Just The Mays Family: We Closed!!!

We closed! We closed! We closed! We closed! Monday was so exciting! We got up early and loaded our moving truck. Since everyone was at work, it was just Jessie and me. (My Nana watched Sam.) I am not good at lifting furniture. In fact, I couldn’t get the bed. But that is okay. We got most of it in one load. Then we went to closing! Which went so smoothly! We got all the money back that we were promised. All the paperwork was right except for one number, and they fixed it within 5 minutes, while we were still sitting there. And that part didn’t really have anything to do with us. It was for the seller. Anyway, Jessie had to sign all the papers. I just signed the ones that put me on the deed. There weren’t very many like I thought there would be. It took about an hour. That was with waiting on them to fix that one part, and sitting around and talking a few times. And going over each paper before we signed it. It was very exciting! And then after that, we went to get the water turned on, picked up some pizzas for lunch, and my brother-in-law and sister-in-law came over and rescued me! lol BIL helped Jessie unload the big stuff, and SIL kept me company and helped me separate boxes and all, which cut the time in half, which is a good thing since I already have so much to do. We have more stuff that I thought…

Anyway, we have everything we need now. Utilities, all in our name. We got a washer and dryer, which was the only thing we were really needing. And I got an AMAZING deal on them! We went to a little shop on the side of the road and we were just going to buy a junk looking dryer to last about 6 months so we can pay off our bed and buy a new one. Honestly, I doubt we will buy a new one now because I Love the set we got so much. They aren’t exactly a matching set, but they are both Whirlpool and they are both silver and white. It is just that the dryer in one of those glass front loaders. And the washer is a top loader. But it met my requirement. It has a handwash cycle! Which saves me a ton of time! They are in near perfect shape with a 30 day warranty, $250.00-NO TAX! Which worked out perfect because $250.00 is what we had in out budget. Their normal sets were $200.00, but for all the extra stuff it came with, I know I made the best choice. There are a zillion different settings on the washer. From load size to how long you want to wash to what are you washing. Which, the one we had in the apartment was just, “Light, Medium, or Heavy” And the dryer has a billion buttons! I can even choose how loud I want the beep to be when the dryer is done. And it shows digitally you how many minutes it has left. Idk It is all just very cool. Same with the stove. Comes with some cool gadgets. And the refrigerator, same. Slide out drawers, drawers labeled for and kept at a certain temperature for different things. I can set the humidity for my fruits and vegetable drawers. And it is side by side, which I always Loved, but never had one like that.

As far as the house goes, I am extremely satisfied. I told Jessie I really think we made the right choice. It is just perfect for who we are. Jessie is very excited about his basement. In fact, he already got a pool table, got a great deal for it too, only $100.00 and it has been refelted. Came with two sticks and the balls. It is one of those huge ones you find in a pool hall, but the coin mechanism was taken out. He also bought some signs from the same guy to go up in there. The garage is two car, so we can park both our cars. Jessie just has to keep his work van outside. But the driveway is big enough for the van to be there and for me to be able to back out of the garage.

Upstairs, I do a lot of laundry while I cook, so having the laundry room in the kitchen is perfect. The living room is HUGE-to us anyway. We got a storage closet for games, very accessible for family game night. J Guest bathroom. Three rooms. Right now I am piling boxes and stuff to give away in the extra room. Got Sam’s room all set up. (Except got to put together her new bed. Haven’t done that.) She also has her own art closet beside her room, which is bigger than her old one. We were able to fit what we fit in the other one, plus some. And I know I can get more in there. Before, I had to put all her egg cartons and toilet paper rolls and such in a bag on the floor of the closet. Now I have an entire shelf to use for it. Our room reminds me a lot of our old one at the apartment. In fact, the first night Jessie and I both woke up in the middle of the night like, “Why are we in the apartment?” Then we realized we weren’t…Our closet isn’t a walk in closet, so there is a lot less room that way, but we have our own bathroom! I like that better. We can set the alarm at night and it won’t go off. There is a motion sensor in the hallway, so if we got up and went to the hall bathroom, it would go off. We have an attic, but after hearing sounds up there, I don’t think I will be storing anything up there. And I am also pretty excited about outside. We have an awesome porch to hang out on. Sam can play in the yard without getting yelled at to be quiet. (Which, it is pretty awesome to not hear someone banging on the floor when Sam starts to get hyper.) And also, Jessie has already established an area for his fire pit. We are using wood from the tree we had cut down. He has it all neatly stacked and some of it is longer pieces to use for benches.

I LOVE THIS HOUSE!

We have already had our share of doing our own work. Jessie had to fix the silver vent that comes out of the floor for the dryer since we ripped it by accident. The faucet was leaking and we didn’t realize it on our final walk through, so we had to fix that. And then of course there was the tree cleanup before we bought the house.

Oh, one complaint. Whoever built this house was two things: dangerous and stupid. Must have been a man. J The bedroom doors swing into the closet doors when you open them, so there is a dent in each one of the closet doors where they have been swung open. That’s okay though. I fixed it. I put Sam’s backpack on her doorknob so that when she opens the door the bag stops it from hitting the closet. Also, our deadbolts are keyed. So we do not have a bottom lock on the door, just a deadbolt, and you have to use the key to lock and unlock it. Which is really dangerous if there is a fire, but if we want to lock the door, we have to do it! So when we don’t have company, we just leave the key in the door. We have like 6 keys, enough to put one in each lock. On top of that, he put in a drop in stove, which can tip very easily. Talk about getting burned. Anyway, those are my only two complaints. They could have been put in after the house was built, but I really doubt it.

I am just so glad this closing thing is all finally over. I really Love the place we chose and I hope we stay here a long time.

Oh, and our mortgage payment-WITH taxes and insurance is $625.18-fixed rate mortgage, so the only thing that will probably go up in the future is our taxes. From what I hear, taxes go up every year, but the lady that sold us the house just gave us a paper with next year’s taxes on it, and they actually went down! But anyway, we aren’t paying much more than we were paying in the apartment! And we didn’t pay taxes in the apartment. We had renters insurance, but that was it, $12.00 a month. Our electric will probably go up, but she said it isn’t that much because it is insulated so well. Her bill was usually around $130.00. And of course we will have to pay water, but that isn’t expensive. But we get trash for free since we pay city taxes on our house. We live right inside the city limits, so apparently you get lots of perks for that, including cheaper house insurance.

Here are some pics: We still gotta paint, probably in the next few weeks. The walls aren’t bad. I just prefer different colored rooms and semi gloss paint. And of course Jessie wants to finish the basement, which he should start on in the next month or two, but anyway, this is what we got so far. And I didn't take a pic of the garage, because I can't get a good pic and it is just a normal garage.