Furniture Frustrations

See the couch that's in our new house?? The one that the previous owners have....

We've looked in all of the big stores we can find here in Halifax and we can't find it. We LOVE it. We want THIS one. All similar ones don't compare. It's very hard to like anything else when this one caught our eye.

Halifax readers: Any ideas where we will find this??

(We already tried The Brick, Ashley, Sears Home, Lane, and tried to find Leon's but took a wrong turn and never actually went there....)

How long does it take...

....to get the SOLD sign on our house?!

We've driven by it every day, hoping the sign would go up before we leave... but NOOOOOOO, it's still not up.

Bugger!

It's Official!!

Taaadaaaa!

The financing is confirmed, the inspection is complete, the insurance is set up. Everything is signed and happy, happy, happy!

It's all ours!!! "Casa del Wilson-Butler" (or as DBF would likely prefer "Casa del Butler-Wilson").

MLS #40827891. Click here to see it while it's still on MLS.

It's in a Halifax suburb, Beechville Estates...or as we like to call it "Little San Francisco" because of the style of houses and way they are in a row up the hill on the street. Only 15 minutes from downtown...less than 5 minutes to Bayers Lake Shopping, etc.

The pictures don't do it justice....the colors are better in person.... especially the kitchen which we just love. We didn't get our rec room, but there's a den that's big enough for DBF to have his guitar room so we are happy with that. Of all the houses in the neighborhood, ours actually has a decent yard....not huge, but at least useable, unlike the others we saw. Plus a deck big enough for a BBQ and full size table and chairs for entertaining....we'll add stairs for convenience into the yard. The floors on the main level are lovely wood and ceramic, and although there is carpet upstairs and in the rec room, it is bearable colors and easily replaceable if we really want to. The previous owners had great taste and took the time to update all of the light fixtures throughout the house, and put in nice mirrors in the bathrooms, and really cool 16x16 "Santa Fe" ceramic tiles in the kitchen. They even included the matching stand alone pantry for the kitchen...which we hadn't expected so that was very cool.

The best part is the bedroom window. That big three pane window with the huge, arched window above it. We have the only one like that in the whole neighborhood. It's beautiful!!! and the custom fit blinds came with it!

We are stoked!! Now we're on the hunt for new furniture. :) Can't have a new place with our stuff that's looking worn and boring. We want the couch that's in the house now....it's getting to the point where we just want to get our realtor to find out where they bought it.

We already picked out the new TV and home theatre system.....to be delivered 2 days after we close.

Jan-15th and we're in!!

For those of you in Victoria....this place cost us only $214K...bwaaahaaahaha. :)

We is homeowners!!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! Pending the inspection tomorrow and the final approval of the mortgage folks, we own our own home!!

How fast are we? Looked at 10+ houses yesterday, and number 3 won the race. Went back and took a second look, made an offer, and sat back waiting for the sellers' answer. Their counter offer was exactly what we expected, so we agreed with one condition. Instead of accepting the condition they knocked an extra $1000 off the price and the deal was done.

Wooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

Today we have made our calls to the lawyer, inspector and mortgage broker. Off to the bank for insurance and the money order for our deposit. Barring anything unforeseen we are officially homeowners.

Did I mention yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?!!!

I'll keep you in suspense as to the actual details until it's all said and done, but I don't think you'll be waiting too long. I will tell you that it's only 3 years old so we're positive the inspection will go perfectly. And the people have excellent taste so aside from a couple of rooms that need painting we won't have anything to do to the house.

Yahooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

How excited are we?!!!

Working it out...

How do you do that strikethrough thing on here?? I was going to go back and cross things off my to-do list, only to realize that I don't know how!!

Well, I got through some of the main stuff...

Desk is cleaned.

Banking is mostly done. Bills are paid (except MasterCard because my own math doesn't make sense to me and I think I overpaid my share....shhhh....don't tell anyone I'm a bookkeeper!). Xmas funds have been put aside.

GST is all sorted out and filed online (however it's not paid because even though CRA says you can pay online, Royal Bank doesn't seem to support that option....but that's a rant I'm just not into ranting right now!).

DBF and I sent our list of MLS houses we want to see to our Halifax realtor (he already poo-poo'd two of them, but did offer up a few other options).

Thank you cards have been bought and I'm about to write them out when I'm done here. Hopefully I can find their addresses through information online.

I also bought new Xmas cards today, so maybe I'll work on my mailing list while watching TV tonight.

I didn't get the empties into the car yet, but I think I'll do that tomorrow. My official car-cleaning plan may get waylaid until we return because DBF still needs a new tire for his car, so it looks like doggy goes to daycare in my car. Boooo!

The househunting to-do list is a moot point now. We're ready to go. Mortgage sorted out. Realtor worked out. Inspector on call. Lawyer didn't call back, so nothing we can do until Monday now anyway. We just need to book our rental car tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will definitely put together those spreadsheets for the "wants" and "don't wants" for househunting. At least I was smart enough to print out the MLS listings of all of the houses we plan to look at....that's a start.

I did manage to add two more important things in too.... 1) remembered to ask the girl next door to look after my cat while we're away 2) gave myself a manicure.

DBF was very, very sick today so hopefully he kicks the bug overnight. Tomorrow we do these last minute things and pack for the trip. We're outta here on a 6:30am flight on Sunday morning!!