More stories and suprises after the jump!

I’ll spare you the mundane details about loading up our truck and making the drive up caravan-style (Ben driving the moving truck which was towing his Land Rover; me driving my car), except to say that we were blessed to have lots of help from Ben’s family, and got to spend one more night with my folks on the way up too, which was a nice way to end the Florida chapter of our lives. All went relatively smoothly with the trip, the final walk-through, the EconoLodge in a scary neighborhood, and the closing. I’ve never signed my name so many times in my life.

Ben’s younger brother and his wife (Chris and Amanda) and Amanda’s brother Morgan drove up the day after we closed to help us unpack — because they rule at life. So Ben and I ignored the truck full of stuff and occupied our first half-day and night in the house with painting the bedroom and buying a new (used) refrigerator. Yes, one came with the house, but aside from the fact that it didn’t keep anything cold (and we had three coolers full of food that I couldn’t bring myself to leave in Florida), it was scarily disgusting. And as much as I loved having a brown fridge in our super-vintage-y kitchen (seriously), I had to go with function over form on this one. We found a new one on Craigslist for a great price and brought it home. It works fabulously. However, we learned two important lessons. 1) Measure the space the original appliance occupies before buying a new one. 2) Make sure there are sufficient power outlets within reach of the spot where you will later have to put the new appliance because you neglected to realize it was too big for the original location.

Thus began the first of many realizations about living in an old house: There are never enough power outlets. And most of them are two-prong.

The next day was spent unloading our belongings (nothing was horribly damaged in transit, praise be), arranging furniture, relieving two walls in our living room of their God-awful mirrored tiles (the things were BLACK with age and dust), realizing our toilet barely flushed and our drains were probably clogged, trekking all over half of Richmond to help Amanda find clove cigarettes (apparently in VA they’re only sold at tobacco stores, all of which were closed by the time we undertook this mission), grilling out and collapsing in exhaustion. Boy, were we thankful to have had help!

Ben started his new job the very next Monday, so I did a lot of unpacking and some painting and revamping that week. We used our home warranty for the first time a mere three days after closing and got the plumbing drainage problem solved — although the toilet still needs to be replaced. We also experienced our first major homeownership disaster a few days after the plumbers came, when were trying to replace our sink and vanity with one a bit more suited to the size of the bathroom. Apparently we loosened a pipe BELOW its shut-off valve, which created a geyser in the bathroom and also semi-flooded the basement. Which is probably why we continue to postpone replacing the toilet. (Oh, did I mention we single-handedly kept Lowe’s in business that first week?)

So the unpacking, arranging and settling in is now mostly done (more pictures of the house — befores and afters — are in this Flickr set), though there are still several projects we’ll have to undertake in the future, such as the toilet, as mentioned; peeling the TWO layers of contact paper stripes off the kitchen walls; tearing down the dog pens in the back yard; buying or making new curtains; staining the new porch floor; figuring out what to do about those glittered ceilings; perhaps replacing some of the panel walls with drywall; buying a lawn mower (thank God it’s the end of summer and not the beginning, so this can be put off for a while); the list goes on. One of our neighbors told us this house had been unoccupied (and on the market) for TEN YEARS. Considering that, we’re pretty thankful that the necessary projects aren’t very major — and not even all that urgently necessary. All in all, we’re incredibly content with our new home.

On the academic front, things are going well. I had my first classes yesterday, after half a dozen different orientations last week. Fortunately my schedule kind of gradually builds up over the next two weeks, thanks to Labor Day next Monday, so I get to ease into the full load, which includes four classes and 20 hours a week in the Writing Center. Had to drop the Blackbird internship, unfortunately, which I was super excited about. Hopefully I’ll get to do it next year. I’ve been biking to campus most days (about 4 miles each way), and I am not exaggerating when I say it’s uphill BOTH WAYS, kids. My poor Florida legs! Not gonna lie, it’s brutal, especially in the middle of the day, and I tend to arrive at school breathless, red-faced, and drenched in sweat (thank God I’m not teaching this semester). But I’m sticking with it. I expect to be pretty massive by October. An awesome thing: I get a free bus pass for being a full-time student, which is great for those days when I feel like a sissy, or when it rains. Speaking of which, I’ve gotta head to campus soon and I need to figure out which bus to catch, so I’ll wrap this up. I promise I’ll be back soon to regale you with further tales of uphill biking woes and getting on the wrong bus — that is, if the WordPress update I need to install doesn’t eat my blog.

