We Moved!

So I know I'm a little late (ok, really late) posting our move-in pictures, but it's been a crazy (extremely fun & exciting) three (edited: four) weeks since we moved in.

Our Closing Journey
I have to say though, closing (or rather the days leading up to closing) weren't all smooth sailing. We were told by numerous people to NOT plan on moving the same day as Settlement. We decided to go against all recommendations, and went ahead and scheduled our move with Two Marines Moving for the same time as Closing, 11am Friday 4/4. Well, that week came, Wednesday came and went and we still hadn't heard from the Title company as to how much we owed them. My grandmother, our Realtor, said that was pretty unusual, as she usually hears from the company at least 2 days in advance. This put us in quite the predicament because we didn't know how much money we should pull out and have with us at Closing. Well, Thursday came, 2pm came around and we were told that Fannie Mae's computer system went down earlier in the week and there was a huge backlog of paperwork (you mean we're not their only clients?), so our closing time would inevitably be pushed back. Luckily, it was only 2 hours, so we pulled out what we had estimated we'd need and we could hardly wait for Friday!

Re-Walk
Friday morning, the re-walk went fine. Most of the little things had been fixed, the hardware in the kitchen had been swapped out, leaving me happier and more pleased (if that was even possible) than I had been before! Off to Panera we went to kill some time and eat breakfast, then HH Gregg to buy a washer/dryer (was delivered Saturday!). Then, out to Closing we went! It went so well, and very quickly too. With keys in hand, we were off to pop a bottle of champagne in our new home. It was quite the afternoon, and following our quick celebration, we were back to the apartment to celebrate with my parents at happy hour, and finish packing.

Packing Up, Moving Out
Ok, so we had a lot more stuff than we thought. That's the story. There's really no other way to say it. But Two Marines Moving played an amazing game of Jenga had happened to fit it all (plus more that we gave them at the last minute that didn't fit into our car) into the truck. Out to the house we all went and unloading the truck went very smoothly. No dings in the walls, no scratches, no battle wounds.

You really don't care about all of this, do you?! Here are the latest move-in photos from the house! We've since put in furniture on all floors. I already have a few entries in the queue for this week displaying what we've done in the last four weeks, so check back later!

Hey Mr. K!

dining room

study

living room 

living room

kitchen

kitchen

close up

butler's pantry

stairs downstairs

basement

basement

stairs upstairs

front right room

laundry room

front left room

master

master bath

back yard pre-sod

front yard during-sod

Recycling Bins Ordered!

I don't have a huge announcement to make or incredible update, so I thought I'd share the little things we've been accomplishing this week as we prepare for our move:

Transferring cable - it's been a bigger pain than we thought since we were hoping to keep our current bill, but alas, of course it's more. Fingers crossed they can come and install on Sunday! In the meantime, we're thinking we'll only be keeping cable through the baseball season and then get rid of it. We don't watch enough channels to make it worth it. We have a our 5 channels we cycle through: ESPN, HGTV, Food Network, ION, and then basic cable like ABC, NBC and CBS. So come Fall, it will probably be gone.

Recycling Bins - I ordered those through MoCo this morning. I should have done it earlier this week but it really just got away from me. Oh well, we'll have PLENTY of boxes to put our recycling in until then!!

Speaking of boxes... Packing - UGH! We ran out of boxes so when I go to pick up the car tonight at my parents' house, I'll be picking up even more boxes. We realized that the last time we moved, we didn't have all of the big appliances that we received for the wedding. So those take up a lot of space. And, really, it's both of our stuff this time instead of just one person. It hasn't been dreadful though like packing usually is because quite frankly,  this is a very exciting move. It's our own home, and we know we won't be moving again in a year, so it's been a little more manageable. We also know that we have more space to put things so it's not all in the living room like it was in our apartment. AND, we have two more weeks before we officially have to be out of our apartment, so if need be, which there probably will be, we'll come back to the apartment and grab the things that we couldn't take. "Aren't you hiring movers?" you ask. Yes, we are. But since we've run out of boxes, and there are a couple of things we're taking ourselves, we may need to come back.

Anyhow, fingers crossed we get the settlement email from the Title company sooner rather than later today, letting us know what our final balance is. Our Realtor (my grandmother) mentioned yesterday that she's only come across this once or twice, that the Title company waits until the last minute to send over the information. Usually she has it 2-3 days before settlement. It's making us nervous, no doubt, because we need to be able to pull out that money out before EOD, because there is not much time between our re-walk tomorrow morning and Settlement. So, keep you fingers and toes crossed for us too!!

We have lots planned for this weekend after we move, so I'll be sure to post some pictures throughout the process!!

We Were Locked Out!

