We're in!

Despite the less than stellar walk through, we closed on Wednesday morning! Tim immediately started the moving process with the help of one very unlucky friend. It's been a whirlwind couple of days and we can't wait to share pictures of the mess we currently have in our new basement. We won't have internet access until after we get back from Italy, so I'll check back in two weeks! Stay tuned!

Well, we walked through...

In preparation for our closing tomorrow, our realtor scheduled a walk through tonight so we could make sure everything was moved out and cleaned. Well, the seller was home and in the midst of moving out. She has a long night ahead of her to get the place in shape and finish packing all the last minute odds and ends. At least all the furniture was moved out! This was basically a wasted trip for us.

I was also disappointed to find out they already took down the sold sign. Sorry everyone, no cute picture of T and I with the sold sign on our first house. Anyway, at this point, I'd just settle for a vacant house to move into tomorrow. T and I have a long night of our own ahead to packing up, in hopes that we have a place to put our stuff tomorrow.

Some pictures from the walk through with our new camera.

Could it be?

As we are almost probably, practically definitely closing on the house on Wednesday (unless we don't) I thought I should pull out the picures of the house that has caused us all of these oodles of stress to remind us what we're been working so hard for.

The basement

Living Room

The Kitchen

Master Bedroom

Hurricane Cortland Manor

Some fun photos of the disaster area that we currently live in...

So..we have mold. In our closet. On my shoes.

T taking apart our shelves:

It's lovely isn't it? This is what pure chaos looks like:

More mold! This was underneath my dresser when we chucked it:

And...our bedroom threw up:

Can we leave yet?!?!

"I had to go Godfather on him"

When T and I arrived home from work last night, we had a long talk about how upset we were about the lack of guidance from our lawyer and realtor and the constant issues we keep running into with the current seller's seemingly endless supply of open mortgages. It seemed to both of us that this process has been unnecessarily long and drawn out and T has had all of our paperwork and financing in place for over two months now. The P&S was signed at the end of June. Enough is enough.

T called our lawyer yesterday and told him all of our issues and concerns and the lawyer will be drawing up a letter addressing all of these concerns. T then called our realtor and laid it all on the line with her. Our stress and annoyance with all of the stall tactics. Our issues with the incompetence on the part of the title company and the seller's lawyer. The fact that we wil be homeless in two weeks.

This afternoon I received this email from T.

So - after long last...the closing date has arrived. Monday at noon
Good stuff here...we're getting there! Signing our life away. Good times! Talk to everyone later to give you the run down. Had to go to the Godfather method (as is often the case) to get this done. Love, T

No horse heads were actually used. But the result is great! Assuming that it actually happens that is...

In the meantime, we spent last weekend packing up as much of our stuff as we possible could. We've got 16 boxes ready to go and we have no dishes to use for dinner.

NYC and Citi Field!

What a fabulous day. This is taken from the subway platform on the way back into Manhattan. Because of this photo, we didn't get seats on the train. Totally worth it! Not much use for these guys today!

This is the old apple that used to pop up from the depths of Shea when a Met hit a homerun. Now they have a state of the art apple and this old relic has been relegated to the field level behind the bullpens. They have picnic tables available and we hung out here for a while. Very cool!

The park is sandwiched right between the two airports in Queens. We saw lots of arrivals and takeoffs.

The Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

Isn't she gorgeous? The subway drops you off right outside the park. The subway out to Queens.We worked up a thirst! T and I stopped for a beer along the way and afterwards I stopped into see my old coworkers at Lesters. I hadn't seen these two girls in at least two years so I was very excited to catch up with them.The local businesses aren't happy with the mess either. This would have been our view if we still lived here. After we moved out, a measure was passsed to build a new subway line along 2nd Avenue. It was noisy and messy yesterday and I'm glad that we didn't have to deal with this chaos. T and I parked uptown and walked down through my old neighborhood. This is the building I lived in with my fabulous friends and roommates. Our apartment is the window on the top right. We had a boatload of fun times in this apartment. The neighborhood has changed quite a bit since we lived here.

A completely different direction

In the time since I last updated this blog, T and I bought a house. A completely different house than the ones we previously looked at and were trying to decide between. We actually went through a period of complete frustration with the whole process and decided not to make offers on either of our two contenders. Instead we took a break from the whole process.

For me this break lasted 2 days. We then went through a condo phase, which ended when we fell in love with a house. This house is located on the same street as the house of the "death trap deck" fame. It was a perfect price and needed very little work. We made an offer that same day and it was accepted the next afternoon.

What followed was a complete whirlwind of inspections, radon tests, lawyers, and contracts. That was all completed eight weeks ago. Then the title search began. That has been the bane of our existence throughout these last two months. First there was the matter of the open mortgage that had apparently been paid off more than 16 years ago. The problem arose when the paperwork proving this was nowhere to be found. Then the title company turned up a second open mortgage in which the search for that paperwork dead ended with a now defunct company and an eight year old phone number.

T and I are not getting our hopes up at this point and are now figuring out our contingency plan if we are not able to close by the end of August. The front running plan right now involves a storage unit, our two week trip to Italy, and a Residence Inn if it isn't settled by the time we come back form the Eternal City. Our first home buying experience has certainly been an adventure!

We are currently surrounded by half packed boxes in our crappy, falling down around our ears, apartment. We have a leaky roof, a wrench to turn on our broken hot water knob in the shower, and a humid, stuffy atmosphere. We can't wait to go to Italy. The upside of saving these last few weekends for moving has been the fun things we plan last minute. A few weeks ago, we picked up my friend S, booked a Days Inn, and spent the weekend at the Jersey Shore. Last weekend, T and I went to Boston and spent time visiting family and friends. And yesterday, we went to the new Citi Field and watched the Giants beat the Mets. Despite the stress we've been under, we've managed to have a fantastic summer so far!