One week in

I can hardly believe we have been here a week already! Yesterday was one of my days of 5 hrs child free so I used that time to hit up Target, Home Goods, and IKEA to get more storage infrastructure and fill in a few more must have items, like a mirror for the boys bathroom. On the whole I feel like we have so much stuff that we are filling out this much bigger house just fine. That is until it comes to the bathroom situation. We've gone from a house with 2 bathrooms to one with 5 toilets; that's a lot more tp holders and waste baskets than I had covered. Even the master bathroom needs double the stuff since it is set up with a separate water closet/vanity for each of us.
Over the weekend I replaced some of the yellow curtains with some Shabby Chic ones I already owned. These 84" curtains just cover the window itself, but since it is a bathroom I'm not concerned abut having the fabric reach the floor or, God forbid, puddle in here. I'm tempted to want to paint in here too. Maybe a nice water green color pulled from the stained glass window over the tub. I'm not sure I love the pair of white ones in my half of the bathroom now (you may remember them as a fix for the windows in our office); they block out a lot of the light, but I need them closed completely for privacy considering the toilet is right next to the window stool. In the future when we have money again I'll revisit a cafe type curtain.
Over the weekend I had Mr. W bring the tall, white, bathroom cabinet upstairs to the powder bathroom. I didn't think it would fit during our initial moved and had the movers place it in the scary downstairs bathroom. However it turns out there was enough wall space for the cabinet in here, even between the oddly uneven, multiple towel rings. Why exactly would one need a separate towel ring next to the toilet? There is no bidet feature so I am unclear as to why another towel would be necessary. And why at different heights? Maybe if they were on each side of the pedestal sink, but they aren't so I'm perplexed. I'm still using the green towels we had in the main floor bathroom at the Laburnum Bungalow; they aren't exactly the right shade of green for this wallpaper, but close enough for now. I'm pretty sure I hate the bamboo towels in here so those may get put away for now, or moved down to the basement bathroom for now. I also need to get a tissue paper cover for in here.
This rose wall paper was actually one of the few that I didn't hate when we first saw the house. It's not something I would pick, but it isn't offensive or over the top. And it occurred to me this week it is a nice nod to Portland the City of Roses so I think I could add some of my Portland memorabilia in here. Somewhere in a box is an old postcard I framed that would be perfect opposite the toilet. I still need to hang a mirror in here, Mr. W has an older gold framed one that would work well considering the existing brassy accessory hardware, but it fell apart during the move and I've yet to find screws to fix it.
Another thing I've yet to find in the move is the 3M hooks so I can hang some of our framed posters, prints, and photos. Yes, there is picture rail in this house and I know where all the picture rail hooks are, but with the new ceilings being 10' high rather than 8' all the picture cord will be too short and I can't afford to buy new picture cord right now. I'm eager to find those adhesive hooks so I can cover up some of the offending wallpapers.

Moving Day!

I have been resurrecting all my old project manager skills as we approached Moving Day.   I keep telling Mr. W that I'm going to project manage the hell out of this move!
Here are some of the things I did to stay organized and help things run smoothly.
I prepared a furniture layout for each room as well as created signs for each room which included a list of the furniture to be placed within it.   I posted these on the door or closest wall of each room so that there would be no question for the movers (Not to mention Mr. W!) I then compiled that into an entire list which I had on a clipboard for easy reference on moving day.  This way as things came off the truck or out of the POD we could direct the movers to the appropriate room in which to place them.
Part of making this work was labeling the boxes with the destination room as we packed them.  Mr. W did not grasp the importance of this concept as well as I had hoped so many boxes were labeled with where they were in the old house.  Or not labelled at all!  Needless to say a lot of questionable boxes ended up in the basement.  But on the whole the off load went smoothly and very few things aren't in the right room.
We took possession of the house on Friday at 5 pm.  I packed a separate "advance team" box of supplies I'd need as we moved in.  It contained:

• rags
• furniture oil
• window cleaner
• surface cleaner
• masking tape
• assorted light bulbs
• extra vacuum bags
• extra mop head
• WD40
• toilet paper

 
A few things I wish I had included:

• large garbage bags
• flat & phillips head screw drivers

The seller left a little gift for the boys and a card for us.  I thought it was a sweet gesture.
 
My mom offered to watch the boys all weekend so she came to pick them up Friday afternoon. I had considered going to make a few early runs of fragile items up to the new house, but didn't want to lose my parking spot.  We needed to save spaces for the moving truck the next day.  I was hoping we could use both our vehicles plus our neighbors, but I hadn't seen him all week.  Thinking ahead,  I had parked our pick up poorly assuring two spots there.  What I failed to overlook was that we needed to take one of the cars up to the house that night before the movers arrived!   Fortunately I was able to get our friend Mr. F used his car as a place holder for us Friday pulling in right as we pulled out.
That night we walked through, hardly believing that the house was finally ours after everything we had endured.  And then I set to work sweeping and mopping the billiard room.  Even though we had specifically stated that we did NOT want the sketchy old red rug in the rumpus room, it was still there when I did  a walk thru with the realtor on Thursday.  Since it wasn't removed until after their cleaning crew was here I knew I needed to do it so the movers would have a clean surface to place furniture.  Luckily the floors on the first and second floor were satisfactory so I didn't have to sweep and mop everything.  I'll tell you though, I definitely felt like I owned the place mopping up the basement late at night!
 
