Say "ESCROW"!!!!

Our Moving Mess!

After waiting 4+ months, we had the best Christmas present ever in getting a closing date for our new home. We signed the papers on January 8th and moved in on the 16th. We couldn't believe the welcome we received as Elder's Quorum members, neighbors, and family poured in to help us out... I'm sure we had over 10 big, strapping guys to do heavy lifting.

We actually had the unlikely problem of not having enough big, heavy items to keep the mensfolk satisfied. Just try & direct them to a box labeled towels and they'd roll thier eyes like "Puh-lease! Give me a real challenge lady!" I think a fistfight almost broke out over who got to move the last bookcase...

Anyway, we are in the house and loving it! The luxury of having a REAL closet is almost beyond comprehension and the novelty of having a FULL bath (not to mention more than 1) won't be wearing off soon.

Seriously, the ward & neighborhood are the most welcoming and friendly we've ever been in, though they didn't waste any time in getting us callings! Nate & I were set apart yesterday to be Sunday School teachers for the 14-18 year old class (which happens to have 18 (yes, 18) students in it and we were asked to speak in Sacrament meeting on Valentine's day. We're a little nervous about Sunday School, because of size and other special challenges, but it will be fun serving together and we have some great ideas to get everyone involved and excited.

The infamous "handprint" room... that's the second coat of
some ultra expensive primer going up. Yikes!!!

The lattice coming down.
(so it wasn't the first thing I did after all, but we're quite happy with the results)

Wallpaper removal mess.

We even conned some family into helping.

The rumors are true...

...we've moved!

Just a few days after my vent we got the call that everything was finalized and we signed the papers that night. It's a huge relief, but we are totally homeless at the moment. We've been bouncing around (first at Nate's parents house and now at my parent's house) while we search for a new abode.

We've had a plethora of offers out on the table, but none of them have panned out (definitely not for lack of trying, let me tell you). Our top contender of the moment has been on our books since August and we still haven't received an answer to our offer because it's a short sale that has been delayed up the wazoo. The last we heard we *might* hear something before Christmas, but since we've been told "just another week" about 10 times, we aren't placing any bets.

Here's the lowdown of our number one pick of the moment: 3 bed/3 bath on a 1/2 acre with a detached shop and shed. It's fully landscaped and fenced and has a finished basement to boot. It's in Enoch, about a block from my sister's house, in a really family friendly, young area.

Here it is: (What do you think? Is it worth the wait?)

The Waiting Game: Everybody Loses!

Arrgh! I used to think I was a pretty patient person, but lately things have gotten out of control. I'm no longer waiting for something specific anymore... I'm just waiting to reach a point in my life where I'm done waiting.

To answer the questions that we have gotten time and again, and you may even be wondering right now, NO we have not sold our house, NO we have not gotten a new house, and NO we have not left Hurricane (although YES we have moved out of our house). Let's discuss each question:

• No, we have not sold our house:
  We got our home under contract with a really lovely couple on August 14th. They wanted to close in the first week of October and we asked for a few extra weeks because we didn't know where exactly we were going to go. Then we discovered we could stay with either of of our parents so we went back to the earlier day (Oct. 8th). Needless to say there were delays from the get-go and the 8th became the 15th, the 15th became the 22nd, and the 22nd blossomed into the 29th. Since we never suspected it would drag on like this we were totally out of the home by the 10th of October and staying with the Douglas'.
  
  Needless to say it is now November 12th, we are on our third extension addendum, and we still have not closed! The new day is supposedly November 20th, but I'm not placing any bets. The sad thing is that it isn't in our control or our buyer's control at all. It's just the bank (down with Bank of America!) and USDA Rural Development that are incredibly slow. Our poor buyers have been in a motel since Oct. 31st because they thought we would be closed by the first week in November and we have totally crashed the Douglas' for more than a month. Insanity!!!
  

