Homeowner.
Today I closed on the new house. It’s really mine now. Or mine and the bank’s anyway, but I don’t believe the bank has plans to move in.
After my real estate agent called to tell me that it was all finished, I felt stressed out and overwhelmed and just the thought of that empty house made it feel like the weight of said house was resting squarely on my shoulders.
But then we stopped by to leave keys for the floor refinishing people who are coming first thing in the morning and I’m glad we did because it was unexpectedly nice to walk through the rooms and realize that this is my house. I’ve been through this before, the purchasing of a home, but all I really remember is my boys’ dad being so negative about the whole thing, being so negative about everything, really, and that so easily rubbing off on me. Buying a house all by myself is quite a different experience, and really quite a nice one.
So the floor refinishers come tomorrow, and that will leave the house out of commission until this weekend at least, but my plan is to load up my car every night (starting tonight) and then drop stuff off after work every day (starting with the storage stuff, since we can access that, floor refinishers or no). I think maybe I already mentioned that, just yesterday even, but I think I will also need to keep writing everything out over and over so that I feel like I’m containing it all in some tidy way and don’t need to go insane instead.
Today I also started poking around craigslist and google maps for, respectively, used washers and dryers and used appliance stores. I want what I currently have now, a washer and dryer that sit on top of each other (although my are not fancy like that photo), NOT to be confused with a stacked washer and dryer. I only have vertical space, but now that I know that the former is possible (previously I only knew of the latter), that’s what I want. None of the appliances in the house are stellarly new, so I expect I may have to replace more than one during my tenure (or buy them outright, as is the case with the washer and dryer) and I want to buy nice ones. They don’t have to be top of the line (and they will likely be used), but if I can scrape up a little extra fanciness, I will happily do so (a front loading washer is just such a bit of fanciness).
Today’s idea: Although I’m having the hard (or soft really — Douglas Fir) wood floors refinished, the kitchen, dining area and bathroom are covered in a blackish linoleum that I am disinclined to fuck with. However, it occurred to me last night that I could just paint it, or paint parts of it (like, say, white checkerboard squares) and that would be a great way to change it up without much expense or potentially disastrous floor tearing out. In general I prefer a pretty modern aesthetic, but I am learning that I also like a little bit of style with curlicues around the edges. And in this house in particular, I am fairly sensitive to the fact that it’s an old house. Black and white checkered floors might be overdone to some extent, but I think they could look quite nice in a little old house…and it would sure beat painting on a penny tile effect (which I also really like — even if it predates my house).
[Really, I cannot tell you how relieved I felt this afternoon when I remembered that I could write out all this nonsense and post it here. Thank you for tolerating it.]