I had sent out two of our rugs to be professionally cleaned so they'd be ready to have furniture placed on them on Moving Day.  Unfortunately I completely forgot to pick them up on Friday, so after the movers arrived Saturday at 8 AM I went back to the new house to meet the delivery of the POD and then went to pick up the cleaned rugs.  It was a long day of finishing up packing things ahead of the movers and answering questions for them.  It was hot too!  On the one hand we were relieved to not have our things covered in rain, but on the other hand, it seemed such a shame to waste such a rare, sunny Portland weekend on Moving Day.
After filling their truck with most of the contents of our house, we drove the 20 blocks to the new house and they began to unload.  The off load was faster and went smoothly since I had labelled all the rooms. 

 
 
They also had some time left over to attack the POD.
Sunday Mr. W and I returned for more packing, packing, packing as well as doing some unpacking at the new house so we could reuse boxes.  In addition to more fragile/hard to pack items like lamps we used Sunday to move the antique stained glass windows I inherited from my dad.  We used his truck with glass rack to transport them safely.  I say we, but really it was Mr. W and Mr. F while I watched the children.
During all of this I had a horrible cold.  The boys and I had met Ms Mc and her boys at Laurelwood on Wednesday for dinner and Baby Boy promptly got a cold the next day, by Friday night I was starting to feel sick too.  I've officially sworn off Laurelwood and all other kid-friendly restaurants with play areas until he is past the stick everything in his mouth phase. Clearly these places aren't cleaning the toys on a regular basis and I can't take any more of this contagion that spreads thru my house.  Especially before the big move.  I was so, so physically exhausted.  And constantly having to find kleenex.  Our Little Helper had developed the cold too so I was really worried how I was going to coordinate the next day with the movers if I had to keep the boys home due to illness. Miraculously Our Little Helper felt fine enough to go to preschool so I let him and figured I could bring him home early if needed.  Baby Boy seemed fine enough too once he woke up.
Monday was Moving Day Part 2 with the movers who finished up with the boxes which remained in the old house as well as the planters and outside things.  They actually did it in an hour because by the time I returned from dropping the boys off they were just about ready to head to my mother's for the second half of the load.  In the end I decided to use specialty movers for the piano and pool table she wants to give us, so we had them move the other furniture that either was my dad's or she no longer wanted like the Art Deco radio, chinoiserie parlor table, and a pair of wing back chairs.  Her basement pool room was jam packed with boxes of things we couldn't fit in the POD, but needed to get out to stage the house to be on the market.  And a lot of toys!  At some point I decided to leave some of the boxes there for us to get later; I was beginning to get nervous about time and whether they'd be done before I needed to go pick up the boys.  Having the movers unload the POD before they were done was also a priority for me.
In the end it all worked out, they were able to offload the truck and the POD before I needed to leave to pick up Baby Boy at 2 PM.  It was another long hot day though.  The temperature changes between the attic and the basement are intense, and unfortunately for the movers, there were a lot more boxes for the attic today.  Mr. W and I decided to try to keep the basement clear as a work room for him so things like luggage (which gets backed in our bedrooms anyway), baby clothes, and our out of season clothes should be stored in the attic.  
I have a call in to have to POD picked up to free up the driveway for me to park there.  The house is a catastrophe of boxes and strewn newspaper, but we are in.  I feel good about the move and am both excited and overwhelmed with the unpacking process.

The boys' new bedroom

We were so fortunate that my mom offered to take the boys for the weekend to keep them out from underfoot as we were moving.  Since the movers don't work on Sunday (and who could blame them?) we moved several loads ourselves of more delicate items and began to do some unpacking so that we could reuse the boxes.  Then it was back to the old house for more packing, packing, packing.

My big priority for the day was to set up the boys bedroom and play room to ease the transition for them, especially Our Little Helper.  Frankly, I'm not sure it really matters that much to a preschooler, but my Mommy Guilt was getting the best of me.  That coupled with the trauma I experienced when my parents moved across the Willamette while I was in high school compelled me to have their space set up when they arrived "home".

Since he had a Captain's bed in the nursery and we have no money to spend on new furniture now, Our Little Helper's bed will be a mattress on the floor.  We'll wait until one of those holidays where all the mattresses go one sale to buy a new queen set for us and a box spring for him.  Hopefully a bed frame isn't too far off in the future.  But considering we find him asleep on the floor in the mornings anyway, we don't feel too bad that he's starting out so close to the floor for now.
Next to his bed is the boys' dresser.  Mr. W picked this up at a yard sale before we met and it was in his room when I first moved in.  [Notice I didn't say he was using it when I moved in, that's because when I moved in two years after he bought the house he had a double mattress on the floor (sound familiar?), this dresser with no clothes in it, laundry baskets filled with clean, but unfolded clothes, and the perimeter of the room was lined with half unpacked boxes, the remaining contents appeared to be garbage which he packed and moved from his old apartment.]  
I arranged a few things on top.
 
I am in trouble though with this dresser because the boys currently have way too many clothes.  Part of the problem is lots of hand-me downs in the Baby Boy's size and the other part is over generous grandmas.  Now that the boys have a closet I'll keep their dress shirts on hangers, but I'll have to purchase some sort of storage shelves or drawers for the lower section because I haven't even touched the majority of their clothes yet.  
 

