Before the chaos

Here are some before pics of the new pad. 
Green and white for St Patricks day!!

The classic mustard/ketchup family room.

Dining room complete with stallion and classy gold chandelier.



Sad looking master bedroom.



Jackpot!

And we have a house.  A HOUSE!!  An actual HOUSE. 

We signed on the dotted line 3 weeks ago, and I think I've been to Home Depot every night since then. 

Before pics to follow.

Sold!

Nope, not the house - still no word from the sellers.  But in Craigslist news, I sold my first item!  A chair that I wasn't in love with when we bought it.  We even managed to get the same price back that we originally paid.  To be fair, it was a great chair, in good condition, just not our style any more.  The lady I sold it to seemed very please with her 2nd hand find.

I had every intention of putting the money into the "Making the new house Amazing" kitty.  Unfortunately (for the hubby) I ventured on to TicketMaster last night, and ended up with 2 tickets to Wicked instead.  Oopsy!

3rd time lucky

It's been 3 weeks, and we are officially under contract.  We found a house that is perfect.  The negotiations were completed in one DAY!  What can I say - we wanted to buy and they wanted to sell.  No banks, or foreclosures, or short sales this time. 

The inspection has been completed, and we have gone back to the sellers to see if they will fix a few of the items that needed some love.  I'm keeping everything crossed that this one will work out.  We have to give notice on our rental by the end of February, and I'd really like to have a house by then.

I've even started listing some of our older things that aren't going to be making the big move on Craigslist.  So far I've received spam, spam and a bit more spam!

Down, but not out

Today we heard back from the bank.  They had countered our counter, of the original counter, of the best and final.  I think.  Anyway, the outcome was that we've walked away from the house.  It was becoming obvious that they weren't going to come down, and we're not coming up.

Bob has already sprung into action, and we have a new round of viewings set for Wednesday morning.  3rd time lucky we hope!

Limbo

Here we are at week 4 of the house hunt, and everything has pretty much ground to a screeching halt.  In a strange twist, on Tuesday the bank countered our best & final offer.  One full week after our final offer.  Ooft, this process is not for the impatient! 

So, we countered their counter, and are now playing the waiting game.  Again.

Don't they realise I have pages and pages of design ideas to get started!

The hunt continues

Week 3 of house hunting, and we're starting to learn the ropes. 

So far we've made two offers.  The first on a short sale which, lets just say, didn't end well!!  The second on a foreclosure that was a multi-offer situation.  We put forward our best offer, and were basically told "don't call us, we'll call you if you get it".  So far, no word, so it's safe to assume our offer was filed under R for rubbish.

Back to the drawing board. 

Luckily, we have a secret weapon.  Bob, our ever positive realtor.  He was a recommendation and has been amazing throughout this whole process.  He is yet to buckle under my constant email requests for viewings.  We should have a another couple of houses lined up for this afternoon. Fingers crossed one of them could be "the one".