books? I have around seventeen hundred books. And a rather massive kitchen collection. And a full-time job. And a comic. And possibly a brain, although no promises on that come June 2nd.
It's for a good cause. If I get it all moved in, I can walk out the back door at midnight of June 1st, stand in my very own back yard, say, "screw the neighbors", and scream.
I'm gonna need it.
*Yes, I am a spoilt little country girl who considers a two bedroom, roughly 1200-square-foot apartment way too small. I may not have a grasp of public transit or a decent movie theatre within a hundred miles, but by god I have standards.
We bought a house.
This house:
 |
| New House |
So yeah. We'd been batting the idea of this back and forth for, oh, a year or so. On the one hand we are in a pretty decent position, financially, and between the depressed housing market and the Federal tax credit and the rock-bottom mortgage interest rates it would be hard to find a better time to buy. On the other hand, neither Dan nor I really wants to be in Galax for the rest of our lives, and Galax is... well. Shall we say not the most architecturally enlightened place ever. We went and looked at a few places in an idle way, but they were either uninspiring or possessed of many expensive house problems or (most often) both.
Then I got pregnant and the whole "buy a house" thing got revisited in a hurry. Two introverts, one bird, and a kid is pretty much more than I care to jam into an apartment*, especially one I'm renting and have to worry about the kid/bird/introverts accidentally destroying. When the kid didn't, we talked it over and decided to keep going on the house. We were going to end up with a kid eventually, after all, and it was something positive for us -- and especially me -- to focus on.
And we found a house. Actually two. And there was angst, over which house was better, and angst over where the down payment would come from, and how much could we afford, and paperwork, and then mortgage preapproval and looking over the houses again, and offering, and being turned down (both houses), and more angst and a second offer on the house we decided really truly was a better deal, and....
Long story short: we bought the house, at a price that more or less made both parties happy, and all was well with the world. (And Kat signed her name to more papers than she even wants to think about, but we won't go into that.)
It's a good house. Not flashy (the second house under consideration was much more interesting layout-wise) but sound (the second house wasn't), sturdy, well-kept, and a decent compromise between being close to the farm and being able to run screaming for civilization via the major highways. And the lot, basically, rocks. Dan and I both agreed we wanted privacy -- seriously, what is the point of living way out in the boonies if you've got houses ten feet from you on all sides? And we wanted a bit of land to garden and run around and basically hang out on. While the new house has neighbors I could, technically, throw a rock at, the arrangement of houses and trees lets us all comfortably ignore each other, and both directly in front and behind we have farmland. And an acre of our own besides. It's a lot of lot.
Also, well water. Yes, I'm a spoilt country brat, but it's one of my marks of civilization: I can now walk out of the shower not smelling like a swimming pool. And potentially even drink from the tap. Bliss.
Now all I have to do is pack up and clean out an apartment we've lived in for five years, paint, clean, and arrange minor fixery on the new house despite knowing fuck-all about houses, and get all the stuff into the new house. By June 1st. Did I mention I have around seventeen hundred books? I have around seventeen hundred books. And a rather massive kitchen collection. And a full-time job. And a comic. And possibly a brain, although no promises on that come June 2nd.
It's for a good cause. If I get it all moved in, I can walk out the back door at midnight of June 1st, stand in my very own back yard, say, "screw the neighbors", and scream.
I'm gonna need it.
*Yes, I am a spoilt little country girl who considers a two bedroom, roughly 1200-square-foot apartment way too small. I may not have a grasp of public transit or a decent movie theatre within a hundred miles, but by god I have standards.
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