Homes for the Holidays

Home Ownership, , , , ,
This is my first holiday season living in Maine in over a decade and it is wonderful to be close to my family again. The changes I’ve been through in the last year have also made me appreciate my family’s prosperity and recognize how lucky we are. 
 
I am fortunate that everyone in my family owns a home. After this Friday (paperwork willing), all of my adult siblings will be homeowners. Home ownership, while not cheap, is not a hardship for us – we can afford to furnish them, heat them, and nourish our families in them. We each have a home with enough space to live in comfortably. We are able to meet and exceed our basic needs. 
 
Today, I am thankful to be in my home state again.  I am thankful for my family and the joyful bedlam of our holiday gatherings.  And I am thankful for a place to call home.

Femi-nesting

Home Ownership, , , , ,
Despite moving in back on November 18th, this week was our first week at our new house. It was also my first week at a new job… or my first 3 days. Aaron and I came back from our holidays with a really nasty cold and after toughing it out on Monday and Tuesday, I cried uncle on Wednesday and Thursday.  

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Slow Your Roll(er)

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This week I began painting the main room (livingroom, dining area, kitchen) of the house.  The color we settled on was the only one I liked during my first round of samples, a lovely green called Belle Grove Moss:
If there is one thing that our first house taught me, it was that rushing made for messy results. Patience has never been my strong suit and having a whole house full of projects meant I wanted to just keep moving.  This time around, I’ve slowed my roll(er) and been more careful with my application. Having natural wood trim helped as well, since stray smears had to be cleaned immediately rather than painted over later.  

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Home Is Where Your Dog Is

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For some people it might be the first overnight or the first meal, but for me a house starts feeling like a home once my dogs have been there. I visited twice this afternoon bringing RAV-loads of boxes from storage and trying out some paint colors (more on that later).  It was interesting coming and going on my own, putting boxes of our things inside, but it didn’t really feel like it was mine.

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Days Late and Dollars Short

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Today we signed on the dotted line and officially became homeowners again. It was days late because we were supposed to close on October 21st, but items in the paperwork kept being nitpicked and reworked. The mortgage industry (specifically an underwriter in our case) is very cautious these days and their ducks in a row had to have military precision. The dollars short is actually a very good thing – everything came in lower than the good faith estimate. This is due in part to the estimate being on the high side so we’d be ready for a worst-case scenario.
House buying is a harrying process and having good people working with you makes a world of difference. Our first home buying experience included an inexperienced real estate agent and an efficient but indifferent mortgage company. This time around, we had a wonderful duo of women helping make the process a little less painful.  

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Color Scheming

Home Improvement, , , , ,

The one part of planning that gives me the most trouble is choosing paint colors. I tried out a range of colors in our last house, which ended up going from “really like it” grey to “why did I pick this?” blue. I’m entering into this round of color choosing a little wiser, but I still have my work cut out for me.
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The Big House

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Our new home in Windham, ME. Estimated closing date Oct. 19th.
Our new home in Windham, ME. Estimated closing date Oct. 19th

The prospect of moving into a 2-story, 2,151 sq ft home on nearly 4 acres is quite a change, but like so many other changes in the past year, we’re embracing it. As our “West Bentley” blog-followers know, our last house was a modest 1,200+ sq ft ranch on nearly an acre of land. The room sizes were moderate and the storage space was sparse.  Our new home provides us with generous rooms and more storage space than I think we’ll ever use (though Aaron is certainly happy to try). 

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