Home Sweet Home

Late Wednesday afternoon, I checked redfin.com to see any info on our new house....and there it was!  SOLD!  Correct price!  Had been on Redfin 'zero' days - just posted.  So we knew we'd closed.  A bit later, an email from our realtor confirming we closed, congratulating us on the new house, said it was beautiful!  She knew we had already scheduled the key pickup with the job sup - so we've officially had the keys for just under 24 hours.

We are so, so elated.

My friend P. is moving in to her brand new house in Elk Grove - she had her final walk through a few days earlier and texted me a pic of her standing in front of the "Welcome Home" banner the builder had on her garage door.  I felt a little jealous of the hoopla she had that we didn't - there are still a lot of little things to be done in the house - cabinet trim, a broken window to fix, mirrors and shower glass will arrive on Tuesday (fingers crossed).  We have a refrigerator installed and making ice - but it's not our refrigerator - they delivered the wrong one to our house which means someone else's house has our refrigerator.  It will all get sorted.

B. called yesterday with so much excitement about the house - and then J. texted him a picture of the kitchen and he went crazy over it.  It's a good sign when  your son thinks the kitchen is so beautiful.  And this morning, I sent him a close up picture of the pendants over the island - they are art glass, absolutely stunning and they didn't show the detail in the kitchen pic J. sent.  B. said 'it has such great ambience'!  Thrilled me to know he loves it.

Everyone who's been in it says it's beautiful - but you never know if people are just being polite.

And I've jokingly said 'I think the workers working here are just glad we don't have a deer head on the wall'.   LOL.

We will do a video and/or picture tour of the entire house soon - hopefully, before we bring in our old, dated furniture.  We've budgeted to replace it all but we're not really 'keen' on buying via the Internet.  (Lesson for the next house we build - well, really just a life lesson 'cuz this is the last house we will own:  internet pictures never give an accurate confirmation of how something looks.  The stonework on the front of our house looks completely different from what we thought it would - a comparison again of the picture we used to select it vs. the real thing is just amazingly different.  Way too much 'adobe' coloring in the stone and I specifically picked what I picked because it had very little 'pink' tones according to the picture online.  But oh well.  It looks fine).

So we want to shop for furniture when we're allowed to enter a store and look before we buy.  Hopefully in a couple weeks, we'll be able to do that.

We made a trip over this morning with two loaded cars and will do the same for the next few days - over and over.  We are also continuing the 'purge' and have already thrown out a few things that we know we won't use, no longer like or just plain don't want.  Like moving from Tracy, filling the garbage and recycle bins weekly is our goal - until we vacate the rental officially on May 31st.

I'm looking forward to having time in the house this weekend to start working on pantry organizing, getting the kitchen set up - where should dishes go, silverware, kitchen tools, etc..  I'm going to have to channel my sister K. who is super duper creative and organized.  I'm sure if I get stuck I can text her and she'll offer ideas.  I wish we weren't having a pandemic 'cuz I'd fly her to Reno to give me consulting services - someday.  No idea when.

OH - and this morning at 4:03AM, a 6.5 magnitude earthquake!  I had just gotten back in to bed after using the bathroom.  This one wasn't like the ones we had in March - no loud 'boom' followed by movement.  It was just a long, rolling, really long and rolling quake.  J. slept through it - I have no idea how.  I didn't go back to sleep for quite a while and woke up at 6 groggy.  But got up.  Was excited to start the move process. 

Movers will be here on Wednesday next week to help with stuff we can't move ourselves but we're pretty determined to get as much done as we can before then.  Every hour they don't have to help us move saves $120!  So yay!  We're cheap labor in comparison! 

Stay tuned for pictures and hopefully a video. I just told J. I want to do pics and videoing BEFORE we put our old furniture in the place.  Our furniture is fine....but I really want pics of the house empty to share with family & friends.  Then we can share updates as we get our new dining room and living room furniture in the house eventually.