New Home - Soon to Be

I have been so busy I haven't had the time to record here the latest - and very big - event in our lives: we bought a house. We closed more than a week ago now (on Oct 7, to be exact), but we are still immensely overjoyed by it. Getting here was such a long journey - we (or I) saw more than 147 houses, and there were moments I despaired of ever finding a house we can imagine as home and that we can afford. Some of our friends told us of the nervousness they felt the day they signed the loan documents. We felt simply excitement and joy. Hopefully not because we are too stupid like a pair of eloping teenagers to realize the responsibility of what we are getting into.

But I do think we are aware, and yet we want this responsibility of being a homeowner, even if it means a true adieu to our former carefree lives - a life where it is easy to pick up and just go as the spirit pleases. Now we have a mortgage to pay, a house to take care of, on top of being parents to Zoe. But this house will be our nest. The mise en scene of our daily lives and Zoe's memories. We looked for a property with a place to garden. We will have just about 0.2 acre to garden and I can't wait.

But wait we will have to do. There is so much we have to do for the house before we can move in. It turns out that we bought a fixer upper! I didn't think so until Jeannie pointed it out, after I rattled off all the things we need to do before we can move in: asbestos remediation (done), mold remediation (done), drywall replacement (lots gutted because of the mold remediation), re-texture the ceiling (because of the asbestos removal), new windows (because the existing windows are more than 30 years old, single pane and leaking in water that caused the mold), new flooring (because all the old flooring had to be removed), new kitchen and bathroom (because parts of it were ripped out to correct the mold issue). We also need to get new fascia boards and sidings that were damaged by termites... and new gutters. I guess it is a fixer upper but not at fixer upper price!

Still, we love our soon to be new home already. You can see our progress here:

Removing a tree that is too close to the house :


Mold remediation in progress:


The view we fell in love with (and that is now somewhat compromised because the neighbor next door put up a fence recently. Ah well):