Monday, September 3, 2007

Oi

So yeah. We've bought the house and are doin' shit. I've really gotta start blogging it. Home owning is a big deal. Serious stuff.

Things you should be aware of before buying your house:

1. You will have way more closing costs than you think. When your mortgage broker says, "We don't charge any fees." Know that they are big. fat. liars. They will charge you a grand in fees and still claim they aren't for them. (And, if you are really lucky, they'll give you a balloon payment mortgage without telling you first).

2. When you do the walk-through before you close and you find trash everywhere, refuse to move until a) all the trash is gone; or b) you get a fat check. We had to pay somebody to remove the nasty junk they left in our house since the normal garbage collectors don't take big things like k-mart shelves and those storage containers you strap to the top of your car.

3. What's that stupid cliche law? Murphy's law? What can go wrong will go wrong? Yeah. Not cliche when you own a house.

4. People will come into your house after you spent hours painting it and say, "When are you going to paint." Just kick them in the nads and move on.

5. If you hire someone to do something be prepared to spend a lot more than you thought. $2800 turns into $3500 in a blink of an eye.

So, that's probably not it. But that's what we've learned in the first 4 weeks of home ownership.

Things to come: pictures of our sketchy bathroom and how we tried to install a dimmer switch and ended up losing power in half our house. Fun times.

Saturday, May 26, 2007

the house

It's almost official. We are about to buy our very first house. Condo, really, but in Boston everyone says "house" but means "condo"- unless you are one of those people that live in the suburbs.

We'll be closing on July 31, barring any weirdness. And then the projects begin. Right now there is some single frat boy dude renting the place. It's completely freakin' trashed. The kitchen hasn't been updated in about 30 years. The bathroom needs a hazardous waste sign. The floors need help. Somebody thought baby-puke-green was an awesome color. And god knows how many mice inhabit the place. But, despite all that, we have a vision. It's an expensive vision. It's going to be a lot of work. And we will blog the whole process. Complete with mistakes, bad ideas, and disasters. It should be fun.