Next is the changing table and the crib, nothing too exciting or new here, but I'm hoping to store less on the lower shelves of the changing table since Baby Boy is in the throw everything off of and shelves within reach right now.

Between the two windows is their new desk.  It used to be my Uncle G's when he was a boy.  My aunt had it stored in her basement and offered it to me when she moved from her Sellwood house to her new log cabin.  Isn't it darling?  I love the waterfall front and I believe the handles are Bakelite.  I put a few of the baseball things from their old nursery which I could find on both the desk and the dresser.
 I'm hoping to fill the desk drawers with some of his colored paper and coloring books for now since he doesn't have homework yet. Look at all the great storage dividers inside:

Obviously I still have a lot left to do in here, but I think this was a good starting point considering how chaotic the rest of the house looks.  My Little Helper's reaction wasn't great since he doesn't want to move and would rather stay in his old room in his old house, but I could tell he was beginning to warm up to it.  As long as Fiery can sleep with him he's good.

Tulip Luncheon (saying goodbye)

Since this was a our second to the last lunch we'd have in the Laburnum Bungalow I decided to pay homage to the tulip motif in the kitchen. We are moving right when all my spring bulbs are blooming so I'm a little sad to miss all my flowers. The tulips are all up now so I picked a nice bouquet of red ones. (With this rain we are having the petals may not last until next Wednesday when the new owners take occupancy, so why not enjoy them indoors?)
I thought for sure I had a vintage tulip table cloth, but it turns out I have several with red roses instead. What I do have is the retro tulip tea towels which I use as cafe curtains. So instead I used this sweet little runner we received as a wedding gift. My Little Helper was very into setting the table and wanted to make sure that it was "very beautiful." He is so darling and sweet!
I have been packing up the kitchen cabinets today (Holy Smokes we have SO MUCH STUFF!!!) but kept out my Red Domino dishes. This little collection started out with the milk jug which I found down in the basement of an antique store in the Cotswolds. I love red and white for kitchens and I love the lines of the pitcher. Once I returned home and started searching ebay I discovered this Stylecraft set is quite collectible so I began accumulating it from international sellers.
We had a simple little lunch of peanut butter and jam sandwiches, bananas, and milk. The milk is in my tulip patterned Swanky Swig glasses. I just think these are darling. I can only ever find them for $9 in antique stores, which is pretty expensive for such tiny little things, but they go so well with my other vintage finds that I can't pass them up when I happen to come across one.
This morning we walked for the last time to Pine State Biscuits for breakfast. It was raining when we headed out so the boys got to splash around in their rain coats. MLH had a ham, egg, and cheese biscuit and I had my favorite, the Reggie which is a fried chicken, bacon, cheese, and gravy sandwich on a biscuit. I think it will be a good thing that we will no longer live in such easy walking distance from Pine State. Although I'm not sure how I'll survive my next (hopefully) pregnancy without St. Cupcake and Pine State so close.
In moving news, we closed on the sale of the Laburnum Bungalow yesterday. Mr. W is a little sad that he is no longer landed gentry and is a renter at 40. Nevermind that he isn't 40 yet and he'll be a property owner again tomorrow. Who says men aren't dramatic too?
I'm nervous and excited. I think we may just pull this off, but were running low on boxes and the kitchenware eats up boxes fast. Plus Mr. W has had 2 late night conference calls this week and another one tonight. Guess who gets to pick up the packing slack?
Yesterday I did a walk through at the new house with the realtor just to make sure that the sellers stuff is finally out, and blessedly everything is including the giant pile of bricks and cheapo plumbing fixtures in the garage. I also got to use my broken Spanish with the cleaning ladies that were there. They thought my poquito espanol was pretty good. So much so that we arranged for them to come and clean the bungalow next week. Thank goodness the word limpiar came back to me from over 15 yrs ago of high school Spanish. I should figure out the word for sweeping too, because that was one I couldn't remember and felt like a fool pantomiming.

The papers are signed!

We went into the title place this afternoon and signed the paper work for the sale of the Laburnum Bungalow and the purchase of the Mt. Tabor house. It was a little anticlimatic. I guess I thought we were signing the loan papers today and then would meet with the buyers on Wednesday to close and then meet with the buyers of Friday to close. That's not how it works in Oregon though. It only took us about a half hour to sign everything and we were done.
The buyers have already signed their portion of the paper work so everything is in order for that closing to proceed tomorrow. The sellers were scheduled to sign earlier today, but they rescheduled and will be signing together. Our fingers are crossed that they both show up as planned tomorrow. Even if they don't, we have it in the contract that we can take possession at 5 pm on Friday once it closes. I feel bad for them, married nearly 40 years and then meeting as divorced people to sign over their home of 30 yrs. It is so sad to me.
I have requested a house with the wife though. I want to pick her brain on everything she knows about the house. I wasn't sure if this is a weird thing to request, but my agent Ms. G said that she'd ask even though it isn't common, surprisingly. Fortunately the sellers is very happy to accommodate me with a walk thru and is looking forward to meeting me. That makes me happy; I think we're probably kindred spirits.
Ms. G thought that our buyers would probably be interested in the same from me which I am happy to oblige. I'll try to schedule that after we move all our crap out though. I don't want to freak them out with the condition of our house these days, boxes everywhere, dust floating around, the hollow sound of walking through as a result of having no carpets or curtains.
I'm getting sad to be leaving. I have loved living in this house. All my lovely wallpaper!

