More New House Stuff
Jun. 24th, 2013 10:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fenchurchSo, I'm trying something clever to update Livejournal a bit more easily while we don't have internet. I'm typing this up on the my desktop, saving it to a text file and copying it over to my phone, where I'll do a copy and paste to LJ. Obviously, if you're seeing this, then it worked! Yay!
So, the move into the new house has not been without drama. The previous owner really didn't want to move out. From what we understand, there was a divorce and as part of the settlement, he was supposed to sell the house... and he dragged his feet and scuttled deals for a year until it got to a point where he HAD to sell. Good news for us, since we ended up getting the house for an incredible deal (we were the first people to even look at the house this year). And, to be honest, I can't say that I blame him for not wanting to leave. The house is incredible and so are the views. But we ended up getting the key to the house almost two hours late (putting us quite late at night, meaning we weren't able to start moving in that night like we'd planned). And when we took possession, we found half the garage filled with garbage. Okay, there looked to be non-garbage mixed in with the actual garbage, but still... and there were bits and pieces left in drawers and cupboards around the house (medications, among other things). Oh yeah, and two ancient refrigerators, plus a huge tub filled with old motor oil out in the garage.
Our agent was appalled, his agent was livid (because the agent had been told that everything was out) and we were trying to not get stressed about it... my thinking was that at least there was nothing wrong with the *house*. The stuff that was left could get cleaned out and everything else was fine. It did put a bit of a crimp in our move-in plans, because we ended up filling the carport and one half of the garage with his stuff. There was apparently some back and forth between our agent, his agent and the seller with some threats of legal action by his agent against him... and yesterday he showed up with a U-haul and a pickup and loaded nearly everything and hauled it away. The fridges will be picked up at his expense later this week by a disposal company and we're still waiting to hear about the large furniture pieces he left behind. But we were able to push everything that was left out into the carport and our agent told us that one way or another it would be taken care of (from what she's saying, either our realtor will pay for it to be hauled away or the seller's realtor will and he'll be billed). So, it's not ideal, but it's not horrible.
Because of the issues with the previous owner, we've unplugged the garage door openers (oh, yeah... we only got one opener remote from him, with three more out there somewhere. Supposedly, his ex-wife has them and will be mailing them to us, but until we get them, we're not taking chances) and have changed all the locks. We went with the oiled bronze look for the new knobs and are going to slowly work at replacing all the knobs in the house with that (and getting rid of the shiny brass). Even though we tend to prefer brushed nickel, the bronze fits the flavor of the house much better.
Oh! And we put out some of our area rugs (the ones we bought at a garage sale years and years ago) and our couches... and they look like got them specifically to match the paint colors in the house. It's a bit freaky!
After a fairly nervous day or so, the cats are absolutely loving the house. So many windows to look out and so much space to run around. I think getting the rest of our furniture over here helped a lot, too.
Pretty much every single light in the house had CFL bulbs when we moved in. I can't stand CFLs, and they would all come on at different rates and they all had slightly different color lights. We stopped by Home Depot and discovered that our local power company is helping subsidize a deal for LED lights right now... and we were able to get them for $5 a piece. So worth it!! That's our current project, though... and it's going to take awhile to replace everything with the better lights. We're keeping the old CFLs and are going to offer them up on Freecycle or something, since they all still work.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
So, the move into the new house has not been without drama. The previous owner really didn't want to move out. From what we understand, there was a divorce and as part of the settlement, he was supposed to sell the house... and he dragged his feet and scuttled deals for a year until it got to a point where he HAD to sell. Good news for us, since we ended up getting the house for an incredible deal (we were the first people to even look at the house this year). And, to be honest, I can't say that I blame him for not wanting to leave. The house is incredible and so are the views. But we ended up getting the key to the house almost two hours late (putting us quite late at night, meaning we weren't able to start moving in that night like we'd planned). And when we took possession, we found half the garage filled with garbage. Okay, there looked to be non-garbage mixed in with the actual garbage, but still... and there were bits and pieces left in drawers and cupboards around the house (medications, among other things). Oh yeah, and two ancient refrigerators, plus a huge tub filled with old motor oil out in the garage.
Our agent was appalled, his agent was livid (because the agent had been told that everything was out) and we were trying to not get stressed about it... my thinking was that at least there was nothing wrong with the *house*. The stuff that was left could get cleaned out and everything else was fine. It did put a bit of a crimp in our move-in plans, because we ended up filling the carport and one half of the garage with his stuff. There was apparently some back and forth between our agent, his agent and the seller with some threats of legal action by his agent against him... and yesterday he showed up with a U-haul and a pickup and loaded nearly everything and hauled it away. The fridges will be picked up at his expense later this week by a disposal company and we're still waiting to hear about the large furniture pieces he left behind. But we were able to push everything that was left out into the carport and our agent told us that one way or another it would be taken care of (from what she's saying, either our realtor will pay for it to be hauled away or the seller's realtor will and he'll be billed). So, it's not ideal, but it's not horrible.
Because of the issues with the previous owner, we've unplugged the garage door openers (oh, yeah... we only got one opener remote from him, with three more out there somewhere. Supposedly, his ex-wife has them and will be mailing them to us, but until we get them, we're not taking chances) and have changed all the locks. We went with the oiled bronze look for the new knobs and are going to slowly work at replacing all the knobs in the house with that (and getting rid of the shiny brass). Even though we tend to prefer brushed nickel, the bronze fits the flavor of the house much better.
Oh! And we put out some of our area rugs (the ones we bought at a garage sale years and years ago) and our couches... and they look like got them specifically to match the paint colors in the house. It's a bit freaky!
After a fairly nervous day or so, the cats are absolutely loving the house. So many windows to look out and so much space to run around. I think getting the rest of our furniture over here helped a lot, too.
Pretty much every single light in the house had CFL bulbs when we moved in. I can't stand CFLs, and they would all come on at different rates and they all had slightly different color lights. We stopped by Home Depot and discovered that our local power company is helping subsidize a deal for LED lights right now... and we were able to get them for $5 a piece. So worth it!! That's our current project, though... and it's going to take awhile to replace everything with the better lights. We're keeping the old CFLs and are going to offer them up on Freecycle or something, since they all still work.
Crossposted from my Livejournal.
