Paintbrush, scraper, Hurry!

So we have been aware of the difficulty of the lottery system for getting into the local immersion school pretty much since Maddie came home, but this spring after learning the stats of just how many families applied, how many slots there were, and how many neighborhood vs. non neighborhood, we realized we needed to make a decsion.  Do we want the girls in the program? YES.  So there was just one choice: Move.  We are not selling this house, we will rent it out, this is the house we love, but we need to be in neigborhood for the program for the lottery in March, and we'll need to be there at least two years.  So we called our Realtor and got right to work.
a week later, Jeremy had an out of town gig for 3 days- the night before he left we had seen a house online, it was tiny but great. We can make do, and anything that would work for us and our little family for a few years, will also be great as a future rental.  So he left saying "Go buy a house!" - I met our realtor later that day & called him and said "So, how much do you love me? Did you really mean that? Can I make an offer on a house you haven't seen yet?"  His answer was, "well, you had more equity in your house when we met, so I trust your decisions!" I love my husband!  We made an offer but didn't get it- there were 3 offers with the last one coming in AS they were reviewing ours and another family's offer.  The next day, while Jeremy was still out of town, another house came on the market. I called our realtor and met her there that day- it was also  an excellent option for us for a few years and substantially larger than the first one- this time Jeremy let us make an offer on a house he had not even seen photos of!  Can I just say here what an amazing husband I have?

He came back into town the next day and went to see it and thout also it was a good choice, so all was good, we moved forward.  The sellers had inherited the property and it had been a rental for the last 10 years- they agreed to only do lender required work. Well, we go through the inspections to find it needs several thousand dollars in dry rot repair, a new roof, a new sewer line to the street, and a radon mitigation system!  Over $12,000 in repairs!  We had to get an extension on the repair addendum but the listing realtor was very fair & explained to his client that these were very basic things any buyer would ask for. Did I mention a higher offer had come in after the seller accepted our offer? I think for awhile they were hoping we'd be scared off by the repairs! Obviously they don't know us! ha ha!

Finally the seller agreed to pay all of those items, except for the whole new roof. They wanted to just have about $1000 in repairs done- it was at the end of it's life so we just had a new roof done & they contributed the $1000 towards it and we paid the difference.   But, because there were so many big repairs, it all took a little longer and we had to delay closing.  We were supposed to close on Monday- but it was pushed out to tomorrow (Friday.)  We have every weekend between now and our move date in about a month scheduled with babysitters & contractors, etc- so that we can get all the work done (painting, floor refinishing, carpet removal, etc.) before we move in.  As we closed in on the end of this week, we were frantically going by the new house to be sure work was done- The people coming to trim vegetation 6" back from the house didn't come Wednesday as they were supposed to, so we clipped some of it back Wednesday night, and they finally came Thursday- same day as the Appraiser was coming! Yikes!  The loan will not fund tomorrow unless the Appraiser can submit photos showing all the required repairs were done! 

After our signing today, Jeremy had to take his work van back to work and pick up his truck, and I went to pick Maddie up from her new school.  On our way to go pick up Violet from her school, I thought, let's swing by the house and be sure the vegetation really WAS cut back, not that there was anything we could do at that point since the appraiser was supposed to have come 2 hours before and the report has to be submitted by 10 am on Friday if we want to fund on Friday and have our keys for the weekend.  Did I mention the plan to be there painting all weekend?  Well, I pulled in the driveway and told Maddie I was going to check on the porch- there was one bush (I think a camelia or something like that) that was right up against the porch ceiling- and I could see it was not trimmed! Yikes!!!  As I was on the porch looking at that, I heard someone say "Are you the realtor?" and I saw a man across the street- I said, "no, I'm the buyer, we just signed today" and he said "oh I'm the appraiser and there is still peeling paint that needs to be scraped before this can be approved."  As my jaw drops to the floor, I grab Maddie from the car and we head inside and he shows me the peeling paint on the upstairs windows. We chat a few minutes and he says he lives about 30 minutes away and won't be back until his first appt. at 11 tomorrow morning- Yikes! We can't fund! No keys until next week!  I plead with him and he says "well, maybe I could go get something to eat and come back" after I explain we could have it done in an hour- what luck! He was more than 2 hours later than we were told he was coming, and I just randomly had HAPPENED to stop, and he was just about to leave when I arrived.... how fortuitous!

SoI called our realtor and told her what was going on (and she also said "wow, that is amazing he will do that for you!) and then I called Jeremy and said "where are you?" (remember he had driven to his work to drop off the work van and get his truck)- he was just a few minutes away, so as I was driving quickly to get Violet, I quickly explained the situation and said "get Paint, get brushes, get scrapers, get paint clothes for me and cheese sticks for the girls, I'll met you at the house in a few minutes!"  So we all rushed back over, and scraped and painted as fast as we could. Fortunately, we are replacing all the windows anwyay, but FHA requires no peeling paint, so it still had to be done- but as we are replacing windows anyway, we didn't need to be neat!  Just as I was painting the last window, Jeff the appraiser came back!  Perfect timing- he took the photos he needed and promised the report would be sent out this evening!  Yay!!
I had swung by and picked up some drive through food between picking up Violet and getting back to the house, so we all went on the back porch afterwards and sat and ate some dinner, knowing full well, this is going to be one of those crazy memories about the new house that we will contine to laugh about and be amazed about for some time to come! 

We are now back on schedule, we should have our keys tomorrow, and we will be spending the weekend painting!