So, when I left you, we were in our three-week waiting period between making the offer on an off-market house, and actually viewing the property for the first time.
As I think I mentioned, the seller had accepted our offer, but we had included a contingency that we needed to see the property and give our stamp of approval to move forward with the sale. He had accepted those terms.
The three weeks went by very quickly, and before we knew it we were on our way to view the property. M met me there on a Friday lunch break and N was in charge of the younger girls at home-- the tenants living in the house did not want any more people than necessary at the showing, due to COVID concerns.
So... we went into the showing sort of expecting something to be really wrong with the house... we just wondered if there was some reason that the seller didn't want to go to market with it. But we got there, and at first glance everything looked great... and as we looked and looked some more, everything continued to look great. We kept looking for that thing that would turn us off from this house, but we didn't find it-- in fact, we kept finding more and more things that made us fall in love with it.
The first thing that was a pleasant surprise was that the house functionally has five bedrooms-- it was advertised as four but there was an extra room/office that could easily be used as a bedroom. It has no closet, which is why it wasn't listed as a bedroom, but there's enough space there to easily put in a wardrobe or something. So that means that each of our girls could have their own room if they wanted.
The second pleasant surprise was the walk-up attic, which would provide us with even *more* space for expanding if needed. A staircase from the front bedroom led up to the attic, not a pull down ladder like most attics I've seen... so it's functionally a third floor. It was really clean and dry and totally finish-able.
Also, a partially finished basement (workout room? kid's video game cave? dance room?)
Plus a beautiful, wooded lot on two acres, but with enough lawn to have some fun playing and gardening...
We left the showing with the promise that we would get back to our realtor with a yay/nay in the next few hours. M and I stopped to chat about it in the parking lot of his school, but we didn't really need to talk about it at all. We both sat there in the parking lot sort of stunned that we could afford this house. We felt incredibly lucky that we had made the offer when we did. Even in the three weeks since then, the market had accelerated such that the seller could probably get $50k more than we had offered, had he waited. The timing of everything and the incredible price we were getting for this property just seemed almost too good to be true. So we got back to our realtor almost immediately with an enthusiastic "yes".
We scheduled the home inspection, again half expecting that we would find out something terrible about the house, but we had seen enough properties to spot the really big things ourselves, so we were cautiously optimistic. The inspection came and went and... nothing major. A slight insulation problem in the attic that could be fixed for about $1000, and radon mitigation. Our wonderful realtor offered to take the cost of the radon mitigation off her fee. So the cost to have things move-in ready would be very minimal.
With all the possible contingencies out of the way, we moved forward with financing. Anyone who has been through all of that knows that it's a bit stressful and everything is time sensitive, so it was a little chaotic for a few weeks while M and I had mortgage tasks to complete every night on top of our usual busy days. That whole process took about six weeks, and we finally got our clear to close just after April vacation week. Then it was crazy amounts of packing and getting ready, which I have been writing about here... and then, by last Monday (May 3), we had our closing!! It was pretty quick and easy since it was just us and our lawyer's assistant due to COVID restrictions. Not the big table meeting we had at
our last closing. But M still gave me a kiss in the parking lot after it was done, and we took a break from packing that evening after the kids were in bed to pop a bottle of Prosecco and celebrate!
During our last few days at our old house, we ate off paper plates and did crazy amounts of packing.
Miss J helped me in the last few days. She did "a lot of writing" :)
The older two girls cleaning their retainers in paper bowls (no cups left, lol).
My parents came to help us two days before moving day, and on our very last day in the old house we got away from it all and went to
Plimouth, since we have a membership there and I wanted to take advantage one last time while we were closer. It was a really great mental health day and helped me escape from all the moving stress for a little while.
Not only did Dad (and Mom) help us with all things moving, but he kept up his math tutoring in person, as he has been doing over Zoom this whole year! We are so grateful for him! Do you like the math shirt we got him for his birthday (had to get his Algebra Buddy a matching one)???
Moving Day came and went in a chaotic blur on Saturday, May 8.
My running buddy came with her husband and daughter and they were tremendously helpful getting us loaded up at the old house. We didn't get absolutely everything on this first run, but we had planned to keep the truck for a second day so the pressure was off to get it all. Plus we had a deadline to get to the new house by 12 noon, because we had cleaning people at the new house (sadly, the previous tenants had left it quite dirty so I gave myself the Mother's Day treat of having it professionally cleaned before we moved in). We had planned to meet and pay the cleaners at noon since they had been working at the house since 7 that morning. I said a tearful goodbye to my running buddy and we started a caravan to the new house-- M with the two big girls in the UHaul (big excitement for them!), my dad in our van stuffed with stuff, me in M's Acura stuffed with stuff, and my mom in her minivan stuffed with stuff and the two younger girls. I didn't remain tearful for long because we had such a welcoming committee at the new house! M's best man from our wedding and his wife and two kids live about two miles down the road from our new house, so they were there, as well as my sister-in-law who lives about 20 minutes away, who showed up with our little cousin J and pizza for lunch. I wish I had a picture of all seven children running around the empty house, because it was amazing and so very happy. Alas, I was too starving to take pictures at that point, so I just dove right into the pizza. After that everyone helped us unload, and since many hands made light work we were pretty much finished by mid-afternoon!
Pictures from our first night in the new house... Grandma and Grandpa installed in the "guest suite" (the 5th bedroom... L and C decided to share that night) plus setting up everyone's beds. We were all able to sleep in beds that first night, since we had gotten to the new house fairly early in the day with enough time to set them up.
The next day G&G hung out at the new house with the girls while M and I took a second trip back to the old house. We had decided to save a little $ and return the UHaul early, so we just had two minivans and we stuffed them to the gills.
On our way back home we picked up some iced coffee, as well as burgers for our grill at the new house, so we were able to have a small Mother's Day celebration.
And that's about it! We are two weeks in to living in the new house and I feel like the dust is still settling-- we're still having appliances delivered and unpacking is going pretty slowly while I'm still trying to finish up homeschool with the girls. But there are so many things we are loving about our new place, and we feel so so so very grateful that we could make it happen.
Stay tuned... the story of our new chapter continues!
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