The House Saga - Introduction

I actually started "blogging" about the house on a couple of other sites, so my first item of business will be to consolidate all of the disparate postings into this one "official" location. I will attempt to spread this task out over a few days, but I have a tendency to hyperfocus, so who knows - I may have all the posts up by the end of the day.

A bit of background...

My personal financial/"life" goal to become a property owner had long been to--once I got all my college student loans paid off--buy a house. I'd always sort of figured I'd become a property owner about the same time I got married and was ready to start a family of my own, but life has other ideas sometimes. So, barring the "husband and kids" idea, I could at least "buy a house" on my own if it came to it.

Nine years after graduating from college, my student loans were paid off (joy and rapture!), and so I began the house hunt. It quickly became apparent that "what I could afford" would not yield me my "dream" home, but paying rent on my apartment every month was starting to make me feel a little ill, thinking of all the money that was just "going away" instead of building personal equity. So I looked at several houses and finally selected one in the same neighborhood where my parents live (just down the street, really, though not physically ON the same street). I knew I liked the neighborhood, it was a decent size, had a nice fenced-in yard, and, best of all, a lovely big 2-car garage, so I would no longer have to scrape ice off my windows before heading to work in the winters.

The house had some obvious cosmetic flaws (badly needed new gutters and other exterior repairs - back yard was completely torn up by their dogs - the kitchen was both hideous and non-functional for someone who actually enjoys COOKING - the bathroom was in sore need of cleaning - that sort of thing), but nothing seemed too dire. So I put in an offer, and signed the papers at the end of March 2007.

I had to be out of my apartment by the beginning of June, so in my naïveté I thought a month would be plenty of time to "spruce the place up" and get all moved in. I envisioned a Comedy in Three Acts: Act One - Redo the Kitchen. Act Two - Paint/Decorate the Interiors. Act Three - Exterior Touch-Ups/Landscaping. Move all my stuff in and End Scene! Take a bow - Thunderous Applause! Live happily ever after.

The house, unfortunately, had other plans.

Thus, the Tragedy unfolds...

And - Curtain!