Wednesday, October 28, 2009

You May Tell Yourself, This Is Not My Beautiful House

My soon to be new home. I stole this off the realty site. I'll be sure to post the "after" shots as I get things fixed-up.

Guess what, kids? I got a call from the realtor this morning telling me that the loan went through and I got the house. Now I can get excited for real. YYYYEEEEAAAA! I'm so happy. I have a ton of work to do before November 19th, which is my closing date. Mainly, I have to sublet my apartment. I have no idea how tough that will be in the middle of the academic year in a college town, but I plan to be very diligent about that too. I already found someone on Facebook who wants to look at it. Keep your fingers crossed.

Here is part of the living room. I'm planning on painting it a camel color. I'd love to get the floors done, but that will have to wait until I somehow magically get more money.

I'm also spending as many hours as possible cleaning, packing and getting rid of crap. I have a very high-tech system of piles: one for garbage, one for Goodwill and one for saving and packing. I'm in that bad place right now where a lot of things are ripped apart, and not many things are organized and packed. I hope to be in a much better place with it by the weekend.

Here is my soon to be kitchen. I'm going to replace the ugly faux wood counters with black lamanite and sand and paint the cupboards white. I think i'll go with a periwinkle for the wall paint.

I'm at that happy, newly homeownered stage, but quickly moving into the "holy shit, yo! I have so much crap to do, I can't even think about it" stage. Like I always say, I'm a slow and steady girl. I just have to keep trudging along and somehow it will all get done, right?

This the dormer or teen room that Stinky has had her eye on since I started looking at houses.

This was the first house I liked when I looked on-line and the first house I physically looked at when I went out with the realtors. I guess it was meant to be. It has two bedrooms downstairs in addition to the huge dormer room upstairs. (which I will turn into my painting studio once Stinky finally goes off to college) It only has one bathroom, and no basement, but it does have a crawl space. I really just need to know there is someplace safe to hide if there's a tornado. We'll have a big laundry room and an attached garage. I've never had a garage before. There's also a small screened-in porch in the backyard that I'm already calling my drankin' porch. Oh, and of course, there are a couple of garden plots. It's almost everything I asked for and only three blocks off of my running route. So, once again, YYYYYEEEEEAAAA!

20 comments:

Tara said...

Omg (I don't like to burst into initials, but seriously OMG!!) I am so, super excited and happy for you! That house is so cool, I love the dormer. Plus, when everything is settled you can invite garage bands to perform for the neighborhood!

I love the livingroom too. Eek, very awesome! Congratulations!!

Mnmom said...

Where is that? Remember, I know Iowa City!

Looks adorable! If I visit relatives this summer, I want to stop by and do some drankin' on your screened porch.

BTW, my relative runs the Belin Ctr at UI.

Johnny Yen said...

Yaaaaaayyyyyyy!

"And you may find yourself asking.. "how did I get there!"

That is fantastic news! Good-looking wood floors-- a good start!

rel said...

Churlita,
I was going to write exactly what Tara wrote, so read it twice, or 3 times even. Really, You deserve this and the rest of your derams as well.
XXOO
rel

rel said...

DREAMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AlienCG said...

Big, huge, gigantic CONGRATULATIONS!!!

It looks like a very nice house. Welcome to the club.

Pamela said...

OH, that is so wonderful. I love your ideas for what you are going to do. Except for the caramel color wall. But if you have non-brown furniture it would definitely work. I'm very skittish of using brown on the walls... I have to get over that. I might paint my pass through wall in the kitchen a dark dark brown though. Oh, if you need to replace the screens on the porch, it's really easy. Or do you not have mosquitoes there? Yay!!!

j-dub said...

Awesome. Good luck with the move.

Churlita said...

Tara,

Thanks. I'm excited too. The whole reason I bought a house was for garage bands to have a place to play. Ha ha.

MnMom,

It's on Friendship St. If you come back in the Summer, let me know and we will make good use of that drankin' porch.

Johnny,

That Talking Heads song finally applies to me. I really would love to get those floors refinished. I might just get an estimate, to see just how much money it would cost and if I'd have to sell both my daughters.

REl,

Thanks. You are too kind.

AlienCG,

Thanks. I think it will work once I get some things done on it.

Pamela,

No. It's camel not caramel. It's more of a warm tannish color, if that makes sense. You kind of have to see it. I'm not a fan of brown either.

JWilliam,

Thanks.

girl crush yo said...

I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU AND THE GIRLS!!!!!!!!! it looks like a perfect, cozy churlita house! and i can't wait to see you this weekend. i need some quality churly time please!

Ananda girl said...

I am so happy for you! A feal home of your own for you and the girls. Very cute too. I can't wait to read the posts as you make it the way you want it. Congratulations Churlita! Yipeeee!

The Lady Who Doesn't Lunch: said...

That's amazing! Congratulations!

It looks like a great house and just right for you guys!

Redoing the floors will probably be less expensive than you think... I was very surprised when we did ours last year. (It does smell really bad though).

Sending you my best closing vibes ;)

jeci said...

HOORAY! CONGRATULATIONS! It looks absoultely lovely. The screened-in porch is a clincher--I'm envious and so happy for you. :)

laura b. said...

This is wonderful news :-) I love how happy you sound and all of your plans to make this home your very own. I look forward to many, many updates as the move and settling in commence!

Wow...my verification word is moozoo. Awesome.

Churlita said...

GirlCrush,

I know. We need to have so much fun we can't stand it together...And I'm sure we will. I can't wait to see you!

Ananda,

Thanks. I can't wait to get my hands on the place. I have so many ideas.

Lady,

Did you guys do them yourselves and rent the equipment? I would probably have to pay someone to do all of it for me and that's where the expense will come it. We'll see though....

Jeci,

I'll try to do as good a job on my house as you've done on yours.

LauraB.,

Don't you fret. You'll probably hear way more about my house than you want.

Not Fainthearted said...

This is seriously AWESOME news. Congratulations, best wishes and SQUEEEEEEEEE!!! (as they say)

what a very cool adventure for all of you.

booda baby said...

I'm really glad I've been flu-struck - just enough to be really ... saggy - so that THIS comes as a big happy surprise. It's so wonderful, I can hardly stand it and THEN, on top of THAT, it's on Friendship Street?!?!? Oh, Churlita, this makes me so happy (and I'm not even going to bother figuring out why - it just does. Of course, FOR you, but - weirdly, for me, too.) Anyway, thanks!

Poptart said...

Oh my god Oh my god Oh my god. I love it. SO HAPPY FOR YOU!!

The Lady Who Doesn't Lunch: said...

We are hopeless with home improvement projects and heavy equipment - so we paid someone. The floors had never been finished and we ripped out all the carpet, padding and nails ourselves - so for large living room, dining room, long hallway and bedroom - more than half our house - probably about 1000sqft it was $1500 smacks including all the sanding 3 coats of polyurethane and clean up. It took the pros 3 and a half full days.

Mr Atrocity said...

Very late to the party on this one but congratulations, this is all amazing news! Looks like a beautiful house.