Anyhoo, hows about a quick catch-up? Things that have happened since my last post:

• The house got inspected
• The seller agreed to fix everything the inspector recommended fixing (including the A/C, woohoo!)
• We bought new (used) bikes because our new house is actually close enough to things (like school and work) that we can bike to and fro
• Made two trips to Jacksonville so Ben could get dental work done at my mom’s office
• Decided to throw ourselves a going-away party this Saturday
• Did NOT sell 90% of the stuff we listed on Craigslist
• Began to feel frantic that there isn’t enough time to do everything we need or want to do in the next week

Here’s a picture of our rad bikes (taken with my lovely new iPhone (: ).

Now back to the endless packing!

A definite improvement (see here for the “before”). Ended up having to cut a chunk out of the drywall to get the color matched. But I patched it well (it was just below the toilet paper there), see? And of course, even after I had the paint right, I didn’t have the right screws to hang the towel racks, so a potentially under-an-hour project dragged into THREE DAYS. (And yes, I know, again with the blurry pictures. But it gets the idea across, so lay off! :))

First, a bit of background. (Warning: this story involves lots of parentheticals, power tools, my bathroom — but no bathroom-related bodily functions — and multiple trips to Home Depot, may result in an overdose of shades of teal, and ends with me needing a ginormous glass of wine. It is, however, a story that is quasi-crafty, if only in that it involves DIY home improvement…and a ginormous glass of wine.)  Before we moved into this house a little over a year ago, Ben and I were painting the bathroom and, in the course of doing so, we (OK, probably *I*) dropped and broke the ceramic end piece of one of the towel racks. No big deal, right? We figured we’d just buy a replacement for the broken piece — probably at Home Depot or Lowe’s. No dice. I searched the shelves of both stores as well as Googled versions of the phrase “ceramic towel rack holder” to no avail. A match for this particular style was not to be found. Again, no big deal, right? There had been two towel racks and we were making do just fine with only one. If it were my house I’d probably have just spackled up the holes and used that wall space to hang a huge portrait of someone suitably ironic to display over one’s toilet (fill in your own example — it’s been a long day; I’m in no mood for irony). But it’s not my house (it’s my in-laws’), so Plan B was to purchase a new set of towel racks, toilet paper holder and robe hook in some other style that would still go with the rest of the bathroom. Turns out such things are pretty pricey at those home improvement stores. I was looking at over $100 if I went with the cheapest (also, of course, the ugliest) option. Not to worry, I found a much more economical AND attractive option at IKEA: Visen. (And yes, Jess, that was that time 6 months ago when I went with you. :))

Six months later (that would be today), I finally got around to hanging up the new set of towel racks. (A testament to my ability to ignore things like holes in the wall and spare towel racks on the floor gathering dust….) I got out my tools: drill, screwdrivers, level — should be all I needed, right? WRONG. Wrong, wrong, so, so wrong. By the end of the day the bathroom floor was littered with those tools plus a hammer, paintbrush, tub of spackle, putty knife … and my crushed spirit. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First step: taking down the old towel rack and toilet paper holder. No big deal there; just unscrew some screws. Fine. I did the toilet paper holder first, and only needed to add one new hole. Pretty easy. I moved on to the robe hook. Took down the old one. Amazingly, the new one matched up to the old holes. But it was also narrower than the old one, which meant the old paint would show around it. Can’t have that. I thought I had some leftover paint in the utility room. Found a small Tupperware of teal-ish paint and went to work. Realized I was going to need to spackle the screw holes from the towel racks because the new ones were several inches longer. While the spackle dried, I dabbed paint on various little spots in need of a touch-up (we are not the most meticulous painters).

And then I went for a swim, cleaned the pool, and played about a dozen rounds of sudoku. Came back to sand the spackle and saw this (apologies in advance for the shaky pictures; I was rather annoyed at the time and not concerned with having a steady hand):

And this:

And I made this face because I realized what I’d done:

I’d made a huge mistake (to borrow from Gob Bluth), that’s what I’d done. That little Tupperware of paint USED TO be a perfect match to our bathroom color, but I’d lightened it with white for some other project. Obviously, I didn’t remember that when I grabbed it and slapped it ALL OVER the walls (I will evermore heed the admonition to “test color in a small, inconspicuous spot”). It looked a little light when I was putting it on, but I thought, “It’ll dry darker.” That is DRY PAINT, folks. And it obviously didn’t dry dark enough. After this horrible realization sunk in, I tore apart the utility room looking for the correct teal paint, but apparently there had been none left. And apparently I’m an IDIOT who doesn’t save paint swatches. Two trips (with more still to come) to Home Depot and $11.29 (yep, that’s what a quart of paint goes for these days) later, I’ve learned my lesson in a big way. Kids, if you gain nothing else from this post or anything I ever write on this blog, remember this: SAVE YOUR PAINT SWATCHES. This will save you hours of misery and heartache. This will make your life so easy you’ll wonder if maybe you were born silver spoon in hand. This is the key to a happy life. Or a least a happy home improvement project.

