In early September, we started hitting a few road bumps. The appraiser needed some specific info. on the house we were buying, and Laura wasn't sure where to find it. Then, the couple buying our house was having trouble finding homeowner's insurance. Little things that at the moment seemed like big bumps, and yet, as I look back over my journaling from those days and weeks, they really were just little bumps along the way.
Whenever something would come up, I would be reminded of the writing on the road, and I knew that God hadn't brought us this far to let it all fall through.
Laura let me stop out at the house to walk through it while she was at work one day, and it was fun to dream, plan, and start thinking about paint colors, design themes, etc. While they had already done lots of work on the house, there was a major facelift awaiting us in the kitchen/dining room area.
I loved just soaking in the view that we would be able to have . . . this is the back yard with fields all around us.
Mark started building a new set of bunkbeds for the boys, and so I kept busy staining them, and getting them ready before the craziness of the move.
I had purchased a pair of nightstands the first time we were trying to sell our house, and they had been sitting in our basement ever since (our bedroom at our house in Apple Creek did not have room for them beside our bed). I wasn't fond of the dark wood look, so I decided to pull out a can of paint I already had and add a splash of color to them. They are a deep coral color now.
On Friday, Sep. 30th, closing took place for the house we were selling, and it was so exciting to know that at least our part of selling was behind us. The day after that, Laura moved out of the house, and gave us access to the place, even though we were not set to close until Oct. 13th. It was wonderful to be able to work on the house and get so many projects done before moving in!!
On Monday, I headed up to the house and started with the painting. I started in the living room, and used a basic light khaki color. With the gorgeous stone behind the wood burner, I wanted to keep it more "warm" and neutral, and I love how it turned out.
In the evening, Mark and Jason ripped out the old island in the kitchen area--we are replacing it with one that has a countertop for barstools, so it had to go!
On Tuesday evening, the real fun began when we started the renovation in the kitchen and dining room. The walls needed to have some drywall work done on them, and the popcorn ceiling was scraped and retextured. Some guys came from church to help out, and it made the project go so much faster.
Thankfully, Laura had painted the kitchen cabinets earlier this summer, so that was one less thing we needed to worry about! I love the gray color so much better than the original oak wood color.
On Wednesday, I started repainting Ian's bedroom. He wasn't a huge fan of the previous mauve color, so I honored his wishes and used the same khaki color that was on the living room walls.
By Friday, our Master bedroom, Ian's bedroom, the Living room, and the bathroom was finished. The dining room/kitchen area was still a work in progress, but we kept plugging away, and had help from friends every single day. It was definitely a labor of love, and we felt so blessed by so many people who gave their time to help with the various projects.
We made almost daily trips to Lowe's, picking up more paint, primer, and other things that we ran out of or forgot. On Saturday afternoon, Mom flew in, so we loved having her help for the next week. And after a crazy week of go-go-go, it felt good to get to that first Sunday, and just be able to rest up. We had made a lot of progress, and still had a lot to go. Flooring was coming on the next Tuesday, so we had that deadline to work towards, especially in the kitchen & dining room area. We wanted all of the ceiling and walls to be done before the new tile was laid.
On Monday, more friends came over to help with painting. We also decided to repaint all of the trim throughout the house. It was a big task, but I knew that if we were going to do it, now would be the time! By evening, we were done in the kitchen/dining room and were so relieved to have that room ready for flooring to be installed the next morning.
On Tuesday morning, I came up to the house to let the flooring guys in. They were planning on putting down Adura tile in the our kitchen/dining room, and then they also laid new carpet in the boys' bedrooms and in our master closet.
Once I got back home, I had a phone call with our State Farm, and they were letting us know that they weren't going to be able to cover our new house. They had several different reasons, and I got off the phone with her almost in tears. I made several other phone calls, and had to just wait to hear back from another agent to see if they could find coverage for us. With it being a manufactured home that was just over 20 years old, it was yet another mountain looming in front of us. Never mind that we were supposed to be closing in 2 days--that was not going to be happening now.
Mom & I spent that day packing up more things at our house in Apple Creek, as we wanted to stay out of the way to the guys laying the flooring. When we went up to the house later that afternoon, the flooring looked amazing! So impressed with the job that Myron & his crew from Quality Interiors did!
