home owners: the beginning...

so today . . . is the big day. all the ducks are in a row, and we are supposed to take possession of our new house. according to all the paperwork, we were supposed to get the keys no later than 5:00 p.m. today.

you may notice i said "supposed to..."

nothing in this whole process of buying a house has gone according to plan. nothing. in fact, rollie and i were just talking about how we actually bought this house without really checking out every nook and cranny. we would ask each other questions, and it was surprising how much we didn't know. and yet, here we are, with a house that i'm sure still holds surprises...

so at 5:00 when rollie came into the family room and said, "it's 5:00. have you heard from our realtor yet?" i said no. i was pretty sure we weren't going to hear by 5:00, even though all the paperwork said we would...

at 5:20 the phone rang. it was jill, our realtor. she had the keys! it was finally time to "take possession" of our new house. we were so excited!

when we got there, jill handed us four keys. four different keys--one for the front door, one for the back door, one for the outside garage door and one for the door between the garage and the house. yes, we had exactly ONE key for each lock. one. but at least we had keys!!

we walked slowly through the empty house, seeing some things for the first time...

--every outside doorknob is different, which is why there are four keys! the outside garage door doesn't even have a knob! the deadbolt is installed where the doorknob should be, and then a hook is screwed into the door to be used as a handle, i guess... (i took a picture of this specifically for my blog. but i took it with my iphone. and i can't get photos from my iphone to my computer without ms. martha or ms. jessica! and since i am on summer vacation, i am on my own... so sadly you do not get to see this ridiculous doorknobless, deadbolted door.)

--there is a random knob in the middle of the inside of the front door.

--there was a pretty long, shallow scratch in the flooring in one room. it doesn't scream at you when you walk in the room, but still... i guess we should be glad that with all those wood floors, that was the only casualty.

--there was no continuity to anything! when i stood in the living room, every light switch plate that i saw was different--brass, white, silver... some light switches had a regular switch, some had a toggle, some had a weird sort of fader, some had a kind of automatic switch. there are several different kinds of doorknobs IN THE HOUSE. sometimes even on the same door...

--there is a mystery push-button by the kitchen sink, and although we pushed it several times, we don't know WHAT it does. apparently it doesn't do anything!

--they took all the toilet paper, but left the heavy drapes. (ok, now i didn't expect that they would leave us ANYTHING, but really. what is the thought process that happens when you are taking a partial roll of toilet paper off the holder and packing it...)

--we are going to have to get a new washer and dryer, because ours are electric and the hook-ups are gas. darn :-)

--the dining room light fixture is massive!

somehow it didn't look quite as big when there was a table under it. and it is kind of ugly. and heavy. and it has those little candle looking lights with lampshades on them... it may be the first casualty of our new home-ownership... (and if any of you have this particular light fixture in your home, i am sorry i called it ugly. maybe a more tactful way to put it is, it isn't quite to my taste...)

but we also noticed some good things...

--the fireplace is really pretty--we had never been able to get a good look at it, because it is right under where they had their tv. and they were always watching tv! it has a lovely wood mantle and granite hearth.

although that little garland decoration has got to go!

--the family room is hard-wired for surround sound, and there is every kind of audio/visual hook-up that a guy could want. sadly for rollie, we cannot say this about the man room. yet.

--there are sprinkler heads in the back yard. we didn't notice them before, because they are partially buried. so maybe there is a sprinkler system, just not any grass.

--the garage is all sheet-rocked and painted. there was so much stuff in it, it was hard to tell. and there is still stuff in it, because they couldn't get the salvation army to come pick it up on a sunday. do they even know what the salvation army is?!?!? of course they aren't going to pick up stuff on a sunday! (oh my goodness--just wait until you read the blog about why that stuff is still in the garage...)

--the storage shed (which i am sure the city of cerritos will make us remove if they ever discover that it is there) is pretty spacious. although, rollie has already laid claim to it's spaciousness, so really this is irrelevant to ME!

--two of our neighbors have dogs. (this is both good and bad--good, because i think they will be more tolerant of our dogs' barking, but bad, because our dogs will probably bark more!)

--some of the switch plate covers are really cool. some of them. the rest are icky,

but i am hopeful that i can find more of the cool ones...

it was nice to finally be in our new home. it isn't perfect. yet. but we have some plans for a facelift. and when we get done, then i am sure it will be perfect. but for now, we are going to go to burger king, get some dinner, and come back and eat it at our new house.

just because we CAN! :-)