Still Unpacking

So I thought it'd be a fun idea to start a blog to keep everyone who's not in the Bay Area up to date on what we're doing w/ the house. I decided to call it D and K's Money Pit since that's where all of our funds are going and because of the 80's movie with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, which D and I both love. (Not that our place is anything near that bad, purley comedic) Here' a little clip to jog your memory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSGMDHMAJrY

We moved in last week, after much hassle and stress with the escrow company at the end. If you have a choice, do NOT ever work with Integrity Escrow. We were supposed to close by the end of '08, and due to their incompetence we didn't close until Jan. 7, which was our very last day to be out of the condo. Talk about down to the wire! The escrow company lost the deed, which prevented the transaction from progressing until it was replaced. They didn't bother to mention this to us until we kept pressing them to close the deal. Thank God Gail, my boss and realtor, was all over them or else it still wouldn't have closed. Such are the hassles of buying a foreclosed property I suppose.

The notion that we actually 'own' a house is starting to seep in more and more, especially when it comes to fixing things! No more easy calls to property management. At the same time, it's nice to know we can do whatever we want. Pros and cons as usual.

One of our biggest challenges right now is keeping the fire going all night so we aren't freezing our asses of come morning. We have electric baseboard heaters in the bedrooms, but not in the living areas, so we're totally reliant on the fireplace for heat out there. This morning it was 47 degrees in the living room. The cold makes us really motivated to get out the door for work in the morning. At least the car heats up quickly and we have seat heaters!!

I put together a virtual tour of the house which you can see here: http://www.visualtour.com/show.asp?T=1772406&prt=10003
I will do another one once we're all settled so you can see what we've done w/ the place.