Moving Checklist

With less than a week and a half until Moving Day, I decided I ought to put together a Moving Checklist to make sure nothing slips through the cracks. I am in full on Project Manager mode! Last night as I was reviewing things with Mr. W he commented on how thorough I was. Well, yeah, I am going to project manage the hell out of this move!
Here is what I have accomplished thus far:

• Solidify a moving company and schedule our moving dates.
• Schedule the POD delivery.
• Schedule and pay the City for street permit for POD. (Actually I decided the POD could be placed in the driveway to save curb space for the moving truck, so we can avoid the permit fee now.)
  
• Furniture layouts for all the rooms in the house.
• Create signs labeling each room which contains a list of all the furniture to be placed in that room as well as other larger items that won't be boxed up.
• Notify diaper service of change of address and schedule delivery date at new house
• Schedule an exterminator to come treat the new house for ants and ladybugs.
• Get ball rolling with the phone company for change in service and verify that we can keep our existing phone number.
  

Here's what remains on my list:

• Print out signs labeling each room as well as a furniture diagram for each room.
• Put together a Moving Day master checklist on a clipboard.
  
• Transplant the Irene Watts rose.
• Switch out my little shabby chic white metal switch plate cover in the main floor bath with a standard one.
• Remove the childproof latches in the kitchen cabinets for use in new house.
• Remove the 'No Solicitors' and 'Cead Mile Failte' signs from front gate and exterior of house.
• Provide US Post Service with change of address.
• Coordinate change of service with waste management company.
• Coordinate change of service with electric company.
• Coordinate change of service with water company.
• Cancel service with natural gas company.
• Set up an account with oil company.
• Organize the paint and misc. trim, etc. in the basement for the new owners.
• Schedule a Day for my Uncle M to help move the stained glass windows and use my dad's truck and glass rack to accomplish it.
  
• Put together a box of things we'll need right when we move in like TP, rags for cleaning/dusting, glass cleaner, surface cleaner, light bulbs, vacuum bags.
  
• Finish packing!!!!
• Clean the house after we move out.
• Consider buying move baby gates.
  
• Buy new owners a bottle of champagne to leave in the fridge?
• Buy myself a housewarming present of new Portland style ceramic tile house numbers!

That seems like a lot; however, I think Mr. W will take over some of those billing issues because only his name is on most accounts since he was single when he bought the Laburnum Bungalow.
Not too bad, but considering I'll be leaving tomorrow to go see my Godsons make their First Communion, I might be cutting this all kind of close.

Thinking about the boys' bedroom

When the previous owners added wainscot to the walls of the dining room (or at least when they reconfigured the doors and had to have custom woodwork milled) they ended up with extra wainscot. I believe that is what is installed on the walls of the boys' new bedroom, and why it is only on two walls.That coupled with the stained waterfall style dresser and desk that we will put in the bedroom makes it pretty wood heavy. I like to break that up with either iron beds or a painted beds. Something in red or blue would be my first choice.
We will keep the red, white, and blue baseball theme so the beds will have this baseball bed spread from LoN. (I ordered an extra one for Baby Boy.)I have considered bunk beds. I think Our Little Helper would enjoy that, and Mr. W seems to be advocating for it too. But I worry that it will end up being too massive in the room, even if I go with a painted wood.
At some point before Christmas I was at Bridgeport Village and took a peek in the Goodnight Room, they were in the process of moving to another location and had some of their floor models on sale. They had a rustic sort of blue painted bunk bed which had some storage drawers underneath. It was crazy expensive though. I expect we're going to have Our Little Helper sleeping on a mattress on the floor for awhile before we can afford something.
In the last LoN catalog I saw they had Jenny Lind style twin beds with red and blue options...kinda. The red is more of a raspberry which might read to pink for me, and the blue is a pale blue which I don't think is very grown up.
I just found this iron bed which has royal blue and red options which is just what I have been hoping for (yet have been unable to find online previously.) It seems so cheap to me compared to other prices, that even if we change our minds in the future, we haven't invested too much in these.

Well, we did it.

We sold the house! The inspection period is over; the contract has been signed. There is no going back now. It feels a little anticlimactic though. Or maybe I'm just still not letting myself get too excited?
Earlier this week they had their inspection. The big issue, which was no surprise to me, was the roof. It needs to be replaced, which I knew 4 yrs ago when I had my colleague who is a roofing subcontractor out to the house to do a repair. Every year since though it hasn't been made a priority in our budget. Another issue was wood stove; it is certified (I guess the rules about EPA certified wood stoves is a big deal around here) but there is some concern about the connection point on the ducting.
When they came back to us with an addendum they wanted some money off for the roof and to redo the walls in the downstairs bathroom. Additionally we need to make the repairs to the wood stove prior to closing.
At first I wanted to contest the issue with the walls, I didn't agree with the inspector that it is moisture getting in there, but rather a bad DIY job by the previous owners. That's just cosmetic to me not a structural issue. But when I considered the time and effort it would take to get someone out for a second opinion, I thought, "eh, is it really worth dickering over $1,500 when taking into account the overall cost of the home?" Not really. And Mr. W really didn't think so, he wanted to get it done.
So yesterday, with very little fanfare, he signed the paperwork to sell his first house. I'm so proud of him. He's a good saver and money manager. As I type this I'm sitting on the front porch of the Laburnum Bungalow with the boys playing in our front yard in the early March sunshine. I'm going to miss this house. I've made a lot of good memories here. I have only a month to soak up and appreciating every little bit of this house.

