Most of the furniture we have in our apartment currently is second or third generation hand-me-downs from various friends and family members.  And while we are always grateful for the help, it's about time we get some nice furniture that is comfortable and versatile.  Both our living room furniture and our bed is extremely uncomfortable so there's no place I can sit or work or just lounge about without being uncomfortable.  Plus, I don't want to show off our brand new house (at least to us) without having some presentable accoutremants.

So after a few trips and some discussions, we decided on a few things and after we close, we're going to head out to Rooms to Go and get some new stuff. 

I figured it might be a good idea to start a list of tips for first timers.  Hearing them from someone who's not an expert but has simply experienced it on their own, first hand, sometimes seems to help.  I personally, put more stock in the layman's advice sometimes than the professionals simply because when people want your money, they'll tell you anything.

And as a disclaimer: these are my opinions and my advice.  They may or may not fit within everyone's experience and if you don't agree or like them, please feel free to seek out information from other's.

For those curious about how the house looks, here are some preliminary photos.  These were taken at the home inspection so the place technically wasn't ours yet.  But they're a good stepping stone so that we can look back and see what it used to look like when we're done with it (thirty years or so from now!!).  There will be more, guaranteed!

Note: These photos are on their own separate Flickr account, so if you feel like commenting on a particular picture, you can click on the Photo Link button in the bottom right corner above the thumbnails bar and it should take you to it's Flickr page. I would recommend doing this anyway because there are notes on the picture!!

It’s been a quiet week and I’m on vacation so I’m grateful for that. Considering the last time I was on vacation was when we were putting the offer in and I spent so much time on the phone, it’s a nice break. 

I did hear from our realtor today.  He wanted to make sure I had done the utilities.  I haven’t done that so the pressure’s on.  But he also wanted to schedule the walkthrough.  We have the option of doing it either the night before or in the morning.  I think we decided to do it in the morning because we have off all that day and it’ll be nice to get it all in at once.

However, it just hit me that closing is a week from tomorrow.  Wow!  We’re going to be real grownups.  Kind of scary!!!!

We got a hard copy of the appraisal in the mail.  It has all sorts of interesting stuff about the house and the neighborhood in it.  It’s kind of fun to read over.