September in a nutshell....

Sorry... I suck at blogging.... 

Here is a brief recap of my life since.... September... danggg it has been awhile...

Well lets see -- CLOSING WAS PUSHED BACK -- TWO weeks!! I was NOT happy about this. I pretty much tore up all my house TO-DO list. Pretty much any 'game plans' I came up with for painting/carpeting/moving all went out the window. My new mind set is -- FAST!!

We are scheduled to close on Wednesday.....

        We have 5 rooms that really need to be completed before we move it. Completed as in               Paint & Flooring. I am all good with living out of boxes for a week... or month.... JUST                   KIDDING!

        I have to empty the rental..... and relocated it to the new house... 

        I'm in search of a GAS dryer.... seems like when I need one they all disapper... grrr 

        Deliver others miscellaneous items... 

         &&&& this all has to be done in F-I-V-E days. Going to need to stock up on Redbull.

So in the other aspects of my life....

         BRYSON TURNED TWO!!  Andd it of course rained the entire day of his birthday party...            that was being held at a park.... && he was sick and crabby. But dispite all the set backs 

         the party went  well.. I will write a post about his birthday soon. 

          I started grad school.....I get nervous every time I walk into Concordia. But I think this 

          program is really fit for me. They coddle their students &&  give away tons of free-bees! 

   

          Wedding Planning is at a dead stop

           &&&&& my diet is a JOKE! 

Hoping once we are moved in and settled things will calm down... & I can refocus on being healthy and planning the wedding of my dreams --- or what the budget allows!

Cheers!

-Mandy :))))

      

       

BIG MONTH AHEAD...

Whoa.... Goodbye August... 

Hello September. I welcome September with much anticipation.

September is a HUGE month for our family. Nick & I will have a two year old, which is just crazy. & even crazier we will be HOMEOWNERS! Yippy! 

Needless to say my life has been a bit hectic. The count down has begun to and we have exactly EIGHT days till Bryson turns the big T-W-O and until our CLOSING, eeks!

Pictures are coming down. Rooms are being emptied. Boxes are being filled. 

Definitely having a mini freak-out. We have exactly 8 more days to focus all our attention on completing the repurposing projects, thinking of paint colors, packing up 2.5 years of crap, finishing up paperwork, & keeping everything as organized as possible. 

Add Mr. B's birthday party on top of everything -- causes me to be one strung out mess.

I cant stress too much because everything seems to be coming together nicely! Nick has taken over redoing the furniture, while I focused on B's b-day and packing. I just feel like we are in such a time crunch. The new house needs to be semi-complete and live-able by October 1st with all of our stuff in. Thank goodness the Summer festivities have slowed down and we can really focus on getting in!

Patiently waiting....& getting excited... 

-Mandy :))

Sunday Funday?!?!

Today we got to go into our house and prepare it for the appraisal. 

Which you don't usually have to do but our  real-estate agent advised us to put doors on the three rooms in the basement (last owners took them) and wash down the walls in the bathroom (mold formed behind a cabinet due to no fan, stupid) -- so their will be no repairs needed to be negotiated into the price. Much rather do it ourselves. 

Well, I am still in love with the house - thank goodness!! The decorating ideas flooded my head while I was walking around my soon to be house. I really wish I has an endless amount of money, so I can completely decorate every room before we move in. KEEP DREAMING MANDY! 

As Nick and I walked around the house and closely inspected our BIG PURCHASE, we saw the half-ass the previous owners did. One thing Nick can't stand is someone being sloppy and pure lazy, when taking on a project. 

Here are some examples or the pure laziness:

          - When they FINALLY installed a fan/vent in the bathroom and added the new                              switch to the wall -- they cut a new light switch cover out of a bigger on and screwed              it in.  -- THESE THINGS COST LIKE $1 AT  MENARDS!! 

          - They did a nice back splash in the kitchen. But in ONE section they didn't line the tiles                up. And they picked a stupid stop to end the back  splash. 

           -Every corner cover was screwed on with drywall screws NOT nails. 

           -Wanes molding in the living room was pieced together and not straight. 

Just so much stupid shit that if done correctly would have looked GREAT! I just don't get how people can just not care -- it's YOUR house. Put some effort into it! 

----RANT OVER!------

Anyways, the guys worked on putting the doors in (I picked up 5 solid doors off of craigslist. 2 fit perfect. One will have to be adjusted.) I really under estimated the time needed for hanging doors. I worked on the mold... forgot masks, got bleach in my eyes, and almost past out -- but it was worth it. I also started cleaning windows and ripping off the HIDEOUS duck boarder in the main bath. We actually got pretty far considering we had no tools! Yay us!

The appraisal is tomorrow and we have our figures and toes crossed all goes well!

-Well test came back - well is up to code and water is SAFE!

-Shopped around for Home owners insurance (feeling old!) 

-Began to gather all the paper work needed for the loan... 

This house buying stuff is keeping me BUSY :)

-Mandy :))

Kitchen Remodel Ideas....

The kitchen in our new house is seriously driving me C-R-A-Z-Y and we haven't even closed yet - grrrr. 

This WAS the kitchen before the previous owners gutted it before their departure.

**Sorry so blurry -- they are from google images.. 

And this is it now......