OMG! We did have a bidding war!

And it wasn't even with one of the fence sitters! The first offer came from the couple who saw it on Saturday and the second offer was from a single guy who saw it on Sunday. He had called and asked a lot of "good" questions about the house earlier in the week before he saw it.Like what was under the carpet in the bedrooms upstairs, things that make it seem serious.

So while the couple initially offered $10K less than our asking price, they made and amendment and both sent in offers of $5k more! OMG! I can't believe it! I was so, so discouraged on Friday. I'm feeling shell shocked right now, like I shouldn't get too excited because it is too good to be true.

We decided to accept the couple's offer because they had more earnest money, more money down, will let us occupy for 7 days at no charge, shortening the inspection period to 7 days, and aren't asking for closing costs. She really loves the nursery, they are hoping to start a family soon.

The single guy asked for us to pay $7k of his closing costs, would charge us rent for the week after closing, is using his 401K for the down payment, and asked for an alternate inspection form rather than the standard professional inspection. (Our REA said that that form sometimes makes lenders question the motivation, like what is wrong with the house? So that was a flaw in her eyes.) I really liked his love letter to the house better though. He really, really likes my house! He loves the exact shade I stained the woodwork; he wants to get vintage appliances for the kitchen, which I would like but Mr. W isn't into. He's a kindred spirit! But I know it would be dumb to sell the house based on that alone.

We sent a minor addendum to the couple this morning just to clarify our exclusions (the Povey windows and the Irene Watts rose bush) and make sure we saw their letter from their bank with their higher offer price (the bank had already closed yesterday when they made the change to their offer). They are very excited and happy with those changes. Mr. W will be signing the revised papers shortly.

We also let the single guy know that we will send an addendum to have him be our first back up and he is very open to that. Our Realtor wants to get him closer to the first offer so will ask for no rent back and a higher sale price that includes his closing costs so it would be a wash for us. We will see what happens there, but hopefully for us it will be a non issue and things will go smoothly with our inspection.

Can I tell you how happy I am to have to cancel the viewings I had scheduled for today?! Everyone can resume their napping schedules! Hooray!

I'm still so in shock that things turned around for us! I just can't believe it.

Finally, an offer!

We received our first offer yesterday and are meeting with our Realtors tonight to review. The funny thing is they didn't even make an appointment to see our house on Saturday. For some odd reason we have more showings during the week and our weekends are light. We only had one viewing scheduled for Saturday, so we stopped briefly by our house afterwards to pick up a stroller before heading to the model train show. Mr. W said their was a couple there with their agent. He said he called, but I know that he didn't.

Anyway, good thing, because they submitted an offer on Sunday! And they are first time home buyers relocating from Hood River. That is good for us that they don't have a contingency because we need to close on this house by the end of April in order to close on the Mt. Tabor Victorian. And they are excited about our neighborhood and looking forward to being able to sell one of their cars. This just might work out!!!

Our realtor told us that we have 2-3 other people who have been sitting on the fence and want to know if we receive an offer on our house. Mr. W is really hoping we end up with a bidding war. I don't know about that! ;)

I never saw this coming...

I thought this would be our forever house so I hung a lot of wallpaper. We don't have off street parking. We never got around to putting new flooring in the kitchen and 1st floor bathroom. The exterior needs to be painted. These were all the things I felt would be potential problems when we put our house on the market after falling in love with the Mt. Tabor house.

Never in a million years did I think the biggest obstacle would be the ceiling height upstairs! Mr. W is 6' and he bought this house when he was a bachelor. He has never hit his head on a doorway. The ceiling is 6'6" and the doorways are only 5' 11 1/2". Apparently everyone who is coming to see our house is hitting their heads upstairs. This seems unbelievable to me, none of our friends or family who have stayed here are running into doorways? I guess I just don't understand tall people problems. Sigh!

From the feedback we are getting, people really, really love the house and the only thing holding them back from making an offer is the doorways.

I'm so discouraged! I feel like we'll never sell it now. We already lowered the price (that's when people stopped complaining about the lack of driveway.) I just never saw this problem coming.

Sooo ready for this to be over!!!

I am so tired of having our house on the market. We are all sick, and it seems like everyone seems to schedule their viewings during nap time. It is really beginning to take a toll on us. It is next to impossible to get the children out of the house without destroying the tidiness first. My patience is running very, very thin.

Yesterday we had 6 viewings so we spent the day at my mom's house. That was actually nice, since it was a holiday and we could spend the day with her. Before we left, My Little Helper refused to go to the bathroom first. The cross town traffic wasn't as bad as I anticipated so we arrived home about 10 minutes early. I parked around the corner and let the boys crawl around in the car. Then he started yelling, "I have to go potty!" so I unloaded us all from the car and headed towards the house hoping they had left early. Nope, I could see people still inside while he was talking about how he was going to pee on the tree in front of the house. Ack! We just cannot have that!!! So I made him run back around the corner and let him pee on our car/in the gutter. Did I mention this was all happening in the rain?

Please, make it stop! Someone make us an offer. I'm becoming desperate!

