Sold!!!

Exactly two months ago yesterday we listed our house. It doesn't seem like it has been that long ago. Wednesday it was officially sold but the sold sign didn't go on until Thursday after we waived conditions on the house we were buying. Once again we're making plans for turn a house into a home. We are both very excited!

Details: The house is single family well maintained brick two level with the lower level entirely below grade at the front of the house but exposed at the back much like building a house into the side of a hill. It is brick with solid structure. The yard is divided into three main areas - garage to road, garage to house, house to water. The side yards are what I would consider access areas but like the rest of the property are all maturely landscaped.

What we are gaining: The house is set on property geared towards friendly privacy. We really like this instead of fences! There's practically no privacy in our current home so that in itself will be a real plus. The house is on a dead end road off the main road so traffic will be minimum. Other gains - separate utility room, cold storage, guest room, larger dock, gas fireplace, bigger garage and mature landscaping.

What we are giving up: We are giving up the large vegetable garden and greenhouse. The moving date is early enough that I will be able to plant a few vegetables and will have some in containers but for the most part will not have any kind of formal vegetable garden this year.

We had decided to buy the other house regardless whether the HVAC or built-in appliances were working. Our reasoning for this was we have all new major appliances except the dishwasher which I had planned on replacing here this summer anyway. We found out in the early stages the AC wasn't working there and because of the age likely wasn't repairable. The owner compensated by offering to leave her three year old washer and dryer. Neither are energy efficient and since we have new front loaders, we will likely sell hers to offset some of the costs of a new AC. Yesterday we went through again to measure for appliances. We will have to do a kitchen remodel to remove her built-in stovetop and oven so the JennAir will fit but that shouldn't be too bad and it was something we knew we would have to do. Rechecking the furnace confirmed we need to go furnace shopping as well. It's a Clare Megasave I that is almost 24 years old. A bit of research revealed that we can't get parts for this beast and besides we want a high efficiency furnace something we had planned on replacing at this house. We replaced our hot water tank with an energy efficient one just over a year ago but the new house has a rental hot water tank so we will have to replace that. Oh and we found out yesterday after we had signed the papers the dishwasher didn't work so it looks like I'll be getting my much coveted Bosch. Other than that, the house is in move in condition and didn't present any problems we weren't expecting.

We had a chance to meet one couple next door who invited us in for drinks. I'm going to have to work on that aging process a bit more because they thought we might have young kids! They are really a nice couple with a lot of the same interests as us.

So there it is in a nutshell, signed, sealed, delivered and SOLD!