Apr. 29th, 2009 04:23 pm
Various and sundry
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textualdevianceSo, aside from small FB updates, I've been pretty quiet lately. Most of this is due to being ridiculously busy with the house stuff (including a nice and productive visit from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mrdorbin), but also we've had truly crappy connectivity at the villa thanks to Comcast, who will be stopping by tomorrow to (I hope) fix it.
I did take the day off today and hung out at the villa, though. My back needed recovery from toting boxes and bending over picking through cabinets, and this place needed a little maintenance of its own. I may even get into game later, for the first time in weeks. Eep! I'll be back in the saddle again tomorrow after Comcast does their thing.
I now have two rooms--my office and the kitchen--packed up. Or at least as packed up as they're going to be. The living room is very close to done and is waiting only on more foam wrap for the delicate stuff. The powder room is also essentially done but for a bunch of cleaning supplies on the counter.
I'm hoping to have the master bed/bath/closets done by the end of this weekend. The next two big projects are the hall closet (which I recently overhauled, so it should be easy) and packing up my various china/glassware collections. I'm hoping to get those two projects done next week. That will leave the guest room/bath and M's office, both of which should be fairly easy projects. The guest room is down to furniture and M's office mostly just needs his desk cleared out.
And then there's the garage. *shudder*
The family room is at about 80%--just needs the desk cleared out and a few bags/boxes of miscellany sorted through and packed. That's going to have to wait a while because of the ceiling patch thing, though.
M says he can patch the hole, and we should get it done by next week. I'm hoping that's the case, because I don't know the first thing about that stuff. I'm just incredibly glad that the underlying problem and fix were so easy and cheap.
Still waiting to hear back more on the loan pre-approval. They were supposed to send an application packet last week, and it apparently got stuck in their mailroom. I'm thinking we might not go with that company when the time comes to get the real loan, since the gal we've been working with is a bit of a ditz. Still, having the pre-approval and appraisal to work with will make the rest of the purchase process easier.
The lot we were looking at in Renton just sold, so we're looking at other things, now. There are still several lots available in that development, though they could all go at any time, really. I love the layout of the place we were looking at, but we could probably find something similar somewhere else.
We're also looking up north again, too. Turns out there are a couple of nice, small developments just about five minutes north of the villa. It's not as close to our Seattle/south end peeps as I'd like, but it's definitely closer for M's commute, and still only 10-15 minutes north of Kirkland, which isn't bad. Also, given our dreadful experiences with Comcast, M wants to stay in Verizon territory so we can get FIOS. That may well necessitate staying north of I-90.
Given how the stock market is behaving, and what I'm assuming we can probably get for the house, we should be able to do this in any case. Exactly how much house we can buy will really depend on whether we can get financing with less than 20% down, and/or whether we get a really good price for the house.
Truthfully, I really hope we can manage to afford more than we're currently looking at. It's not so much that we want a nicer house than what we've seen so far as we'd like to be closer in, and anywhere in Kirkland/Kenmore/Newcastle is an average of $50-75k more than similar houses in Renton or Canyon Park. And, really, getting the hell out of the boonies is a big part of the reason we're doing this.
mrdorbin), but also we've had truly crappy connectivity at the villa thanks to Comcast, who will be stopping by tomorrow to (I hope) fix it.I did take the day off today and hung out at the villa, though. My back needed recovery from toting boxes and bending over picking through cabinets, and this place needed a little maintenance of its own. I may even get into game later, for the first time in weeks. Eep! I'll be back in the saddle again tomorrow after Comcast does their thing.
I now have two rooms--my office and the kitchen--packed up. Or at least as packed up as they're going to be. The living room is very close to done and is waiting only on more foam wrap for the delicate stuff. The powder room is also essentially done but for a bunch of cleaning supplies on the counter.
I'm hoping to have the master bed/bath/closets done by the end of this weekend. The next two big projects are the hall closet (which I recently overhauled, so it should be easy) and packing up my various china/glassware collections. I'm hoping to get those two projects done next week. That will leave the guest room/bath and M's office, both of which should be fairly easy projects. The guest room is down to furniture and M's office mostly just needs his desk cleared out.
And then there's the garage. *shudder*
The family room is at about 80%--just needs the desk cleared out and a few bags/boxes of miscellany sorted through and packed. That's going to have to wait a while because of the ceiling patch thing, though.
M says he can patch the hole, and we should get it done by next week. I'm hoping that's the case, because I don't know the first thing about that stuff. I'm just incredibly glad that the underlying problem and fix were so easy and cheap.
Still waiting to hear back more on the loan pre-approval. They were supposed to send an application packet last week, and it apparently got stuck in their mailroom. I'm thinking we might not go with that company when the time comes to get the real loan, since the gal we've been working with is a bit of a ditz. Still, having the pre-approval and appraisal to work with will make the rest of the purchase process easier.
The lot we were looking at in Renton just sold, so we're looking at other things, now. There are still several lots available in that development, though they could all go at any time, really. I love the layout of the place we were looking at, but we could probably find something similar somewhere else.
We're also looking up north again, too. Turns out there are a couple of nice, small developments just about five minutes north of the villa. It's not as close to our Seattle/south end peeps as I'd like, but it's definitely closer for M's commute, and still only 10-15 minutes north of Kirkland, which isn't bad. Also, given our dreadful experiences with Comcast, M wants to stay in Verizon territory so we can get FIOS. That may well necessitate staying north of I-90.
Given how the stock market is behaving, and what I'm assuming we can probably get for the house, we should be able to do this in any case. Exactly how much house we can buy will really depend on whether we can get financing with less than 20% down, and/or whether we get a really good price for the house.
Truthfully, I really hope we can manage to afford more than we're currently looking at. It's not so much that we want a nicer house than what we've seen so far as we'd like to be closer in, and anywhere in Kirkland/Kenmore/Newcastle is an average of $50-75k more than similar houses in Renton or Canyon Park. And, really, getting the hell out of the boonies is a big part of the reason we're doing this.
