the frustration of buying a bank-owned house and what i'm doing in the meantime

Aaaagh! I'd love to give an update on our housing process, but there is NOTHING to share. Everyone told us not to hear back from the bank when we made our offer, and they ended up accepting it right away which was great. But now they're dragging their feet on every little thing. We were supposed to get our inspection done in the five days after the offer went through, and it's been over two weeks now because the bank's agent still hasn't turned on the utilities! I'm fairly certain that that's a simple phone call to the electric and water companies. Very frustrating. Also, our contract stated that the seller would provide us with the by-laws to the townhome community within three days of a ratified contract. Still haven't seen them. Our (amazing) realtor has emailed the selling agents every day, and they're still just plodding along. Double frustrating!

So, in the meantime I have been getting well acquainted with the world of decorating blogs. I guess I thought I decorated at the apartment, but now that I'm realizing all of the opportunities and potential in a house that I own, my brain is starting to go crazy. Crazy with joy!

I've been checking Apartment Therapy almost daily. They put up multiple posts a day with fab new furniture, before and after projects, and the best... house tours. Love those. (My favorite part of going to people's houses has always been "the tour" after dinner.) Here are some fun inspiration pics I've collected from AT.

Apartment Therapy

Luurve this settee. I would love to find some funky fabric like this and upholster an old chair.

Apartment Therapy

I love the mix of patterns and the framed scarf on the wall. I could frame a scarf. Also, check out that sweet wallpaper in the back room. (More on my rapidly changing feelings towards wall paper later.)

Apartment Therapy

We love books and would love to do some sort of library wall in our new place. If you look closely through these shelves you can see that they're the cheap kind with the cardboard-ish backing. We already have two of these from Walmart that were $35 each. Nice to know that swanky Apartment Therapy peeps do it too!

Apartment Therapy

Ikat print and a ceramic garden stool? No cake for me, this is my dessert. 

Apartment Therapy

I could seriously drool over this closet. But look! See how those shoes are stored on a bookshelf? Totally doing that in our new closet. Then I get to see all my pretty patent pals all the time.

Can you tell I'm excited to get started in our new place? Ha! Now if only the stupid bank agent would turn on the stupid utilities!!! Grrr.

~ Wearing: Awesome new patterned tunic from Ross (We're getting a Ross in Hanover soon, plus a Target! Woohoo!) I paired it with gray tights and boots for church this morning then with skinnies in the pm. Love tunics. Eating: We made awesome omelets for Sunday brunch today. Listening to: Not listening to anything cause I should really be in bed. 1:30am, yikes!

Faded Photograph

Mom and I went to Mimi, my grandmother's, house the other day to look through all of her photo albums. We were going to try to sort through and organize them - ha! That's going to take a lot longer than one afternoon. I'm glad, though. If you're going to keep a lot of something, photos are great. I brought a few albums home to scan this week. Just the tip of the iceberg.

These are from an album that, I believe, belonged to Mimi's mother; that's my great grandmother. All fun pics from the late 20s/early 30s.

They look like some pretty fun, stylish peeps. I wish I could have some of those dresses.

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~ Boring clothes, but AWESOME dinner that I made up all by myself. I made pasta and cooled it for pasta salad. Meanwhile I browned some Italian sausage. Added that to the pasta with spinach, feta, and Greek dressing. Yum! And it was all stuff I had on hand. Music: Florence + the Machine.

Cause I'm That Good of a Blogger

So here I am at my next post, aaaaaaaand we found a house. Should I have taken you through every step, talked about the highs and the lows, the awesome houses and the dives? Yes, of course, but who wants to write when they're completely discouraged and stressed out. Who wants to READ about someone being completely discouraged and stressed out? Trust me, I spared you.

Basically we quickly realized that the houses that we could afford were big, huge, gaping money pits. We tried to talk ourselves into liking a few of them, but they all needed soooo much work. In one, the chimney was crumbling - literally coming off in chunks in our hands. In another, every surface knee height and below was covered in crayon scribbles. One had a kitchen the size of our current bathroom. All sweet, old houses on the outside with tons of character, but we just do not have the time or the funds to put into them.

 Awesome kitchen...

Those are stairs... to the basement.

I don't know, maybe we should keep the handles. And the duct tape to keep the seat from wiggling...

Can you say Grey Gardens?

Then, on a blustery spring day, we found our townhouse! I'll talk about it later. But it's beautiful, just beautiful. And clean, and pretty, and NEW! (Well, 2001. Still, that's about 70 years newer than all the others we looked at.) And it doesn't need a new roof, or black mold removal, or new carpets to replace the ones stained with cat urine. All it needs is a couple buckets of paint. (And a new dining room light fixture, cause that one is ugly.)

Ta-dah!!! (more to come when I can take my own pics)

So our offer was accepted. Now we've gotta have the moolah ready in a little over a month, and we'll be paying a mortgage for pretty much forever..... But I won't think about that now. I'll think about it tomorrow!

http://www.hark.com/clips/jywxyvyfbl-ill-think-about-that-tomorrow

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~ Listening to the church's Easter program music (cause I'm the choreographer! ha.). Wearing boring jeans and a sweater (because I'm annoyed that it's this cold on March 23rd). Leftover stroganoff for dinner. I'll need to find a different recipe though. Not a fan of this one. Tastes like sour cream with beef in it.

the house that love built

Today marks the official start to the Hallead Family Home Search. I finally got up the guts to call the realtor (How do you start that conversation? "Hi, I'm Kara. I wanna buy a house..."). She'll get back to us with some links to start out with, and we should be out looking at houses in person soon! I'm super motivated by the prospect of babies, and Zach by the prospect of off-street parking and a dishwasher - he currently has sole ownership of all dish washing duties.

If you're ever looking for a good laugh just look up houses available in 17331 for less than 150grand. Lots of cute ones from the outside, but most of the insides have not been touched since 1972. We've pretty much resigned ourselves to taking down paneling and ripping out mildewy shag carpeting. But we're handy folks, and up for a challenge. The hard thing for me will be keeping myself from being seduced by the gorgeous old farmhouses around here. I would love NOTHING more than to redo an old farmhouse, but you gotsta have the cash for that.

Needless to say, we're so excited to be homeowners. Today's weather was so gorgeous; just makes me wanna be out in my own yard pulling weeds or something. 2011's gonna be the year of the house for us!

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~ Listening to Nickel Creek's "Anthony". Wearing skinnies, my navy college sweatshirt, and sporting my first ponytail in over a year! (Come on hair, grow!) Ooh, and I made an Asian Beef Broccoli Salad for dinner tonight. You caught me on a good day. ~