BUSY! We bought a house! As exciting as that may sound, it’s been completely exhausting. We went out on the first Saturday of May to look at about 6 houses. We just wanted to get a feel for what was out there and never thought we’d find anything to make an offer on, but we were wrong. The last house we looked at, we immediately fell in love with. We thought about it for the rest of the weekend and decided to make an offer Sunday night. After going back and forth with the sellers, our offer was accepted on the Monday and then started our process of pure hell.

Starting with the inspection. We knew we were buying an older home that had dated wallpaper, popcorn ceilings and hideous paint colors… but we never imagined the items that came up on the inspection report. The electric wasn’t up to code, the HVAC unit was 20+ years old and leaking air, there were gas leaks and the chimney was pulling away from the house. We immediately went into panic mode! We went to the sellers with a list of items that needed to be repaired. This ended up being practically everything that was on the inspection report!  Might as well as for it all and go from there, right?

We loved the house, but we were also ready to walk if the major repairs weren’t going to be done. It’s a buyers market right now and if they didn’t want to do the repairs, we knew we could find a house that didn’t have massive cosmetic work that needed to be done as well as somewhere where the fireplace wasn’t going to end up falling into the house at some point!

The sellers were difficult to work with.  Example:  There were electric receptacles that were loose and we asked them to have them tightened by the electrician since he was already going to be there to do other work, their response was (and I quote), “Buyer is welcome to tighten these receptacles as desired after closing.  Seller will leave a screwdriver in garage for this purpose.”  Seriously?  Are we 12?  Pete’s response (equally as immature), “Buyer reserves the right to withdraw offer if work not completed by a qualified electrician and purchase house which does not require integrated screwdriver in order to ensure correct electrical operation and safety of family and pets.”  (lawl/smiley face, I love my husband!)

They originally told us the GFCI outlets weren’t in the house when they bought it and they weren’t going to have them installed now. Well guess what, the house was built in 1986 and GFCI’s were required on homes in North Carolina as of 1975 (gotta love Google!).  So Mr. and Mrs. Seller, that would mean that the electric in your house is not up to code and if you don’t fix it for us now, you will have to disclose it to other potential buyers. They decided to get it fixed.  Your chimney not being structurally sound isn’t going to help you sell the house any faster either.  They fixed that too.

Cost them over $3000 for repairs, so good thing we had an inspector that was so thorough because we need that cash to remove the disgusting popcorn ceiling and 1980’s flower wallpaper that someone once thought was a wonderful idea.  Not to mention the painted over pale green grass texture wallpaper in the living room.  The 1970’s hospital look was apparently very popular those days.  We had the ceiling tested for asbestos as well, which they didn’t like.  They thought we were being too picky.  If there are other items in your house that are not up to code, there is nothing that says the contractor who originally built the house didn’t spray your ceiling with 10 year old material.  Luckily for them there was no asbestos in the ceiling, unfortunate for us because we now will have to remove it ourselves since it falls under the “cosmetic” category now instead of the “could kill us” category.

So now that everything is over with the arguing back and forth about who’s going to fix what and whether or not a screwdriver is required to sell the house, it’s nearly ours.  We close on Thursday and I can not be happier to be done with these people!

Needless to say, we will be spending every waking moment for the next few months taking down that disgusting ceiling, removing wallpaper, painting, sanding, sweating, swearing, yelling at eachother, bleeding, getting drunk, eating too much, going to the hardware store every 5 seconds, crying at bank statements and then more swearing.  Following it all up with a great big sigh of relief, a feeling of accomplishment and adding massive value into a house that we brought up into the current decade all on our own.  All in all, we’re looking forward to all of it!

As for the bento blog, can’t say when I’ll be starting it all again.  I’m hoping it won’t take too long to get back into some sort of a routine.

As for all the repair work and house stuff, I’m going be updating our personal website with info on the renovations.

May the force be with us…