Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Construction begins!!! (Soon)




Yikes.

It’s been a while since we’ve had a posting but mostly because there hasn’t been much to tell. (Our apologies to Mrs. Flaum who’s voiced her protest at the delay between postings)


Since the closing, we’ve just been getting our ducks in a row and figuring out all the building rules for construction (plus dealing with some over-zealous neighbors) and lining things up with our contractor.

Amanda’s excited to design our dream home and personally I’m excited to not have to do as much…although I did have the unfortunate experience of having to talk design in Amanda’s place while she was away for two weeks. My go-to line at this point is ‘whatever Amanda says.” It’s just like in my previous life, when all else failed I would say, ‘I’m just happy to be here!’

Not much else yet…we are hoping to break ground next week although I’m still waiting on one last piece of information from someone on our board. Ideally we wanted to move in by our anniversary, but now if we move in by god’s anniversary that will work too. (I’m not sure when God’s anniversary actually is…is that the new year…and what anniversary is it we’d be celebrating…anyway, I digress).

I’m not complaining about having to spend what I think will be an extra two months with my in-laws…it’s just that I’m complaining about having to spend an extra two-months with my in-laws.

Until next time.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Updated from the home front




So the latest from the trenches is that we closed on Friday, to a mostly uneventful meet and greet. Actually completely uneventful. Closings are one of the more boring, things, and an attempt is made by so many people to make small talk when half the parties don’t want to be there.

I can honestly see why I’d make a terrible lawyer. (No offense to my love Abbey). The attention to detail and fine print involved is so important and the amount of things to sign and keep track of so vast, that it blows the mind.

The day started in Brooklyn, where Amanda and I met with our broker and the sellers and did our walkthrough. It was also non eventful, and kind of weird to see the place with the no furniture, but also awesome how much bigger the place really looked. Interestingly enough, we brought the camera to take pictures but decided against it…one of these odd choices in life, and I’m not sure.

Scratch that…my wife apparently took ‘some’ pictures of light fixtures and what not, but we didn’t get that many so I’ll leave it at that. We went through, tested the lights, the water, basically everything they tell you to test and it all seemed fine. I’m sure something will be off once we get there but that comes with the territory.

Then we had some time to kill with our broker so we got some coffee in Brooklyn and suddenly realized that everyone in the world has a baby carriage. Not that it should come as a shock the sheer amount of families and mothers here in Park slope, but I think this was the first time we were able to sit and relax and think about the area and see it for what it was. During the 45 minutes we had coffee, there were 10 different strollers coming in and out (which is tough when you find yourself always maneuvering and canoodling yourself out of the way) and at least 3 in the coffee shop kibitzing with friends.

Anyhow, the closing was uneventful…the seller was late which was fine since we were a little hesitant in meeting him since the whole ‘livid’ debacle. (We explained finally in detail to our broker what had happened and he said that if he had known then he would have conveyed better to them, but oh well). But he was actually very nice, cordial and quiet. The funniest part was that his lawyer didn’t come but sent an associate in his place, and the lawyer thought he was from a bank and didn’t let him set next to her at first b/c she was saving it for ‘her client.’ That was awesome.

So we signed a million papers, including some Talmudic law that said that since we were getting our mortgage from a Jewish firm, we weren’t allowed to be charged interest, so we weren’t actually getting a mortgage but actually going into a partnership for one day or something like that…a way of circumventing the rules of the bible. (I had forgotten to mention that our mortgage brokerage firm was very very Jewish…there were mezuzahs on the filing cabinets!). So it was very funny to say the least. Basically I think we were partners and paid them a $1 or something. Very odd.

And so the day went, rather uneventfully…Amanda and I had a lunch with our broker and then hopped on a plane to North Carolina for the weekend.

Thus, Part 1 of our adventure officially officially (intentionally repeated word) ends, and part 2 begins. This weekend we are going with our contractor and designer to pick out our sinks, toilets and other fun stuff, and hopefully we will begin renovations next week!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

"I'm So Impressed!"


This is a surprise post for Chew (I am making a rare guest blog appearance!)

The 2 people that read this blog (super YAY for Abbey for commenting on almost every post-lots of love for ya) should really know how super amazing and wonderful MattChew has been from the moment we put our bid down until now. I can't claim that I had much to do with the details of acquiring of the apartment, because I didn't really.

From the very beginning, Chew was on a mission to understand EVERYTHING involving apartment hunting-how and why it rocks, and of course, how/why it sucks. And then he sought to educate others! (the other being Abbey, who knows all this stuff anyway).

SO-I want to give a MAJOR shout out and props to my hubby CHEW-who is so friggin awesome for taking care of everything. You should feel very proud of yourself for this major accomplishment.

Now it's my turn with the renos!

PS. That is a picture of my adorable husband from our Honeymoon. It is also the face he will be making all day after our closing. (Babe, I almost chose the bathing cap one, but decided to be nice ;-)

It’s closing…it’s closing time!

Ok…tomorrow it finally will happen.

The papers will be signed. The keys handed over. The deeds (shares) will be ours.

Hopefully as of this time tomorrow, Amma and I will officially be homeowners. And officially have bough the single most expensive thing in our entire lives. Luckily, this is one that has a great return and keeps its value!

This is short and sweet, but we are psyched, and barring our 915am walk through tomorrow morning being relatively uneventful, then all will be well.

Then we begin part 2 of our adventure, which will chronicle the renovations!