Well, today was the long-awaited home closing in Toledo. 4651 Ventura is now ours, and we’re just waiting for the seller to call us and let us know when she’s vacated the premises. Transfer utilities, get the keys, find out when trash day is. Yeah.
The only hairy part of today’s closing was reconciling the electrical work we’d requested. See, the outlets in the kitchen and basement weren’t grounded, so that was the main thing we’d asked the owner to get done before closing. When we went through with Rebecca the realtor at 11am this morning for the final walkthrough, we discovered that the kitchen outlets had been fixed, but the downstairs outlets had been replaced with new two-prong outlets instead of wired for the pre-existing three-prong. WTF? When we got to the closing, we found that the seller’s electrician had only brought them up to code by eliminating the possibility of trying to plug in an applicance that needed grounding. I guess that makes some sort of sense… *shrug*
At any rate, our realtor stuck by her guns and made the seller and her realtor (and her electrician, via cell phone) realize that they hadn’t done what we asked. In the end, the seller cut us a check for the estimate on getting the job done right (which Rebecca had gotten faxed to her office while Aaron and I were enjoying a huge lunch at Charlie’s Coney Island).
So… we’re homeowners. Rock on.
FYI, the offer still stands, to anyone who will be in the Toledo or BG area in a few weeks when we move: if you help us move, we’ll buy you food. That seems to be the going rate for moving assistance amongst our group of friends. That, and future indebtedness to the next person who needs help with a move.
We spent a lot of the afternoon contemplating what our future weekend projects will be, including but not limited to:
- Trimming Bushes
- Cleaning Gutters
- Replacing Downspouts
- Raking Last Fall’s Leaves
- Reseeding Sections of Lawn
And, of course, arranging and re-arranging our furniture. Especially since we’ll have to keep the downstairs bare of furnishings until we get the electrician in to fix his attempt at a quick-fix. Then we’ll be moving out desks and computers and bookshelves and musical instruments downstairs. Eventually we’ll get some new furniture, too, and put the old stuff down there for a lounging and reading area… but that’s still a ways away.
Long day. Busy day. Whew.
In other news, Aaron took the night off and we rented Lost In Translation. We’re still not sure what we thought of it. I think it accomplished what it set out to accomplish by leaving us feeling slightly disjointed. It’s worth a watch, especially if you’re into Japanese culture (Sheryl, have you seen it yet?), but I don’t plan to watch it again.