Getting Close to the End

Now that we're in the final weeks, it seems like they're getting a ton of work done. Our settlement date was supposed to be the 13th, but was moved to the 25th. However, at this point we can't close on the 25th.

We received an offer on our current house over 5 months ago. The buyers had some issues with financing, and since mid-September the bank has continued to say they should have a clear to close any day, then they request more paperwork, and the cycle repeats week after week. We moved out of our house and into Dan's mom's basement at the beginning of October (because we were expecting the sale to go through at some point in October). About 2 weeks ago the buyers decided to go with a new bank that said they can get them to closing in 3 weeks. We're hoping to get a closing date next week.

Unfortunately the delays our buyers have had will impact our closing with NVR because we have a VA mortgage, and are planning to get another VA loan for the new house too. Since you can't have 2 at the same time, we need the clear title from our current house before they can process the loan for the new house (NVR said this is a 3-4 week processing time). The 2 biggest differences between a VA loan and a conventional or FHA loan are closing costs and the fact that you don't pay PMI. So to go with conventional or FHA we would pay close to $15k more at closing + the monthly PMI.

So now we're just waiting. Waiting to hear from the bank with a clear to close on our current house, and waiting to hear from Ryan/NVR on how flexible they're going to be with our settlement date given our situation. But I digress...

A lot has happened this week, but still no stone (fingers crossed it goes up early next week, I can't wait to see it). The hardwood floors were finished right before Christmas, but when we were there last week they were completely covered. Yesterday when I visited, they were mostly uncovered and the carpet had been installed.

Close-up of the Simple Touch "Sand Swept" frieze carpet with the Silver Sage paint sample.

Entry- Manchester 2 1/4 "Gunstock" Hardwood

Office

Dining Room

I'm really happy with the choice to carpet the family room and have hardwood everywhere else on the first floor. I also really like how the non-standard flooring break turned out.

Loft- same carpet as the family room.

2nd Floor Bathroom- Initiator 66181 Vinyl Floor

Gameroom- Simple Touch "Capri" frieze carpet
(a little darker than the carpet in the rest of the house)

Paraiso "Artico" 13"x13" ceramic tile in the game room bathroom.

Our appliances were also delivered this week.

The hot water tank was installed and I believe the gas and water lines were installed/connected. There was also some electric work done and we now have power.

I don't know if I've posted this before, but we had Guardian install ceiling speakers in the family room and also a speaker outside of the back door and a cable hook-up outside too.

Here's a close-up of the volume control for the outdoor speaker.

The square beside the upper right corner of the sliding door is the speaker and below that is a regular outlet and a cable outlet.Dan is into cigars, and since he won't be smoking in the house he needs a place to be able to watch "the game" and enjoy his cigar. His friend has a similar set-up and they are always on the deck with their cigars, so I know this will get a lot of use.