It is done. We have a house. The closing was a piece of cake… about 30 mins, including small talk.

We went from the settlement back to our apartment, changed into more casual clothes, then headed to Home Depot and dinner. The night was spent pulling up carpet, carpet pads, nailboards, and staples. Lots and lots of staples.

The hardwood floors are in pretty good shape. There are some built-in cabinets to the left and right of the fireplace and, unfortunately, the cabinets seem to be on top of the carpet. I have no idea how I’ll be able to yank the carpet out from underneath those cabinets but am open to ideas. I should be able to post a picture of what I’m talking about soon.

So that was yesterday. Today we started with another trip to a home improvement store… this time Lowe’s, just to mix it up a bit. The big project for the day was painting the master bedroom. Coat #1 is on. It’ll need a second one. Otherwise, we did a lot of moving, and pretty much have the kitchen set up now. The big “win” for the day was the heating oil guy riding up on his silver Sunoco horse and selling us ~$500 of goodness. Our oil tank was running on fumes. We’ve been told that running out of oil is not only a chilly experience, but is also Very Bad™ for the furnace. As a result, we didn’t have the heat on. Sherri was frozen. I was OK because I was exercising (rolling paint) the whole time. I was looking out the window every 3 minutes hoping he would show up, and he did. It was awesome. I was sweating bullets that I’d have to pay for some major surgery on a furnace only a few days after moving in.

Anyway, tomorrow we’ll do master bedroom coat #2, and paint the master closet. I should have time to put up the new mailbox (the current one doesn’t have a door). The rest of the time will be spent moving more stuff over.

Ideally, there will be some time to rest. It is the weekend, after all.