As I sit writing on my new porch, in a pretty red rocking chair that I "inherited," the chaos of the last few weeks, or months, feels a little surreal. The passing of time, as well as the fact that God has been changing my heart towards the seller of our home, means you'll get a much different story today than had I written it in the fury and frustration of last week. So here's the story of how we ended up in this pretty, blue, two-story home, built in 1910 by an ice cream maker whose daughter was an artist.
When it comes to houses, Elijah and I are pretty picky. We gave our realtor a LONG list of requirements and restrictions when it came to what we were looking for. Add in the fact that the housing inventory was extremely low when we started looking (in March) and there just wasn't much coming up in our price range that was in our liking.
Another problem, was that we didn't know
where we wanted to live.... The Cities or Rochester area? Town or country? We were soooo confused. We ended up searching both in the Cities and in the Rochester area, working with two different realtors for a short time... kinda messy. Anyways, after falling in love with an old home in the country, putting an offer in on a different house in downtown Rochester, and then nearly giving up on finding ANYTHING we'd settle on, we were getting pretty burnt out on the house search.
Until one day, Elijah called me into the office and said, "What do you think about this home?" I was skeptical. There was only one picture of the outside of the home-- usually a very bad sign. Also, it was huge and still in our price range-- another sketchy sign. "Sigh.... we can go look at it if you want.." I said.
The first hurdle was getting into the house to take a look. The seller was too "busy." After days of hassling, we finally got in. At this point, we were informed that it was a divorce case and only half of the couple wanted to sell. We knew we needed to get in and out and make a decision, quick! We quickly decided that yes, it was just what we wanted (after touring dozens and dozens of homes, you just know). We put in an offer that night. And then waited, and waited. We waited 2 weeks (instead of the usual 2 day time limit) to hear back from the seller-- whether it was a yes, a no or a counter-offer. They countered and also pushed back the closing date 2 weeks, which at that point was 2 1/2 months away. We accepted and then celebrated~ Yay! We're buying our first home!
Then the trouble began. I noticed that the closing date was set for a Sunday-- but the bank isn't open on Sundays. I asked our realtor if this was a problem. She said, no, we'd just have to get the seller(s) to sign an amendment, pushing the closing date either up two days or back a day. Inwardly, I groaned, knowing that getting the seller's signature the first time was a MIRACLE. Getting it a second time would be tough. I was right. She refused to sign the amendment (for no reason). We waited a month, trying to get her to sign it. Meanwhile, I am packing up our entire house, which is not my favorite thing in the world to do....
After a lot of drama and people making sacrifices on both ends, she ended up signing-- 3 days before we were supposed to close!! But she said she'd need more time to pack her house-- she hadn't even started. The cut-off on our pre-approved interest rate was coming up quickly, so we said the most we could give her was 1 week.
Closing day came-- I was so nervous about what we'd find at "our" new house. During the walk-through before closing, the home is supposed to be empty and move-in ready. Instead, we were greeted by a barking dog in the house. And a cat and parakeets. Oh, and an entire house full of stuff-- Beyond all the normal clothes, furniture, etc. there was a huge attic piled waist deep, a basement jam packed with stuff and a garage over-flowing. We looked at our realtor in disbelief...."What now?" Legally, as of closing (which was in an hour), all of the belongings left in the home would belong to us. But we didn't really
want such a hefty inheritance. We just wanted to move in with our relatively meager belongings.
The long and short of it is that we let the seller move as much out the first two days that we owned the house. After that we had someone clean it and we've been hauling stuff out (to the curb, a dumpster or Good Will) ever since. With anything sentimental (family photos, baby clothes, etc.) we get word out to the seller (through someone else) that there will be stuff she wants on the porch. But, we've been left with a lot of garbage-- and some treasures, too, like my awesome red rocking chair :)
I am now quickly picking up the hobby of gardening as I have huge, huge gardens that haven't been tended to in a few years. My parents have been a HUGE help in clearing out brush and identifying flowers vs. weeds. We are very sllllowly getting things put together to make a home. Much slower than this type-A, everything-needs-a-place girl would like. But through all of it I'm learning patience. And grace. And compassion for a family that has had some hard-knocks and that is just struggling to remain in-tact. Life sometimes throws us some weeds in the garden-bed.... But you just have to pluck them and keep going.
Thankful for our new house. Come sit on our porch and talk awhile :)
Jackie