2 weeks on the market

Our house has been on the market for 2 weeks. After one week, Ms G, the wife of our Realtor team, suggested we drop the price, but the Mr. W, the husband, thought we could wait until two weeks. They said that our house has had a better turn out since they can't remember when. We had nearly 40 realtors/people go through in the first two weeks. However we had no showings Friday or Saturday, and only one on Sunday. I have two more viewings scheduled for today and tomorrow.

All the feedback we have gotten has been good. However there are two issues that keep coming up in the feedback:

1. We don't have a driveway and we live in a popular urban neighborhood. (Although it should be obvious that we have no driveway before you schedule to come out to our house anyway, so why that is a complain after the fact perplexes me.)
   
2. The ceiling height in the upstairs hallway is low, but the bedrooms all have higher, vaulted ceilings.

Those are the two things mentioned if they say we might be priced too high. So that makes me wonder, wouldn't people offer less if they liked the house but think we are too high? That's what we did when we put in our offer on the Mt. Tabor Victorian. Are we so hyper polite in Portland that people aren't comfortable offering less? I thought most people offered less, especially in a buyers market.

We are right in with other comps, but on the higher end because of all the restoration work we have done. We are not a flip, all the work done here was professional, no DIY half ass crap quality.

Our realtor keeps saying that price will cure everything, but I feel like if not having a driveway is a deal breaker for someone, then us lowering the price wouldn't fix it. We're not at all opposed to negotiating or accepting an offer at a lower price. But we feel like we're getting a lot of pressure to drop the price now. If we do it, we'd drop it enough to get down into the next bracket of house hunters' budgets.

I worry that if we drop now at 2 weeks that we will lose all our negotiating cushion. Since we have a contract to buy contingent upon the sale of our bungalow we want to be perceived as serious about selling, but not desperate.

Candlemas

We had Our Little Helper's parent teacher conference at preschool yesterday so my mom played hooky (she has about 100 sick days she has never used and since she'll be retiring in a coupe years she figures she ought to use them for occasional babysitting instead. So I took the boys to her house in the morning and we hung out there until I picked up Mr. W for the conference. This also worked out well to keep us out of the house while we had viewings scheduled.
We had a very good conference. There were some things that his teacher wanted to work on for him, like drawing and art projects since he isn't as interested in those fine motor skills. But she said after she had put her report together he participated in drawing time and drew a dragon complete with a mouth, arms, a tail and lots of scales. He also signed his name to it, a skill that they are NOT working on a t preschool, just something that he has picked up on his own. I beam with pride for my boy!
We also talked about school plans for next year. I had been considering trying to get him in at the public school near our new house which has the only half day kindergarten in the city. I intended to have him repeat kindergarten at another school. As I was trying to figure out the wisdom in that, a bumpie pointed out that if I think he is excited about kindergarten now, consider how hard it will be when they ramp up the children for 1st grade at the end of kindergarten. That spoke volumes to me!
The other thing that was swaying me in the plan to push for kindergarten this year was how not assertive he is. When I was able to observe him with his classmates at snack day last week I noticed that he is shy in a group. The child whose snack day it is gets to make all the announcements that day and he was so soft spoken, no one could hear him. I have noticed with his friends that he is not an Alpha kid. He is happy to follow along with what other children are playing, even if his friend is younger than him. I don't have any problem with my child not being and Alpha kid, but I realized the impact of him being the youngest in his class with this characteristic. Better to be bigger/older than the others and not assertive than smaller, shy, and a target for being picked on. His teacher expressed concern that he doesn't play with others. This was shocking to me since he always engages in active play with his friends. But in this larger class setting he doesn't. Later int he day though I wondered if it might be the result of his best friend in the class moving to North Dakota two months into the school year? Perhaps he doesn't want to have his little heart broken again? In any even we discussed with his teacher which classroom options for the fall would be close to a pre-kindergarten program since he is so eager to go.
After the conference I drove out to Milwaulkie to pick up tamales from Casa de Tamale.
I'm doing abridged celebrations this winter since they house is on the market. I was thinking about just eating out there for dinner, but Mr. W was afraid that might be too chaotic with the children. I only bought a dozen tamales this year since we weren't having guests (my mom already had other plans)
Back at my mom's house Grammy and Our Little Helper made candle shaped cookies to celebrate Candlemas. I considered making candles at my mom's, but couldn't locate the box with the candle kit which we recently moved into her basement. Moving is crazy! This was a much easier project to work on, and Our Little Helper really likes making cookies.
Adding ingredients.Cutting out the cookies.Adding the sprinkles.Candle shaped cookies! (This cookie cutter was among the stuff my MIL gave us when they moved)Chicken and green chili tamales. I bought these festive little melamine plates at Target.Baby Boy dining on rice cakes. Yes, it is one of those kinds of days that he's still in his jams from the morning!Pork and asparagus tamale with cotija cheese.Baby Boy walking, he carries this fridge toy around like it is his ghetto blaster.

