We Closed Today

It's no longer my Fixer-Upper. I'm not sad though, so everything's good.

I flew from New York to Fargo this morning, landing in the frigid tundra at 10:3o. By 11:30 I had a pen in my hand and I was signing, signing, signing. I had originally thought that I wouldn't be able to be in town for closing, so it was a nice treat to be able to take part. I'm glad that I could be there at the begininning and the end of this adventure. It was also really nice to see my realtor, Jenny again as we had only been conversing through email and phone-tag for months.

I also met the new owner. This situation could have gone two different ways and, fortunatelly, it went very well. He had two of his kids with him and he seems like a really great guy. He has worked as a contractor and has experience working on houses. Score! He's going to start refinishing the floors soon. I might just have to bring him some holiday cookies or something, just to spy on what the floors look like all cleaned up! His kids had already picked out which room was for whom, and they had picked out their new paint colors. It really made my day just to see them excited to call my old house their new home. Good stuff, people. Good stuff.

So, I suppose this is the last entry about the house. I'll make sure to alert you should I decide to buy another fixer upper someday. Trust me, I'm sure I will. It's just too much fun for me.

My best wishes for a special Christmas and an exciting, adventurous 2009!
-Nathan

Closing Prep & Lock Set

Just getting ready for closing tomorrow. I got myself set up for utilities, so I can get the bills coming. Great. I also took a self-guided final walk-through because the house isn't locked. Should I be concerned about that?

I ran out to Menards and bought two new doorknobs and two deadbolts. I don't need any old tenants reappearing in my bathroom!

I'm so excited to just have my house. My house! Yes!

Closing & Floor Plans

Closing has been set! Wednesday at 4pm. Done deal.

I did a little floor plan to help illustrate the work I'll be starting this week.

The red represents walls and doors that are being removed, and the green is where doors and walls are being added. If you were confused about some of the picture angles, go ahead and cross reference them with the plans. Hopefully that helps get a feeling for the layout of the house. Good thing I have all of this architecture software!

T-minus 2 days! Hold on to your hats!

BEFORE GALLERY: Basement and FAVORITES!

I realized today that I didn't include pictures of the basement or the nice little touches the house has. The basement is pretty utilitarian, so we'll breeze through it and move on to the favorites.


The Basement:


Here you see the two giant oil tanks, one behind the other. The second picture shows the furnace (from the 1970's, Eek!) and a bike that I kind of hope the seller leaves. I could ride it to work (8 blocks away) and my Architecture studio (12 blocks). The third photo shows the rusty, non functioning washer and dryer. My parents are getting me a washer and dryer as a house warming gift. I wonder if they'd take the old ones in a trade?


Ok, now for the good stuff. These are pictures of my favorite little things in the house that I think are charming that just need a little polishing up.

I wasn't satisfied with the last photo of the fireplace because it was so dark. I photoshopped this one to make it brighter so you can see the color of the brick and how nicely it goes with the woodwork.

This is a sconce in the living room. It is missing the candle part that would hold the bulb, and there isn't any wiring in it. Actually, all it does is cover the exposed wiring I saw during the first walk-through. I'll be replacing this one, but I still think it's cool. The oval on top is a picture of a sailing ship, but I couldn't take a picture without the glare from the flash.

The house has two glass doorknobs. One lives in the living room closet, the other in the upstairs bathroom. I really wish they were throughout the house, but two is better than none. Btw, look at how close the door comes to the bathroom sink. What am I going to do with that!?!

The attic! I'm really excited to go crawling around up there. I remember three halloweens ago when I crawled up into the attic at Sigma Nu where I've lived the last three years. It was so cool to see what I could find up in the insulation and dust. I hope there are some little treasures up there! By treasures I mean shiny pieces of old metal or buttons or something. I'm not lucky enough for anything of value!

No word yet on the closing. I'm still hoping for Friday.