On Wednesday morning, I head back from an insurance agent, and our prayers had been answered. They found someone to provide coverage for our house, so I went up to the office yet that morning to sign paperwork and get it to our mortgage lender. I decided to call our mortgage lender on my way back to the house, just to see if there were any other last-minute speed bumps that could possibly come up (I wasn't sure how much more stress I could handle!) She let me know that the appraiser had messed some numbers up on the appraisal, so that would set us back a bit longer. She estimated that we wouldn’t be able to close now until the end of October. I just want to cry from all of the stress! It seemed like as soon as we jumped over one hurdle, there was another one waiting to trip us up. And yet, I still fully believed that this house was supposed to be ours. It was all going to work out, but I was so ready for this process to be finalized!
That week while Mom was helping us with painting/cleaning/etc. my Dad was preaching at a church out in New York. Each evening, they had prayer time before their services, and when we were facing the unknown of finding insurance, they had prayed about it that night at church. The next morning, that prayer was answered, and then we found out that the appraiser's error was setting us back yet again. More prayers offered up on our behalf.
By Thursday, I decided to call back to our mortgage lender, just to see if there were any updates from the appraiser, and they had already received the correction. She thought that by that afternoon, we should have a final clearance to close and have a date on the schedule. I knew that prayers being offered on our behalf from out in New York were being answered.
By 4:00 that afternoon, I had a phone call again . . . we were officially CLEAR TO CLOSE. I almost couldn’t believe it, and when I called Mark to tell him, I was all emotional on the phone. He thought we had received some more bad news! Then, I came inside and told Mom, and we were both crying. Such a relief to know that it really WAS going to be happening soon! MORE PRAYERS ANSWERED. The loan officer thought that we should be getting the final email of documents sometime on Monday at the earliest, but most likely not until Tuesday. Once we got that email, we would need to open it and digitally sign it in order for the closing to happen on Friday, Oct 21st.
So, we were looking at about 8 days past the original date for closing. Not terrible, but something we absolutely could not wait to have happen. On Friday, Mom & I headed up to Canton to do some more shopping for things for the house. It was so much fun just to get out for a bit, away from the dust & painting, and be able to enjoy our time together. While we were eating lunch, an email arrived in my inbox. Sure enough, the email that was not supposed to be coming until Monday at the earliest had already arrived. ANOTHER ANSWER TO PRAYER.
We were just ecstatic that all of the little bumps seemed to be behind us now . . . although it was super disappointing to not be able to move in while Mom was here helping out, it gave us another week to finish up last-minute projects, some more painting, and even some good cleaning before we actually moved in. I don't know what we would've done without Mom's help that week--she worked every day at multiple projects, and it was probably for her good that she got to go home and didn't have to help with all of the moving/lifting.
That next week passed by quickly . . . I moved some of the kitchen stuff up and put it in place, and each time we went up to the house, we would take a load of boxes and things along with us. The boys loved entertaining themselves outside and we were quickly falling in love with this new home.
We were needing to move the garden tractor and wagon up to the house (and didn't have a trailer), so Cole just drove it up one afternoon. I followed behind in the van with my 4-way lights flashing. It was a painfully slow drive, and I couldn't help but laugh at the hillbilly way of moving :)
The boys had off of school on that Friday, and Mark took the day off from work too. We were scheduled to have our closing at 9:30, and we took the boys with us. They were great at hanging in there through all of the paperwork, and in less than an hour, we were done and ready to celebrate. Brunch at Bob Evans was our next destination!
That evening, Randy & Mark moved our beds to the new house, and we were able to spend our first night there. Moving day was set for the next morning, so it was going to be a big day!
The next morning, some friends came and worked at loading up all of our belongings that were still in our house in Apple Creek. Despite moving stuff up ahead of time, there was still so much stuff. By afternoon, not only was the house cleared out, but everything was unloaded at the new place. Some dear ladies helped to clean out the house before we turned to keys over to AJ & Jewel, so that was such a huge help too!
Everything was finally moved, and we didn't have to go back and forth between houses any more. There were boxes everywhere, but we were finally in our new home, and were excited & exhausted! We kept the majority of the boxes down in the basement, so that our living space upstairs could remain somewhat calm & uncluttered (I needed that for my sanity!). So, the next day we were able to just chill and enjoy relaxing in what we could now call HOME.
(the view on the left is of our road on the drive home)
(Lots of before/after pictures will be in the next blog post, coming very soon I promise!)