T-minus 4 days

I think I may insane waiting for the last few days to pass. I keep having all these dreams that something goes wrong with our financing at the last minute and we can't get the house. I guess I just won't feel it's all over until we have the keys in our hands.

In my daily stalking trip yesterday, I see that the masonry people put up plastic around the chimney area but still haven't gotten any brick laid on the outside. They were supposed to have it done yesterday but it looks like it will be Monday or Tuesday. Our final inspection is Tuesday evening so I hope it's done by then.

We're already making plans to immediately go get our appliances ordered after the closing as they told us they'll take a couple weeks to be delivered. I feel like this is a huge decision, but it's probably really not. We're getting a new range, a new refrigerator, and a new washing machine. All Energy Star compliant - the washer is also a front-loader to save water. The kitchen stuff is stainless - and I'm excited about that. We'll wait on a new dishwasher and microwave until this summer, I guess. I'm hoping to find some stick on stainless sheeting, like I saw on HGTV, to put on the front of the current dishwasher to make it match better in the meantime.

Then, Friday and Saturday will be painting and cleaning up. We'll slowly start to move stuff over in the cars and probably put it upstairs until the flooring refinisher is done the following week.

I can hardly stand the wait!

Paint colors - take 2,802

I think we have made a decision on our paint colors, for the downstairs anyway. My other highlight is purchasing the amazing product called Walwik - reusable fabric cloths that remove up to 7 layers of wallpaper in one, fell swoop! I can't wait to try it out!

Here's the plan - check out the colors on the Color Visualizer at sherwin-williams.com:

Kitchen - take down wallpaper and put up Sherwin Williams 7679 - Golden Gate
Dining Room - paint SW 7731 - San Antonio Sage
Living Room - paint SW 7715 - Pottery Urn
Hallway - take down wallpaper and put up SW 7538 - Tamarind or SW 7717 - Liognier Tan

Considerations for upstairs bedrooms:
SW 7519 - Mexican Sand
SW 7639 - Ethereal Mood
SW 7748 - Green Earth

We need to also think about bathrooms too... blue maybe?

I spent a lot of time trying to narrow down the type of paint, much less the paint colors. Surprisingly, not all brands carry the no VOC paint yet. Sherwin Williams is the only place around Bangor that has it so we're going that way.

We'll have the painting done next weekend, hopefully - the floor refinishing guy comes a few days later! Woo hoo!

Drive by stalking

I have become a stalker. I keep driving slowly by our house everyday checking on the work of the chimney people. It looks like the sellers were there yesterday moving out the rest of the stuff that was in the house and someone was in the basement today doing some work but no more chimney work has been done for a couple weeks. With the closing date scheduled 8 days away I'm very concerned the work won't be done - particularly since the weather has gotten colder and I hear that's not optimal mortar-curing weather. Keep your fingers crossed. I think I just have waited so long and gone through so much to now feel like we may have to put it all off a while longer.

I can hardly stand the wait any longer!

Floor refinishing

After much, much, much discussion we have decided to use some of the proceeds from the retirement check to pay for someone to refinish our hardwood floors downstairs for us. We were really considering doing it ourselves - including much reading, consultation, research, and video rentals on demo - but decided against it. I think if this were our third or fourth home improvement project on the house I'd feel differently but I'm not sure about our skill level at this point. We'll paint the first weekend in February after we move in and the floor guy will come later that week before we move in. We may do the ones upstairs on our own at some point, we'll see.

Here's who we got to do the floors. I called about 6-7 places and one place said they didn't do floors in Bangor any longer but could recommend Don Dickel Floors - I figured that was a good sign if other flooring people were recommending them. It was pretty uniform to get quoted $2/square foot and that's also what we're getting from them:

http://www.dondickelfloors.com

Besides, this guy was on HGTV! Can't beat that!

Smooth sailing to 1/31

Happy New Year! I was ecstatic and quite relieved to finally receive my retirement check from Louisiana this week. We have paid off a couple loans and have the money for the FHA 3% down payment and our closing costs. What a relief! I think we are all set. They have been repairing the chimney this past week and hope to have that done soon. Not sure about the electrical work but we've scheduled a follow-up inspection for the week of the 21st so hopefully all is done by then. So excited to almost be in our new house after all the rigmarole! Woo hoo :)