This past weekend was (edit: supposed to be) our last weekend spent together in the city. It's funny because I say this like we're moving so far away. We're not, it's just going to be a big change. This coming weekend I was going to go to NYC with my mom and her friend, and meet  her daughter in the city for a ladies' weekend. Edit: we're not anymore because who likes to spend a lot of money and visit NYC when it's 60%+ chance of rain, 50 degrees and windy all weekend? Not conducive to shopping and walking around beautiful Central Park, so we're rescheduling. We were all really looking forward to this getaway, so we're hoping we can find a common weekend between now and the end of June! Fingers crossed!

Back to what I was saying though... While we were hanging out at the apartment last Saturday & Sunday, it hit me that this was our last Saturday just laying our in this little apartment. The next time we're just "laying around" is going to be in a house with probably lots of other things to do - unpacking, organizing, making countless trips to Home Depot (good thing it's only about a 7 minute drive!) and getting settled into this new suburban lifestyle. I'll finally be getting my car back full-time and can't wait! The suburban blood in me is really starting to stir, and I'm getting super excited. My mom has been driving my car for awhile since it's been sitting at the house for the past year, and she got a new car this weekend, a pretty sweet Honda CRV, right in time for her "lease" to be up on my car (aka she had to find something before we moved out to the 'burbs because I'll need it back)! So many exciting changes happening for everyone.

So back to the house...
We went out to the house on Saturday. Did the same thing we did the weekend before, rode the metro out to where my parents had left Mr. K's car (his has been sitting at my parents' house too for the last couple of years because there was no way we were going to pay $200/mo. to park in our building and quite frankly he just hasn't needed it). Construction on the lot was pretty quite on Saturday. There was no one working on our block (there are 4 houses on our side of the block, 4 on the other). It's probably because all of the houses are just about to settlement time, so there's really not much to be done. We parked in the back of the house, entered through the garage door which was open like usual... locked. The house itself was locked. I was nervous this would happen (don't tell Mr. K) and had a slight feeling this would be the case when we drove up and saw only one pick-up truck in the back of our block. So, we went over to the model to talk to the new project manager. Our last project manager, Keith, had construction keys which allowed us to go into different style houses as they were being built to see how what some of the options were, etc. However, the new project manager said the superintendent is no longer giving them construction keys. Probably a liability. Understood.

So in our conversation with her, I said "well, that's alright. Our pre-settlement walk-thru is this Friday so we'll see it finished soon enough!" And she said, which was funny, "OH! If I had known that I wouldn't have given you the keys anyways. You can just hold your breath and see the finished product then!" It's true. We saw it almost complete a couple weeks ago, and it will be the greatest feeling when we see it on Friday. I didn't even peak inside so I have no idea what it all looks like. From the outside, we know that the sod still needs to be put down (we did see some bushes planted in the back!), the railings leading up to the front door need to be painted (they were primed a silver color this weekend, not my taste). But that's all we could tell from not peaking inside.

We are so excited for tomorrow! In the meantime, I've been busting my butt the last few days packing. There are a large amount of boxes already filled, and it's crazy to think that there's still so much to be done. I've taken care of some of the kitchen, the bathroom closet (to a certain extent, still have to leave some stuff in there), part of the utility closet which I'll finish up tonight and tomorrow. The bookshelves are empty. My bedside table is empty. Bookcases are cleaned. But there's still a lot to do! The last time we moved, we ordered this great moving kit from Amazon, Duck Brand Moving Kit.

Duck Brand Moving Kit

It comes with 12 boxes of different sizes, 1 roll of HD clear packing tape, and 4 rolls of bubble wrap. At a cost of $39.97 you're really just paying for convenience at this point because it all comes in one huge box, but it's honestly well worth it. We ordered it again and it came in yesterday! I was way too excited to see it sitting in the living room when I got home last night.

Tonight brings more packing, but it honestly feels a little better knowing that I can pack throughout the weekend now that I'm not going to NYC.

Can't wait to give more updates after our pre-settlement meeting tomorrow morning! Please cross your fingers that all goes well and that there aren't too many things to fix!

30 DAY COUNTDOWN!!

This past weekend we made a visit out to the 'burbs to celebrate my dad's birthday, and we went by the house since we hadn't seen it in two weeks. It's amazing the progress in two weeks, at least in our eyes.*(see edit at the end of the post) We walked over to the model to meet our new project/sales manager but unfortunately she was with another (buying) customer, so we had to table that meeting. You see, when I was out at the house for the pre-drywall meeting in early February, our sales manager told me he'd be leaving the community and heading to another one in VA with about 100 more homes. Huge promotion for him, so congrats, Keith! We were a bit bummed to learn that, selfishly, as we've really established a great working relationship with him and we've enjoyed working with him. He knew us, our home, how we worked, etc. At least the majority of the big decisions (all of them, really) are out of the way and fingers crossed it's smooth sailing from here on out.