Burying St. Joseph

Since we have had a break in the weather today, I had a chance to get out and wrap a few loose ends in the yard. I planted the pansies I bought two weeks ago before it snowed. I wanted to fill the window box on the potting shed and put a couple on the front porch for a cheery greeting. I put a final coat of paint on the trim around the window in the potting shed door too.
Then I dug a little hole in the ground in the newly bark dusted backyard. There is a somewhat questionable practice of burying a statue of St. Joseph in one's yard while one is selling one's house the hopes hopes that he will intercede on your behalf. It seems a little superstitious and potentially sacrilegious, but I am willing to try anything that may positively impact the sale of the Laburnum Bungalow. Our Realtors, one of which was raised Catholic although they are New Agey now, have never had clients bury a St. Joseph before, but were eager to have us do it to see if it has an influence.
They sell St. Joseph home sale kits online, but I went to The Grotto on Sunday after Mass and picked on up in the gift shop. I bought the more expensive of the two options which was $15 for a painted resin statue. The shop clerk told me they had been out of stock for a long time on these, and they sell quickly. Hopefully that is a good sign.
The instructions recommend placing the statue upside down (with the feet pointed toward heaven) with either St. Joseph facing the house or towards the new home. The placement in the yard varies also. I opted with burying him in the backyard facing east towards the Mt. Tabor house. My Little Helper took a break from watching the Wild Kratts to come out to help me; the boy rarely misses an opportunity to use a shovel. He did a good job in helping me place St. Joseph and then covering him back up with dirt. He was not as interested in saying a prayer, but he did a fairly good job of making the the sign of the cross.
The kit states that European nuns used to bury St. Joseph medals in land which they hoped to purchase on which they would build convents and eventually the practice evolved into selling homes. "The reasons behind using this particular saint are Joseph's strong connections with families, homes, and moving." After a successful sale one should dig St. Joseph back up and put him in a place of honor in the new home. I have heard that some people leave the St. Joseph as a way of having him protect the home. I may do that as I have my own St. Joseph statue safely packed away in a box somewhere. Will we be lucky enough to sell and close in time to celebrate the Feast of St. Joseph in our new home? Let's hope so!

Day 3 on the market

As the kids would say, I'm a hot mess. I am so stressed out about being on the market. I went to bed with a headache, I woke up with a head ache, my face is totally broken out. Yesterday was our Dealer's Open, and apparently we had a really good turn out. Our Realtor told us she can't remember the last time they had such a good response. And, from what she told us everyone really liked what we have done with the house and everyone kept saying it was gorgeous. That makes me feel good.
I have to admit that having my house on the market is kind of like having your child in the school spelling bee or first piano recital, I'm so worried how well she will do and if people will appreciate her 'talent'.
Although I still worry that I didn't get everything as perfectly staged as I would have liked. It was hard with the boys jumping on the bed immediately after I made it and tossing everything out of the garbage can. I ended up putting Baby Boy in the crib just to keep him from destroying things, which of course made him scream like crazy. I ended up leaving a giant pile of dinosaurs because I couldn't get to them before we had to leave the house for My Little Helper's dentist appointment; I hoped our Realtors could figure out something to do with them for the Open. I frantically packed up the car with stuff and the boys and headed out only to get half way to the dentist before I realized I'd forgotten my wallet, which I would need to by lunch for the boys since I had no idea how long I'd have to stay away from the house.
In our listing I have requested 1 hr notice. I did this because I want to be as flexible as possible; I anticipate lots of nap times spent driving around in the car. What I didn't realize was that Realtors would take me at my word. I had two of them call to schedule viewings exactly one hour in advance. I guess I expected that to be the exception to the norm, rather than all the notice I would get. I will stick it out a few more days like this and see how bad it gets, but I may have to change it to 2-4 hrs notice, otherwise the boys and I may become a cranky mess soon. As it was the morning nap was spent driving out to Banks with a drive through Krispy Kreme on the the return. But as I headed home we received another call so I took the boys to my mom's and spent the rest of the day there until we met Mr. W in NW for dinner to wait out our final showing of the day.
Today the baby woke up with a stomach virus and barfed on me after I nursed him. No doubt he picked up something on his first day of daycare, so now delayed guilt has set in. I drove through his morning nap today even though we have had no viewing scheduled for today, but we do have one first thing tomorrow morning. Hopefully one of these early showings will yield our buyer. Fingers crossed!

We're on the market!

I am so nervous I could barf! We have been cleaning and fixing and staging and prepping these past few days and I think we have everything ready. Or almost ready. As ready as we are going to be for the Realtor's Open tomorrow. I am freaking out though! How on earth am I going to be able to keep the house in a constant state of clean with two little boys running around, literally pulling everything off the shelves behind me as I put them away?
Today was our Snack Day at preschool, but I let Mr. W double book me, scheduling the bark dust blow in at the same time. Today was also the first day of putting Baby Boy in a daycare. If I wasn't so crazy busy I would have felt more guilty about leaving him there at 13 mo old. So, after dropping off the baby, then starting off at Snack Day, I had to run home to meet the bark dusters. They had already blown in most of the back yard. There was also a man there digging the post hole for the yard sign, so much activity happening at the bungalow! After preschool I made a last trip to Hippo Hardware to get some inexpensive, not sentimental, vintage glass shades for the upstairs bathroom.
By the time I returned home the sign post had been installed and the front bed was looking sharp and tidy with it's new coat of bark dust. I parked the car and felt like I was going to have a heart attack! Seeing the sign post seemed so final. This is really happening! The rest of the yard looks so clean and tidy now. I hope all our efforts pay off and that potential home buyers like what they see.
Later in the afternoon, after I had both the boys back home with me, our Realtors came over for a walk through and to hang the sign. I think Mr. W and I have checked off every item from that list but one, and I may be pulling an all-nighter doing laundry and mopping the floors again. So nerve wracking! But kind of exciting too.