I figured all I could do was buy a quart of the right color. That or re-paint the entire room. (The jury’s still out on whether or not that’ll have to happen.) Short of tearing out a patch of drywall (it may come to that tomorrow), the only thing I had by way of a color sample was this (and of course, looking at it next to the wrong color it is so painfully obvious that they DO NOT MATCH):

Yep, that’s hardware from the old towel racks (remember when I said we’re not very meticulous painters? Guess sloppiness kinda comes in handy sometimes). So off I went, armed with my sob story and my pathetic little square inch of painted aluminum. At Home Depot I compared a couple of swatches and tried to eye the best match. The paint guy and a lady who was buying yellow and gold so she could paint the chairs in her daughter’s dorm room in the school colors helped me decide on one, and I bought a quart.

When I got home I figured I might as well slap the new color on all of the screwed-up spots rather than just one. Because if it was a match, this would save me time. And if it wasn’t, well, I would have the same number of screwed-up spots as I started with. So I did, and it looked promisingly teal-y. Then I started cooking some dinner, sat down and got sucked into a new blog (thanks, Val — and no, the irony that it’s a blog about home improvement was not lost on me), burned part of dinner, and nervously headed to the bathroom about an hour later.

I’ll spare you more pictures, but it was quite obviously not a match. The new color was too bright; the old color looked kinda grey next to it. And no, our walls are not just that dirty. It wasn’t until this point that I realized I could have simply held the swatch of the new paint up to the wall and discerned as much BEFORE throwing actual paint all over the place. Another lil nugget of wisdom for ya: Think things through. Or: Don’t be an idiot. Geez. I decided I could make one more desparate trip to Home Depot before they closed. Of course I left home without my little “sample” and had to turn around when I was about 1.5 miles from home. Of course.

I was kind of hoping the young man (what am I, a granny?) dude who’d helped me earlier would still be there, because if he remembered me maybe he’d let me return the paint (which had “NON RETURNABLE” stamped on the lid), or maybe he could adjust the color of it or something. He wasn’t, but Sal was, and he turned out to be a gem of a fellow. (The one bright spot so far in this terribly frustrating — now terribly LONG — saga.) Amid helping about six other customers, climbing up ladders, and running around doing Home-Depot-y things, Sal first tried to match the paint on the little metal piece with that rad matching machine they have, and when that didn’t turn out right he made me a quart from another swatch that looked like it oughta work. He then also tried to adjust one of those quarts, but it still wasn’t right. Meanwhile I’m near tears in frustration, sighing heavily, covering my eyes in exasperation each time it doesn’t match. Poor Sal must’ve took pity on me. He did seem impressed by the fact that I had undertaken this (originally small and simple) project by myself. He let me take home the 6-inch thick swatch fan of every color ever invented, imagined or named (of course, I promised to bring it back tomorrow). And then he told me to take the first quart, the one I’d already used some of, and take it to returns — “Tell em I said it’s OK.” Dear, dear Sal! His name worked like magic, too. So instead of being out $22.58 (and counting), I’ve only spent the gas it took for two trips to the store.

I haven’t even tried to find a match among the thousands upon thousands of colors in this compendium of swatches I now have — too frustrated, too tired, too busy with my wine — but I’m PRAYING we’ll have success tomorrow. I’m also counting on Ben’s superior eye for color (he IS a photographer, after all, and can color-correct a photo like nobody’s business) to help with that. If, that is, it ever stops raining long enough for him to drive home from work on his motorcycle. Otherwise, I guess I’ll be picking out a new shade of teal for the bathroom. Maybe I’ll let my mother-in-law choose.

* Said iPhones are not part of the big spending. Various generous and good-looking family members have chipped in to get them for us as birthday (me) and graduation (Ben) gifts. Yay!

• Ben got the job
• We got pre-approved for a mortgage
• We submitted a formal offer for the house
• Freaked out slightly cause we found out there was another offer on the table
• They accepted our offer!

Still a lot of details to iron out, but everything’s falling into place, it seems. Holy freaking crap. We are going to be homeowners. Woooohooooooo!!!

Thanks everyone for the good thoughts/prayers/what-have-you! I wouldn’t complain if you kept it up until the closing goes through, though.