We were absolutely overjoyed when we first walked up to the house to see it completely covered in siding, our front steps are in and the railings are even up! Upon walking in through the garage, and just seeing through a crack, a resemblance of actual walls was the best feeling! After walking in from the garage, we immediately see the island (no counter top, of course), and all of our kitchen cabinets in! I am in love with the cabinets!! They look so great, we couldn't be happier. I just can't wait to see them with the handles we picked out.

We walked through the first floor, went down to the basement and then up two floors to the top level with the bedrooms and laundry room! What I don't have a picture of is the dining room in which I'm love with the chair rail that I asked for! Really, I'm pretty sure it was only $20 to put it in, so it was a no-brainer! It looks great and adds character already.

Another thing I remember mentioning in the previous pre-drywall post is something that we had not opted to get in the beginning, but ended up getting plumbing done for accidentally: a utility sink in the laundry room. So, when I walked through for the pre-drywall meeting, we walked into the laundry room and Keith said "did you guys get a utility sink?" I said..."I don't think so" as he's looking through our paperwork, and he then said "nope, you didn't, but looks like you  have one now." There was plumbing for the sink. Then, when we walked through this weekend, there was no plumbing sticking out of the wall, or any opening for the potential plumbing of the sink. But, as my dad says, there WAS plumbing there for it, so it still should be there behind the wall. So if we wanted a sink down the road (which I do after reading so many awesome things about them), we could probably put it in. You never know though, it could still show up by the time we move in, we don't know. Anyways, things like that sometimes happen in your favor, and then other times it goes the opposite way, you don't get what you had paid for. Luckily that didn't happen for us. Knock on wood.

Let's get to the pictures, the fun stuff, shall we? And then an update we're so excited to share!

I'll start with the main level:

View of Kitchen from Stairs

View of Great Room/Backyard from Stairs
Breakfast Nook to the left of the sliding doors

View of Dining Room (you can see the chair rail!) from the stairs
Powder room is right in front of me
Front Door to the Left of the Dining Room

Kitchen from Great Room
Don't know why it's slanted... sorry!

We love the wall of cabinets!

View from Garage Entrance through to the dining room
Past the butler's pantry

Fireplace from Kitchen

Upstairs Level (4 bedrooms, two bathrooms):

Entrance to Master Bedroom
(hall bathroom to the right)

Master Bedroom
Love the windows!! 

Master Bedroom
(Door on the left into bathroom
Right door is one of two walk-in closets)

Master Bathroom
(So happy already with our choice of tiles!) 

View to the hallway from master bedroom
(stairs to the left)

Hall Bathroom

One of three bedrooms upstairs
(Again, we love the all the windows!)

 Basement:

Stairs going down to the basement

View from the stairs to the right
(to the left are the two unfinished rooms and roughed-in bathroom

Outside Views:

In the kitchen, on our way back out

Garage Entrance

Steps down into the garage

Garage

View from the Back driveway

Our Home! 

Edited on Wednesday 3/5: We received a call from our previous sales manager last night with our FINAL dates! We thought we'd be settling on April 17th, with a final walk through on the 11th. Well, looks like they've made up time from the snow, and more, and we'll be having our walk-thru on 3/28, re-walk the morning of 4/4 and closing later on 4/4! We can't even believe it. We're so excited to be moving into our home in 30 days from now! Seriously, it's like a dream. And I'm sure I'll say that 30 more times between now and then, and after that too.

So yes, we still have our apartment until April 19th, there's nothing we can do about that, but no other time in our life will we be able to say, "yeah, we have a city apartment and a country house," haha but at least we'll be able to take our time moving in and getting settled. Plus, if there's a Nationals game that we want to go to and it ends late, we can always juts keep an air mattress at the apartment and crash there! Who doesn't like empty house parties!!?

Looks like we better start packing... starting to collect newspapers and boxes!

House Update #1: Settlement Process

Sunday, November 10: I learned more about the settlement process today... I stopped by our "new" neighborhood and drove by our "house" or what is really the same 20 piles of dirt that were there a month ago when we last saw it. Instead of waiting for an email or call from our sales guy, I went in and chatted with him for a bit (in the model home). I asked for an update on our dirt mounds, and he looked at his new progress sheet from that Friday, and it said our lot has "not started" (obviously), but that there was "no delay" either. SO... what's the hold up!? 

He wasn't quite sure why it hadn't been started but that the finish date was still the same (late February. Note: Read the next update later this week and I'll most likely have a different answer for you). BUT he admitted that it would most likely be March, and that we would hope to settle in the latter half of the month, between the 15th and 31st. He said settling in the latter half of the month is preferable and best for the buyer because if you settle later, the mortgage won't be due until May 1, because you pay in arrears. So, we have a longer time to pay that mortgage will be awesome. Interesting fact, and I'm happy to have learned that little tid bit.

Honestly, no new pictures are worth putting up until it actually starts getting built. But I did promise pictures of some of our interior options, of which I'll only show a few... later!!

See you at the corner,

Krista