We have a signed contract...again!

Well, Mr. W was hoping to have a signed contract to buy the Mt. Tabor house for my birthday (early Nov) and instead we got it on his sister's birthday (mid Jan)! Finally! No more negotiating, no more waiting for warring Boomers to get their s* together and respond to our offers. No more waiting for them to decide to whether or not they will fix the issues that came up during our inspection the day before Thanksgiving. We settled on a lower price, which accounts for us buying the house as is. This means that the sewer repair, minor roof leaks, and underground oil tank will be resolved by us after we have possession.
But, we are still waiting to exhale. We still have to sell the Laburnum Bungalow, which goes on the market Monday, and close on it by the end of April per the terms of this contract. So, it could still all fall apart. So, we are crossing our fingers that we have gotten our house in the best condition possible. There is a flurry of activity going on here this week between us and hired workers to wrap up all the loose ends. And that has only been compounded by the snow fall we have had this week! We hope that whomever our buyers are, they will be free from drama, because frankly, I don't know if I can handle anymore! We still have to worry about both our sellers showing up at the closing of the Mt. Tabor house so we can occupy it!
In any event, here are some photos of the exterior. I took these in November when we were still in that innocent, naive, inspection period, before we had to revoke our offer and became jaded. This is a closer view of the front elevation. There are a lot of steps to get to the front door. This may be why the side door is now the main entrance and the legal address. There is a balcony above the porch which is accessed through the hallway window or the window in what will be the play room. This balcony provides a view to downtown and we're hoping will be our fireworks display vantage point.
The tower side has the Povey windows in the bays. We have heard that the original roof to the tower was blown off during the Columbus Day Storm of '62. Our long term plan is to restore the peaked, copper roof there and the cresting on the entire roof.The side elevation includes the oval porch on the 3rd floor, something we have been calling G-ma's smoking porch. It is accessed through the unfinished attic and is very shallow. It is screened though to prevent birds from roosting. There is another balcony above the side porch; this one is accessed through the window in what will be the boys bedroom. The upper bay window is in the guest room, until we have another baby. The lower bay window is in the living room.
The truth is I am very excited although I am trying really hard not to be just in case something goes wrong again. I'm a little afraid I am jinxing it just by making this blog entry. Don't worry, Universe, I'm not getting cocky! I know it isn't ours yet. But it does feel good to hope, and we are making progress in the right direction.
Hopefully by this time next year all this stress will be a distant memory, and we'll be enjoying a fresh, full year in our new Home!

In search of a Chesterfield style sofa

I hate our futon. I find it extremely uncomfortable to sit on because the cushion constantly slides down and pushes out the seat depth. But when Mr. W bought his first television after we began dating , the futon seemed like the best idea to him because it was collapsable enough to get it upstairs, where the tv room was then located, and it could double as a guest bed. I never liked it though, and have cursed it these past nine years.
Recently though Mr. W has come to share my animosity for the futon. While we both acknowledge that we'll be extremely broke after we buy a house, he and I have both been thinking about how we could squeeze a new sofa into the budget. And while it may or not be wise, we both would prefer leather. I feel it is easier to keep clean. He thinks it is more comfortable and durable.
I have never bought a sofa for myself, but if I had it would have had a camel back with rolled arms. And upholstered in corduroy. Ah, I love corduroy!!! I did eventually develop an appreciation for the Chesterfield style sofa. The tufted back, the warm toned leather, the nail head trim. Delightful! And if it could also have a camel back I'd be over the moon!
So I am spending this rainy Saturday evening browsing online for potential sofas.
EA has a couple in leather, but I think the Chadwick at 86" l would be a better fit in the family room of the Mt. Tabor house.
This Whitaker is a bit more traditional Chesterfield due to the straight back.
PB calls theirs the Chesterfield, but at 96"l I worry it might be too large for the room considering I think we need to have it double as a casual family dining room. But if we end up with 3 teenage boys, I can see that all those ninety six inches would come in handy.
RH appears to only have an upholstered version,the Kensington, which won't work for our purposes, but I do enjoy the tufting on the apron.There are few furniture brands that Parker Furniture carries. The Kent is 89" l overall. I also like the Olivier as a more feminine version. And forgive me for getting distracted, but I would love to eventually have something like the Boudoir Loveseat in our bedroom. Swoon! This would be a l o n g time in the future before we could afford furniture up there though!
T-ville has and interpretation called the Rendezvous which looks extremely comfortable. They have another tufted back sofa called the Ella, which while I like how fun it is, I know I could never talk Mr. W into it.WSH has a Chesterfield sofa, but the leather version is over $6,000...I don't know why everything in that store is so overpriced.
MG has 3 different length options for their Chester.When I ran out of ideas of furniture stores in the vicinity, I did a general online search. The cheapest leather chesterfield I found was $999, but only available in blue leather. I showed it to Mr. W who responded, "No, that is nasty. We are only buying a good sofa."
Hahaha! I love him so much!
This is a good looking version; I like the fully tufted look, but I do worry that a tufted seat is going to be filled with so much gunk from little boys. Plus, I really would not feel comfortable ordering something substantial, like a sofa, online with out being able to test it out in person.
And at any rate, we still don't have a contract to buy as of this afternoon, so we aren't in the position to make a purchase. It is fun to plan though!