• No, we have not gotten a new house:
  We have been looking for houses even before we sold ours. I'll admit we've been a little picky because we simply don't want to have to move again (and finding a good deal wouldn't be bad either), but we've had offers on a few places that haven't panned out. Most of you know about the Utah Trail house in Enoch. It's by my sister and is in a great family neighborhood. It's a short-sale that we put an offer on before Labor Day.
  
  We'd checked in with the bank a few times before they told us at the beginning of October, "We'll have an answer for you at the end of the month, but don't call back before the 26th or we'll make you wait two weeks longer." That is a direct quote (and guess which bank??? Bank of America strikes again!). A call on the 26th told us to wait another week because they just hadn't had a chance to look at it yet. A call on the 5th told us that they'd looked at it, but couldn't make a decision until they reassessed the property. This week they told us there was some kind of discrepancy between the two independent assessments and they had ordered and they now would have to do a formal appraisal... which they said we might hear back by, oh, the 22nd or so of December. DECEMBER.
  
  We really haven't found anything else that is screaming out to us, except another short sale, and judging by the timeline we are on with the first one we'll be lucky to hear anything by Labor Day.
  

• No, we have not left Hurricane:
  We originally stayed with our in-laws so we could be near the house to clean it, get the mail, etc. for those few days before we closed. As our deadline kept getting extended so did our stay here. The master plan at the moment is actually to head to Parowan to stay in my parent's basement (words I never thought I'd utter). LOL. We should be down there (regardless of closing) by November 15th.
  
  To sum up, we are waiting to close on our house & waiting to find/contract/close on a new house (which we will be extremely lucky to do before the end of the year). We each have a suitcase with our clothes and pretty much everything else is in storage. It's been frustrating, but Nate & I are both very aware of how lucky we are. First of all we found buyers in a horrible housing market, we got the price we needed, and we have great families that have opened their doors and given us a place to stay.
  
  We will very, very relieved when the waiting game is over!

An Overdue Update...

So, I hope everyone hasn't given up on me. It's been a really crazy few months and blogging is something I've just had to leave at the wayside. So, if you haven't heard yet, we have been trying to sell our house these last few months. Nate's been commuting for about 45 minutes to and from work every day (since October) and we know that our future just isn't here in Hurricane.

It's been devastating to us because we love our home and our ward and the community and the proximity to Mom & Dad Douglas. Not to mention the fact that we bought in the boom and are selling in the recession. Yeah. Good timing!

So basically we've been working like crazy to clean-up, clear-out, and make everything nice & shiny. Thanks to everyone that's been helping out with it (TOM!!! CEC!!! DIANE!!! TEHANI!!!). We totally owe our Hurricane crew for watching Lincoln, loaning tools, and donating time.

It's looking so nice that we really don't want to leave now, but as fate would have it we found a buyer for our house so look out Cedar City, HERE WE COME!!!!

Projects include:

Staging the porch with a new chair, plant, doormat, putting lattice over the extra door, repainting the trim, refinishing the exterior doors, replacing the house numbers, and replacing the hardware on the door.

The trim before

The trim after

Power-washing our cement work before & after.
I couldn't believe how dark & dingy it really was.


We refinished the the kitchen cabinets & added hardware. The door on the right is the original stain (though most of the doors were more worn & damaged than that one). The door on the left is one that has been stripped & sanded.

I don't have a finished kitchen picture, but the bases have the new stain on them. We did a dark, glossy walnut with brushed silver knobs & pulls.

No pictures, but we also repainted a few rooms, replaced some nasty linoleum, added new window treatments & accessories, and just staged it by clearing out the closets and rearranging our things a little bit. It was a lot of work, but it paid off!

For Sale By Owner

We're selling our home!

Well, it's been in the talks for almost a year now. Since changing jobs to LLI, Nate's commute has gotten old pretty fast. It's really kind of a bummer... we've really loved it here and the winter's are so pleasant! I'm no snow bunny, but we really loved Cedar before we moved here, so I'm sure we'll love it again!