A WHOLE lot of EMPTY

I am seriously contemplating 5 different design ideas for this one area. Of course Pinterest isn't help one bit....

1. Take out current pantry (next to stove) and relocate fridge there and make an island.. or something.

2. Fill the fridge wall with a cute county hutch:

                                       

3. Fill the fridge wall in with a computer cabinet made into a pantry:

4. Make a center island out of a dresser:

5. Build a pantry around the fridge:

Decision Decision! Sunday we are going to the house for a little bit. Nick and I are really going to put our heads together and figure out how to liven up our kitchen. That way the plans our constructed and I can stop driving myself mad with new ideas and searching craigslist to find a cheap hutch/dresser/TV cabinet to redo. 

What would I have done if Pinterest wasn't invented. Probably came up with only one plan --- but wouldn't be so creative!

Thank-You Gift...

On my last post I was complaining about how stubborn Nick is.... but I didn't explain how generous he is either. 

Nick is approved for the loan -- so technically it is his house. But lets be honest, the house is more for B and I. Nick would be happy living in a $100,000 truck -smh. I have been putting all the effort into finding a house: schedule the showings, spending HOURS of my life on Zillow, going to showings first to eliminate houses, and constantly communicating with our real-estate agent and mortgage guy. So, when I fall in love with a house (happened 3 times) he usually just agrees with signs the papers (good man <3). So, when Nick put up a fight for this house I was shocked. How could he not LOVE this house?!?! Needless to say we were butting heads a lot over this decision and neither of us were backing down. 

But Nick did. He agreed to sign off on my house :))  His biggest issue with this property was there wasn't a man cave (garage). He is going to be ECSTATIC once he gets to build his dream garage -- making every decision along the way!

Because he did such a selfless act for me, I decided to get him a gift for being (soon-to-be) homeowner. 


I thought of Nick as soon as I saw this wall art by a local crafter, Kenosha Crafts. 
& he LOVED it :)


Just a little thank-you gift to keep my man happy

-Mandy :))

House Update #2

Well lets see... The foreclosure I fell in love with has been stubborn. First off it is unfortunately listed on Hubzu.com (a horrible bidding website). I have heard nothing but horror stories by buyers from this site. Plus the selling bank we are dealing with seems horrible. They declined every offer we put out there... And then Nick was being just as stubborn declined every counter. Oh and thanks to that LOVELY website  someone else decided to out bid us by $3000. GRRRRRR!!!

So, this house seemed hopeless. I am overly frustrated at this time with this house & Nick!! So, We threw out our best and final offer to the bank to win this house $90K (5K over asking price) and started looking at other properties but guess what?!?! The bank accepted!!! Which totally took me by surprise since there was a higher bid submitted after ours.

By September 12, 2013 this will be our home :))

We close on Bryson's birthday -- hoping that is good sign!

I'm so excited. I have already been making plans in my head: colors, furniture arrangement, decorations, construction ;)

We have only until the 15th to get all of out inspections completed, eeks! Making phone calls to set up appointments Monday Morning! 

I'm overly excited! I can't wait! Pinterest App will be working overtime!! 

-Mandy :)) 

House Buying Update

Short Sale OUT.... Foreclosure in.

We were SICK of waiting for our offer to be looked at by the bank and let alone be accepted, so Nick signed the paper work and closed the contract on that house.

It really was a hard decision, because the thought of house shopping again was horrible.

FORTUNITLY we found a cute house in Bristol (my home town) that was priced 12,000 less than our offer we put in on the short sale. Yippy!!

We are currently negotiating the price with the bank and hopefully we can call it home real soon!!

I am starting to look up ideas for the kitchen and how to fix that up because the layout is HORRIBLE!

I will update you as soon as we hear back from the bank!

-Mandy :))

Four Days Left....

The final count down begins.... the bank has until Thursday to counter or accept our offer for the Short sale in Paddock Lake. I am getting a bit nervous because I was actually able to see myself in this house and could picture how I wanted to set up every room, the repairs, and add-on we were going to do.

Short Sales really SUCK. We have wasted a month waiting around for this house, so I am going to be VERY upset if we loose out on this because the bank is being a pokey puppy. I am getting aggravated with our realtor because I feel she isn't being assertive enough with this whole process. Everything I have researched on short sales recommends badgering the bank to get the ball rolling. I feel like she is sitting back enjoying the time she isn't showing us any listings. I should contact the bank myself :)

We went back out on the hunt last night and let me tell you there are SLIM pickings!!
Let's just hope we see some activity from the bank so we don't have to pull out and look at more houses.


-Mandy :))

#shortsaleproblems

Round Two....

 Welp... Let me try this again. 

I am back to blogging. My last run at this was a WHOLE week... lets see if I can last a bit longer this time around because I have a whole lot to talk about. There is a TON of changes happening in my life....
                       
     1. I got engaged :))
     2. We are buying, well attempting to buy a house
     3. I graduated college & in search of a career
     4. My parents sold my childhood home && I'm very bitter. 


So my plan is to share my journey through these huge life changing events.... planning a wedding, buying and remolding a house, along with the other bumps and surprises that show up in my day to day life....


-Mandy :)))