Last Sunday Ben and I loaded up our little blue Civic wagon with camping equipment and made the 12-hour drive from Orlando to Pocahontas State Park, about 30 minutes outside of Richmond, Virginia. We had beautiful weather all day, but about 20 minutes after we arrived (just long enough to set up the tent and lay everything else out on the picnic table), as we were starting to cook our hot dogs, we heard thunder and then felt raindrops. I wasn’t about to be shut up in the tent without some dinner, so Ben warmed the dogs on the Coleman stove while I threw stuff back in the car, and we hunkered down in the tent with our bowls of hot dog (guess who forgot plates?). Despite soon discovering that our trusty lil 6′x6′ tent had a few (more like a few dozen) leaks, it wasn’t a bad night. Getting up at 5 a.m. had made us ready for sleep by the time it got dark.

The next day we woke up pretty early to the sound of slow, heavy raindrops that were not falling from clouds but being shaken from the trees by a nice breeze. We munched on homemade granola (my version of this recipe) while coffee brewed in our awesome all-terrain French press, then headed off to meet our realtor for a tour of homes. What with our peanut-sized budget, we weren’t surprised that she had already crossed a couple off the list after driving by them the day before (scary neighborhoods and whatnot). But the four that she had for us each looked promising in its own way and, more importantly, not too frightening. It ended up not really mattering, because we fell in love with the very first house and spent the rest of the morning comparing the others to it.

I really want to go into intense detail about all the reasons we love it and how perfect it is for us, but I’m trying really hard not to get too ahead of myself with this (despite having already mapped out how our furniture will look in it), so I’ll just say that the location is awesome: In a safe, established neighborhood and almost exactly in the middle between VCU and the airport (where Ben will probably work). Oh, and two words: glitter ceiling.

After that we were ready to sign a contract right away, but Ben had to get a job first, so he got all dressed up and handsome-looking for his interview.

A side note, if I may, about my dear husband and why I’m making such a big deal about him getting dressed up: His approach to “fashion” is to first of all not call clothing “fashion;” his wardrobe consists almost entirely of plain white or solid color T-shirts, Carhartt pants, and work boots, usually with a bandana in his back pocket. It’s like his uniform. Utilitarian and simple. Which I’m all for. But of course this meant we had to buy an entire outfit for this interview. I’d found him a really nice pair of Banana Republic khakis at the thrift store for $5 a few weeks ago, and we picked up a brand-new, tags-on button-down at another thrift store for $4, then dropped about $40 on a new belt and some brown leather loafer-type shoes at Wal-Mart. He swears he’ll wear the shoes again, but I kinda doubt it. Anyway, the other element of this “getting dressed up” production involved The Beard. Ben has not been without a beard since we got married, two and a half years ago. Sure, it was more of an Amish beard, where he shaved the cheeks and mustache parts (which I’m grateful for), but it still gave him a pretty mountain-man-ish look, even with the fancy new clothes. But he shaved it all off for the sake of this interview. (And I really hope the clean-shaven-ness contributes to him getting this job, cause otherwise it seems like a waste and I kinda miss the whiskers.) Witness the transformation:

Anyhoo, the interview went fabulously; they love him; they want to hire him; they have to check with the boss to see if they can meet his salary requirements (nothing too demanding, but hey, we’re trying to buy a house here!). The next day was spent waiting for a call back from the potential employer (none came), exploring Richmond, fawning over the house and the like. Dutiful penny-pinchers that we are (we do love camping, but it also saved us over $100 compared to a hotel stay), we had carefully planned and packed so that we wouldn’t have to eat out at all during the whole trip, but we decided we deserved a treat (or two) after finding the perfect house and probably getting a job. So we had beers at Poe’s Pub and later ate Thai food at Mom’s Siam. Yumminess. Oh, and then we totally watched a movie on my laptop in our tent that night. Ha. Figured if we’re paying $25 a night for a plot of gravel that comes with electricity, we might as well use it. I also got to open a few presents early. Ben made these adorable boxes:

Wednesday we began the homeward journey. Spent the night in Jacksonville where my folks took us out to our favorite Mexican restaurant ($1.99 margaritas!), gave me some really nice gifts (including the elephant slippers!), and took us to Cracker Barrel for a birthday breakfast the next morning. Since it was my birthday, I figured there’s nothing wrong with a frozen lunch, so Ben and I hit up Ritter’s Frozen Custard on our way back to Orlando. Yay for fattening!

We spent the afternoon in the pool, drinking bourbon slushies (sounds weird, but oh-so-good). The in-laws had us over for shrimp kebabs, Spanish rice, and sorbet — and more gifts. Oh, and some nephew-cuddling.