Settling in

We've been in our house for a couple of weeks now and settling in just fine. However; they never tell you when you buy the house that you always have to expect the unexpected.

Welcome to home buying 101.

Not that it hasn't been too bad. Let me see. There was the small crack in the ceiling over the patio door that we swear wasn't there at the final walk-through, the fifteen foot corroded dryer hose or the paneling that is starting to buckle in the basement.

With visions of being an episode of Holmes Inspection (if you watch HGTV, you'll know what I'm talking about) dancing in my head, my husband and I set out to find someone to fix them. Thankfully, we found him through a friend.

Thank God for Vern (and yes, that is his name). He explained the buckling paneling (cheap paneling with no vapor barrier) and offered to fix it (for about fifteen hundred dollars). He assured us he could fix the dryer hose (which he did) and the crack in the ceiling? He'll do it when he does the paneling. Just a little mud and it's gone.

Okay, so if you're guessing that I'm a novice at all this, you're right. I'm learning to be patient with things and I'm learning a lot about houses (let's just say I ask many stupid questions).

The best part of all this, problems and all, is that this house it's ours. There's no landlord and no rules. It's just us.

I love this house. I feel like I've been here a while (like two years instead of two weeks). I've discovered Lowe's (and it should be a rule that at your closing, the bank or whomever holds your mortgage should give you a five hundred dollar gift card to spend however you want). I can do the laundry whenever I want (even at three in the morning) and that I have a garden to putter in. It doesn't matter that I don't have so much money for clothes or for Vera Bradley bags anymore.

I'm happy.... and settling in.

Until next time....