Sunday, March 21, 2010

Bump in the road

The house we really wanted to buy turns out that it's not eligible for either a conventional or FHA loan until 4/30, which just happens to be the last day one can sign a contract and be eligible for the $8k house credit. So, we will be signing a contract with the seller this Monday stating that they agree to sign an FHA contract on 4/30; if they fail to do so, they would owe us $8k (since we wouldn't be able to claim it if we had to start looking for other houses) and if we don't sign with them they get to keep the $1k we've already put down for the earnest money.

It worked out better than we thought it would, since we both really like the house and were totally bummed thinking we'd have to start looking all over again. At this point, we will extend the formal offer on 4/30 (and they will accept the terms since it's already been agreed to) and then we'll close on 5/15. It feels like it's such a long way away, but hopefully the time will fly by.

The house still needed some work done, in that almost none of the outlets worked, a downstairs bedroom light didn't work, and some windows need to be replaced. The seller knew about most of the stuff, but some things were brought to his attention by our inspection report we had done. He seems to be really motivated because he agreed to fix everything.

The shop is moving more slowly than I'd hoped it would, but all in all I'd say it's doing well. I have more marketing plans, but still need the business license to be completely on the up and up, and to feel secure in putting forth said plans. Stay tuned.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

Oh the joys of buying a home

Jesse and I decided it was high time we bought a house, so we went house hunting again. On our second trip out with the realtor, he took us to a house that just been put on the market that day. We liked it well enough that we put an offer in that night, they sent a counter-offer back within hours, we verbally accepted it, then signed the counter-offer the next day.

We are VERY excited about this house. It's a split-level entry that has been repainted on the inside and new carpet and both bathrooms have been redone. The yards (both front and back) need quite a bit of work, and there is a railroad literally maybe a couple feet from our back fence. However, we've been told the train only comes through once a day at 2pm and it slows to a crawl, so we can handle that.

We've been planning out what we want to do with the yard and have decided that we want to dig a koi pond to the left, have a food garden to the right, and then a flower garden against the back fence. We've been watching a lot of YouTube videos about pond construction and we've been getting a lot of ideas about the shape and styles we like.

We have decided to sell our aquariums. Jesse is the one who maintains them, and with all the yard work needing to be done this spring and summer he just won't have the time for it (we also want to install a sprinkler system). So, if you know of anyone who wants to buy a 180-gallon system for about $2500, you let me know. Otherwise we're having people over on Wednesday to start piecing this stuff out and just selling it rock by rock, fish by fish, coral by coral.

As much as we like our fish, this isn't a terribly sad thing. We were going to have a fish room in one of the downstairs bedrooms, and now I get to have another spare room! Yay! We already have the rooms planned out, and the downstairs family room will be the entertainment area, with our computers and tv. We also need to buy a couch.

The upstairs family room will be just a chill-out area, where we'll have all our bookcases, chairs, musical instruments, and maybe a stereo. I have it all planned out in my head.

The inspecter went out yesterday to do his thing and found severel inches of standing water in the downstairs hallway, coming from the downstairs bathroom. Isn't that just lovely? So I guess the disaster cleanup crew was sent out immediately, and a plumber is supposed to come out, hopefully today sometime.

If it's just a little problem that is easily fixed (as it should be since the bathrooms have all-new plumbing) then we will still go through with the sale. However, if it's something big that's going to need a lot of effort, we may feel mort comfortable looking elsewhere. It all just depends on what the plumber says. Fingers crossed that it's nothing big.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Sympathetic Soap is live!

Come help us celebrate our new business, Sympathetic Soap! We have a great Grand Opening sale on our CloveM soap, with more awesome products and sales to come!