Tonight I have a wedding rehearsal for my friends Eric and Lindi who are getting married on Saturday. The wedding reception is going to be downtown, eight blocks from the house. I hope I will have closed by Saturday so I can walk home from the reception (since I predict I may be consuming some adult beverages!) I'm a groomsman, so I definatelly need a picture of me in my tux leaning on my fireplace mantle. Smoking a pipe? Too much?

Speaking of weddings, I need to give a little happy anniversary shout-out to my parents who were married 27 years ago today. Happy anniversary Mom & Dad!!!

Final thought: The listing agent picked up the 'For Sale' sign yesterday from the house without so much as a 'SOLD' sign. I wanted to take dumb pictures with that sign!!! I'm kinda pissed! You only buy your first house once!

Catch-22, No Closing For You!!!

So, it all gets more complicated. One of the stipulations to my FHA mortgage from hell is that, because my cosigner (thanks Dad!) is not living in the property, I can't purchase a multi-unit house. I was unaware of this when I made my offer, so now after the appraisal, everyone's freaking out about this duplex that isn't even supposed to be a duplex!

Basically, the house counts as a duplex because it has two kitchens. One will be my bedroom, but try telling that to my bank! So herein lies the catch-22: I can't close until I remove the kitchen, but I can't remove the kitchen until I close! Grrr...

I talked with the listing agent to see how we could fix this situation so I can FINALLY close on the dang house. I said that I would be able to do all the work necessary to seal the deal if the seller would allow it, I'd just need access to the house. Luckily, the seller was OK with this and tomorrow morning I'm doing the necessary changes for my loan to go through. I need to remove the oven (it's a mini apartment stove, about 2.5 ft. wide) and the kitchen sink, essentially rendering the kitchen unusable. All I have to do after that is take some photos to email to the appraisal company. The underwriters come next, then closing. Hopefully Friday. Better be Friday!

I looked up Mr. Somes' obituary at the library while I was on campus today to see what it said. Yeah, I'm a creeper but I'm interested about the history of the house! There was a picture in his obituary, which was really interesting to see. You don't usually get to have an image of someone who lived in your house over fifty years ago. The paper said that he served in WWII, how cool is that? As it turns out Mr. Somes was very involved in many community organizations including the American Legion, Elks club, Eagles club, Boy Scouts, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and some sort of business organization. A man after my own heart; I'm in a handfull of student organizations, we must both be prone to joining organizations! He was the branch manager of some sort of business I haven't researched yet. Most impressive though, was that he and his wife managed to raise 6 kids in my 1350 sq. foot 4 bedroom house. Mind you, the second bathroom wasn't added until 1984! I have a lot of respect for Mr. Somes & I'm excited to fix up his house!

Stripping Progress, More Pictures

Well, I finished stripping the majority of the paint off of the second salvaged door, although the interior of this door was much more difficult to strip. The door was originally hung in a bathroom, so the interior had many more layers of paint than the exterior. This wouldn't have been such a problem, but the bottom layer of paint turned to a super sticky glue from hell. You can see this paint on the bottom layer of the scrapings in the photo. I couldn't get as much of this putty-colored crap up as I would have liked, but I'm hoping it will cooperate with the chemical stripper I'm using tonight. Wish me luck.

I took a little trip over to the house to take a couple photos now that my camera is working. I've included here a photo of the porch, the arts and crafts door I have high hopes for once it's refinished, and a sad little attempt at catching an interior image. That's me in the glare.

Here are a couple photos of the exterior. The first photo is with the refurbished basement window leaning up on the porch. Now imageine all of the trim that color. Something about that picture makes me like the white trim, but I suppose that is because it looks so clean. In real life? No, yuck. I've also included photos of the side entry and the back of the house. Look at that weird roof situation in the back! Why would you do that? I guess it's kinda funky & cool; it's definatelly the only roof like that on the block!





In other news, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Well, more like another, much longer tunnel at the end of the tunnel. But anyways, I'M CLOSING ON MONDAY!!! Yes! I can finally get that 'Before' album started. Good times!