I keeping with my whole "Lost Month" theme, mucho has been happening on the old home front. As in the current home front will not be our home front in, oh, about a month.
That's right, folks, not even two months after the ink dried on our mortgage refinance, we're going to be buying a new home. We walked through said home on September 17th. Considered it all weekend, put in an offer on the home on Monday September 21. Offer accepted by 6:00 that night.
Then... PANIC! Made a list of all of the things we needed to get done to put the house on the market. Panicked some more. On Tuesday, September 22 I secured a storage garage around the corner and started taking inventory of all of the stuff that needed to go there.
Wednesday, September 23. Emailed my brother for his birthday. Started spreading the word that our house was going to go on the market. Started boxing up stuff we don't use frequently.
Thursday, September 24. Took Milo for another X-ray. His arm is healing well, yay! He was a little disappointed that he wasn't getting a new cast, but didn't cry too long about it. The one he has now is holding up remarkably well and not stinky at all, which is surprising. On a whim, I was proctoring a practice MCAT and took the exam myself. I did respectably, particularly considering I haven't had a science class in 18 years... I got a 14 of 15 on the verbal reasoning section (not surprising), 6 on biological sciences (did particularly well on anatomy and reproduction), and a 4 on physical sciences (bombed organic chemistry -- I've never taken organic chemistry, so that's not unexpected, but I did do well on the physics portion, go figure). More organizing at home that night.
Friday, September 25. Emailed my other brother for his birthday. Took the afternoon off to organize closet after closet. Scott started moving stuff to storage.
Saturday, September 26. Arts festival in Mount Vernon, so I wanted FSBO signs up. Scott and all of his brothers finished recovering the deck. His dad put more brick mold around our back window. I pulled weeds, trimmed trees, and carried brush to the brush pile for about 6 hours. Took pictures for flyers. We rested that night :)
Sunday, September 27. Scrubbed upstairs bathroom, kids room, all baseboards. Scrubbed and polished dining room floor, shampooed carpet upstairs. Printed and put out flyers. About 8 picked up that day!
Monday, September 28. More cleaning in the PM -- scrubbed kitchen and bathroom floors. I've been scrubbing so much I have a blister on my knee from crawling around! Makes me think I need to do some more deep cleaning more often...
Tuesday, September 29. Placed ads online.
Wednesday, September 30. Ads went live. Link to Yahoo quite busy, yay!
Thursday, October 1. Ad runs in Cedar Rapids and Mount Vernon papers. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! In the midst of cleaning when a woman taps on the window and wants to see the house. Seriously? An ad for a open house on Sunday from 12-2 means stop by my home during supper on a Thursday night... Sheesh! She did love the house, though. Put up Open House signs.
Friday, October 2. Took part of the afternoon off to scrub and polish the parlor floor. Scott rounded up the last remaining stuff to be moved out of the basement and moved it out. Put up more Open House signs.
Saturday, October 3. Last minute cleaning and tidying. Kitchen, re-dusting almost everything. Did some staging and made notes about what needed to go where and when it needed to go there. Washed all of the lamp globes. Suddenly, it's brighter in the house!
Sunday, October 4. Scott took the kids and dogs to his parents. I showered, did some last minute staging, answered several questions about the house from callers. Lit candles, took a deep breath and waited for people to come over. First group arrived about 12:25. Last group left at 5:00. Six families through, four who were doing more than "just checking it out". TWO offers. TWO. One our full asking price, but dependent on sale of her home. One for $1,000.00 less than our asking price, but we contribute $2000.00 towards closing -- no other home to sell. Exhausted, we went out to Scott's parent's to get the kids and had supper.
Monday, October 5. Decompressing and waiting to see if any other offers come in. I showed the house one more time to a woman and her sister, they, too loved it. In fact, there wasn't anyone who came through the house that didn't love the work we've done on it. It is in so much better shape than before...
Tuesday, October 6. Called the people who made the second offer and told them we've accepted. They came to the house and we signed the paperwork.
Wednesday, October 7. Contacted banker, the real estate agent who is selling our new house, took abstract to title service. Arranged to have our house inspected on Monday morning. Hope to complete assessment on both houses soon.
Someone once told us, "Boy, when you make up your mind to do something, you don't waste any time!" I think that seems pretty true, LOL! In 26 days we went from walking into an empty farmhouse to selling our own home. I know they say it's a buyers market right now, but I guess that isn't necessarily true when you're selling a completely renovated starter home in a desirable community. I had the feeling that we'd be able to capitalize on the first-time home buyer's tax credit and that our house wouldn't be on the market long. I'm guessing one day isn't considered long at all...
Oh, and we're closing on November 6th. We'll be home for the holidays!
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