Today we closed on the house. It was not an easy process because the family that lived there for the last 65 years was still there down to the last minute trying to get all their stuff out. But after several frenzied and confusing hours, we were able to close the deal and get the keys. The house is still a mess but its our mess now.

The junk will be removed from the house and it’ll get the deep clean it so deserves early next week. Then…we get to work.

Where to start? A little real estate lesson for you first time home-buyers out there: it’s impossible to get a mortgage on a home that is not livable. So in order to buy this home, we were required to include a bunch of renovations on top of the loan for the house. So this month, our goal is to achieve the following:

1. Install a new roof to replace the old one! The old roof is…not doing so hot. See exhibit A in the upstairs stairway landing. The beam in the attic gave up on life and cracked in half, which I’ve been told is not ideal.

2. Bring the home into the 21st century with an electrical Heavy Up. This basically means updating the electric panel so the home has greater capacity to power things that didn’t exist 100 years ago (like dish washers, washer/dryer, AC systems, hot water heaters, etc.). Gone will be the days of the power outages when you dry your hair while someone is using the microwave.

3. Replace broken boiler system with a brand new HVAC system, including for the first time in it’s illustrious 100-year history, AIR CONDITIONING! I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about the benefits of radiator heat over pushed air but this is my blog so I don’t wanna hear about it. We decided to remove the boiler and radiators for several reasons that were right for us, and that’s all that matters.

On top of all that, we were required to rent out our current home in order to get the mortgage for a new one (because we decided not to sell our current home). So we must.be.out. of our current place by September first. Where will we go? Only time will tell.