It's official!

Wow! What a busy weekend so far!! We got done early tonight so I thought I would try and update everyone on what was going on! Friday morning, I closed on my house at 10:00! I was so ready! I signed my name so much that my fingers were hurting!! I'm now a homeowner!

By the time I got to my NEW house my brother Blake had already mowed my yards which I was so thankful for! At first, I was kind of overwhelmed with everything but once everyone got there to help it got a lot better!!! Amber starting texturing my walls right away! I cant wait to see them once they are painted, I know they will look great!

Blake did most of my yard work and it looks amazing now! It made a huge difference once all of the dead tree branches and overgrown bushes were gone. It took 4 truck loads to haul off the branches!! The backyard looked like a completely different yard when he was done! The first picture of the backyard was taken through the screen so the quality is bad, but it's pretty obvious how BAD the backyard was. You couldn't even see my shed!!

My mom and I painted the kitchen and cabinets with help from Kate and Meredith.

I got a new garage door installed. The old one was a manual garage and just didn't look very nice so the new one looks so much better. I wanted to take a picture of it while it was in process!

My dad ran a bunch of errands picking up things everyone needed and hauling things off. Even my grandma came over to help! Today we got a lot done. We finished painting the kitchen. Amber finished texturizing the living room and entry hall and started on my bedroom. We will start painting tomorrow once it all dries. My mom started to tile my closet and even Ty helped pick staples out of the ground where the old carpet was. Me and Blake went and picked out tile and he started tileing the bathroom floors. Chase, Kate's husband, also came over to help Blake lay tile. I'm so thankful that my brother is such a handy-man! He has done so much work, I feel guilty that he is doing all of this for me! I owe him and Amber big!!


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there were 7 stray cats that came with my new home! I have seen at least 3 or 4 of them every time I have gone over there. They came out every once in a while when we were working. Most of them are scared of people but one black one let me pet him for a while. My grandma brought food over for them and they ate a whole bowl full in half of a day. I feel bad for them. I want to feed them so they won't be hungry, but I also don't want 7 unspayed or unneutered cats laying around my yard all day. I don't know what I will do with them, but for now they are cute! Hopefully they will get used to me.



I will post some before and after pictures once we are done with everything. For now I will just keep yall updated on what we are doing. I can't wait til it is all finished!

Can't Wait!

Tomorrow morning at 10:00 I will be a homeowner!!!!! It hasn't even hit me yet! I still have lots of things to do and buy!!!! I am so thankful that I will have people to help me this weekend. The plans for this weekend are to texture and paint the walls, paint the cabinets, tile the bathrooms and kitchen floor, install new toilets and fans, put up all new blinds, get a new garage, and lots and lots of yard work! Hopefully it will all get done!!! I am so excited, I wont be able to get any sleep at all tonight!

P.S. Thanks Kate for helping me with everything!!

Inspection Update!!!

Just a quickie! After the inspection Kate and I came up with a list of 9 things that we wanted to be repaired on the house. Some were a little bigger than others but most of the repairs were small quick fixes. The top things were to replace the sub-floor in the bathroom where the old hot water heater leaked. (Luckily, I won't have to worry about my water heater leaking because they replaced it with a tank-less water heater that I will love because the water is immediately hot when you turn it on and you never run out!) The floor in the bathroom is really soft so the inspector said that means the floor underneath the tile is decaying from the water. He also said there was a leak in the attic that needed to be fixed. There was also a gap in the air duct vent under the house that would cause me to loose a lot of air under the house which wastes a lot of electricity. All of the other things were easier fixes such as, cover an exposed wire and fix leaking sink in kitchen. Anyway, I had no clue how much it would cost to fix all of these things. Kate had her step dad at M&D Construction come to the house to give us an estimate and he said they could fix everything for $1,700! That was so much cheaper than what I thought it was going to be so I was kind of relieved thinking the sellers would be filling to fix these things. So last night, Kate called their Realtor and let them know what we wanted fixed. Now I am sooo excited because we just found out that the sellers are willing to pay for all of the repairs on the house! I was wondering what I was going to do if the sellers weren't willing to fix what needs to be repaired, but I don't even have to worry about that anymore! Now I will be able to sleep better tonight knowing nothing else will get in the way of me becoming a homeowner!!

P.S. I will be posting plenty of pictures later when all of the fun stuff begins!!

So Stressful!

Wow! I cannot believe everything you have to do before closing date on a house. First it was stressful putting in the offer, waiting, then accepting the counter offer. Then it was worse when I had to deal with 4 different banks to get a loan because they are all so different and I wanted to see what my options were. Then the inspection made me freak out with all the little things wrong with the house but everyone assured me that my inspection was good compared to others. Then, all day yesterday I had to deal with choosing my home insurance policy! I could probably type for hours with what I had to go through and who I talked to about insurance but I will try to keep it short.

Anyways, I first called Allstate to get an insurance quote. That is who my family uses and my grandpa used to be an Allstate agent so I thought this would be my best choice. I had to give the lady all my information and answer about 20 questions about the house. She called me back and said, "Kylie, I figured out your quote and it is a really good one!" At this point I got excited because my loan officer estimated it to be around $900 dollars a year which would be $75 a month, and she even estimated it high so in the end I wouldn't have a payment of more than she estimated. So, I was thinking my quote would definitely be under $900, then the Allstate lady said it would be $1178 a year. Are you kidding me?!? That's $98 a month! She could probably tell I was shocked because she kept trying to tell me that I had a really good rate, but I'm not stupid. That was the last I talked to Allstate. So then i called Germania, State Farm, and Pulley Insurance (I was refereed to them.) I ended up choosing Pulley Insurance. Sheryl Pulley is who helped me and she is the nicest lady I have talked too! I had a meeting there yesterday at 4:00 to choose my policy. I am the most indecisive person EVER so I knew this would take a while. I had no clue how many different policies there were to choose from! Basically we narrowed it down to 2. I could choose one policy for $771 a year ($64 a month) and have a $1,000 deductible if I had to make a claim. Or I could choose a policy for $843 a year ($70 a month) to have a $1,000 deductible on wind and hail claims and a $500 deductible on everything else. Everything else would include anything like a fire, water damage, a tree falling on my house, someone accidentally running their car into my house, ok I think you get the idea. In Wichita, mostly all of the insurance claims deal with wind or hail, so I was thinking the extra $72 a year would be a waste. But then I thought, that's only $6 a month, might as well do it. Then I calculated $72 a year, that turns into almost $300 after 3 years and I didn't want to waste money if I never made a claim. Anyway, my mind went back and fourth for 45 minutes! Sheryl was so nice during all of this, she was very patient because she said she is just as indecisive as me. Like I said, this is just so hard because I have to make all of these decisions on my own. My family gives me their opinions but they all ultimately say it is up to me and what makes me feel comfortable. In the end, I ended up choose the policy that is $843 a year. At first I thought I made the wrong choice, but after thinking about it, I know I chose the right one! If anyone needs an insurance policy I highly recommend Sheryl at Pulley Insurance, they are a sub-division of MetLife Insurance. She will help you with anything!

Sorry this blog wasn't too interesting. Who wants to read about insurance policies?? This just gives a little insight as to how stressful this has been so far! I'm not even to closing date yet and I am already thinking that I do not want to buy another house for a loooong time! Ha! But, I know in the end, everything will work out and I will be very happy with all my decisions!