home is where your rump rests

We bought a house today!

What a pain in the ass, oh mah gah. Weeks of paperwork and waiting, and more paperwork and more waiting. Plus a tiny hiccup at closing today. But we survived and it’s ours. We’re still in our apartment lease until the end of October, so we can take our sweet time moving in – although we’ll be out well before our lease is up, we are SO OVER IT. We have a little bit of painting we want to do, and we need to get the basement ready for the cats (it’s where their litter boxes will be, so we need to cover any spaces they might want to try to crawl into). Really there are tons of nitpicky little things to deal with, but most of them can be spread out over the coming months.

Anyway, it’s a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom, 109-year-old Dutch Colonial in North Minneapolis. We looked at a lot of houses in St Paul because StP4lyfe, but for various reasons this is where we landed. My commute will be shorter, and Darren’s shouldn’t change too much? It’s about the same distance, but time will tell with regards to traffic.

We spent a good chunk of time chatting with the sellers today and it sounds like the neighbors are awesome, which was great to hear. And the next door neighbor has a very nice dog named Norman.

Am I going to start blogging about house stuff? Maybe! I do like reading house blogs, but whether or not I like writing about that stuff remains to be seen.

All right. You want to see pictures? Here are the listing photos in all their flaw-hiding glory. Hooray! Gory details can wait. For now, we are just excited.

porch! the window & door trim are not red in real life.

entryway

dining/living area

first floor half-bath off the kitchen

back porch/mudroom

this will be the office

guest room/yoga space

master bedroom

walk-in closet

view from the garage

Snippets

It was snowing on my way to work this morning. Just flurries, nothing substantial yet. Sorry to my friends in the north who got real accumulation over the weekend. Unless you’re into snow in October, then you can keep it. I find this time of year to be a bit difficult, in that I don’t ever want to leave the house and basically just want to eat a lot and hibernate until April or so.

I’ve been up to a bit of miscellaneous nonsense lately. Barenaked Ladies played at one of our theatres earlier this month and their promoter offered staff comps (which doesn’t happen often), so Darren and I went for the nostalgia. They have a new album out, but they know what people like and played their old mega-hits too.

Kate and I trekked up to the middle of nowhere two weekends ago for Kelsey’s birthday. We got lost twice but it was worth the trip. Kels was house-sitting at this incredible place that is basically perfect except it is very far away from a Target. Quality time and foods and drinking games made for a delightful evening. Plus I ate the most delicious apple. Trust me when I say this apple was worth the mention.

Amanda threw an alter egos party at Casa Como on Saturday. The idea was dreamed up at the Stews and Brews party that Kate and Susanna had hosted earlier this year. We dig theme parties, obviously. Kate and I busted out Shawna and Donna, our inner loud Bostonian ladies, and Darren participated as my – Donna’s – Southie boyfriend John. We collectively won the ribbon for funniest costume(s?), which I think was aided by the Red Sox game that was occurring as the party happened. And now I desperately want the Sox to win the World Series.

I’ve been continuing my knitting when time allows. I made a bit of progress on Darren’s scarf this weekend. In other domestic proceedings, I re-potted my spider plant and I am concerned that it might not be appreciative. It has been fertilized and watered, so I am just keeping a close eye on it.

Speaking of plants, I acquired three air plants which arrived in the mail today. They are hanging out in a coffee cup until it’s time to go home. I actually drove in today, which is somewhat rare, so clearly it worked out perfectly and the little guys won’t have to be subjected to the cold coldness while I wait for buses.

Air plants in their temporary coffee cup home.

early inheritance

My grandma is moving in with her sister at the end of the month, which means she has a lot of stuff she no longer has room for. When she came up for the wedding she brought me and Kyle each a box of assorted things. It’s mostly dishes, actually, so now I have an absurd amount of beautiful dinnerware and no room for it but in Rubbermaid tubs in our storage closet. This particular set is blue and white Currier & Ives china. I didn’t go through all of it, but it’s in decent shape as far as I can tell. Just a few chips here and there. The box also included a random Homer Laughlin “Virginia Rose” platter. They’re the same company that makes Fiestaware, so that’s cool.

Some of the C&I pieces and the HL platter.

She also gave me a set of pots, which have replaced our chipping Teflon ones, and some silverware. This means we have a proper silverware set now. Our other set, which she also gave us, was perfectly good but the numbers were all wonky. We had four forks (seriously), eleven teaspoons, five knives, and I don’t know how many table spoons. Now we have a proper eight of each – even salad forks! – and they’re vintage and pretty.

Kitchen things are my favorite. Obviously grandma knows me well; actually I’m pretty sure I get that particular interest from her. She taught me how to bake and that was that.

Ugh, we need a bigger place and a china hutch, clearly. Somebody buy me this.