Homeowners

[Be sure to read Dave's asparagus blog! It's great!]

So we bought a house yesterday. Yikes! Wednesday was the walk-through, and that took about an hour and went very well. We want a little more of their stuff removed--it's hard to figure out because they also left us some furniture and cleaning materials and other stuff we do want, but not other. Anyway, it's going to be moved by next week.

Yesterday I ducked out of work just before 2:30. Our lawyer and our broker showed up, is all, and Dave and I. We met in a closing room (does NYC have closing rooms in their record halls?) in the Registry of Records just two blocks from my office, and we were done in 10 minutes. Our lawyer had been to the other lawyer already and everything on their end was signed. We signed and initialed a couple of copies and gave our lawyer a check and that was it.

I couldn't believe it. No paying the title guy a $50 "tip" just for showing up (required in NYC closings). No extra, oh, yes, this tax, too, and this paper. Not a single wrinkle. I was back at the office by 3 and that was only because Dave and I stopped to chat about the marvel of life in a small town.

Esther, our fabulous Brooklyn broker, had given us a cool closing present, check out her website, BooMaaArts, and our broker is threatening to give us something. So we figured turnabout is fair play and we gave a homemade CD to our broker, the sellers' broker, who we liked a lot, too, and our lawyer, Dave's new best friend. We called it House Music and it included songs like Home by Bonnie Raitt, Massachusetts by Arlo Guthrie (our official state folk song), The Long Way Home by Norah Jones, and Come On-A My House by Rosemary Clooney, and many more. Of course we ended it with the Stones cover of You Got To Move from Sticky Fingers. Our people were all great, really friendly and patient and professional, proving you don't have to be harsh or a schmuck to do the job well.

By the way, if you are related to me a) don't even think about getting me one of Esther's calendars, and b) know that you are probably getting one for Christmas. They are really neat perpetual birthday calenders. Esther is Dutch and says these are all over Europe; you just write in birthdays and anniversaries and that way you don't have to keep moving them to the current calendar.

After we closed, our friend Erika came over the house to help us pick our paint colors. It's a contemporary split level, so there's lots of weird angles and corners, and walls turning into cathedral ceilings, that sort of thing. Erika has a good eye and knows about those things, and the great thing is she didn't try to impose her taste on us, she just listened to what we wanted and made suggestions. It was excellent. So helpful.

FYI: All the window and door frames and floors are nice polished hardwood. The living room has a soaring cathedral ceiling that flows, really, over the balcony and into our bedroom: Our bedroom doesn't have a door on the living room side, just balcony overlooking the living room, a major concern but we're going to live with it for now. Just two rooms, ours and Lily's, will have carpets, and also the stairs and the landings.

Okay, this is for you, Mum. Here's the list:

living room, with two-story red/white/black brick chimney - the chimney wall is a pretty bright blue, and the side and opposite walls are the next lightest shade of blue, Honolulu blue, on the same strip.
kitchen, which flows in from the living room -- a pretty bright yellow. May be called sunshine yellow, or something like that. We didn't want it too dark a color and there's only one significant wall; the rest is underneath the cabinets.
family room, off the living room -- a warm brown (but not too dark) on the walls and "rich cream," a slightly brownish white on the same paint strip, for the slanty ceiling. Or is it the other way around?
3-season porch off the family room, with big windows on three sides -- a dark, somewhat yellow green
Lily's room, she wants a jungle thing -- green carpet, violet walls and the same lighter blue shade on the ceiling. Erika has offered to paint stars and clouds on it!
Our bedroom - not sure yet. Was going to be "adobe," but we had to change the carpets, so now we aren't sure. The carpet is now a gorgeous woven wool with a streaky pattern and the color is "caramel." We aren't sure the adobe goes with it, is all.
Hallways - a chocolate brown carpet and rich cream, slightly brownish white, for the walls.
Dave's office/guest room -- Not sure. It's his call so who knows, but I'm rooting for a red-brown or a red-orange, personally.

There's two basement rooms, each with lots of brown bookshelves and old pine paneling. Dave's going to paint one of those rooms white, and maybe the bookshelves, and we'll put a durable Berber mixed color thing on the floor, with lots of brown and green and a touch of yellow. It'll be fine. Maybe it should be something else, a softer plush in a peacock blue, for instance. Oh, dear!

Anyone still reading? Does this stuff bore you to death? Sure does me, except if it's mine. But I know my mom wants to know. I think. Do you, Mom?

I'm not sure why, but now that we have a garage Dave has bought us a good-quality standing bike pump, and he keeps going over to it t0 pump air into the air. He says it's his workout.

Today I am off, the first of my six Summer Fridays, and we went over to the house--our house--to meet the carpet guy and the contractor. Really nice--they know each other, of course--and efficient and helpful. We are going to put a laundry room in the slab-floored basement part of the downstairs. I want slop sinks and a place to hang drying clothes. There's a stacked set right now in the bathroom off the kitchen and the sellers' realtor told me most people want that, these days. But I want room to hang my clothes and all, and wash stuff by hand. That might also be a bit of an art room, if we have some good light and put in a durable washable floor covering.

Hope I'm not crazy. We'll also have storage shelves in that room, for camping gear and boxes of papers and too-big clothes for Lily, that sort of thing. I also want to put my brooms and stuff in the closet where the stacked set is. Am I crazy? We can always change it back, right?

PS -- just listening to Our Town by Iris Dement; it's on our House Music CD. Dave found it on David Fischer's blog last fall and played it for me and Lily. The three of us just sobbed. Good night, Brooklyn. Check it out, the audio on Rhapsody for free, and the lyrics below:

Iris Dement
"Our Town" on her Infamous Angel album

And you know the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

Up the street beside that red neon light,
That's where I met my baby on one hot summer night.
He was the tender and I ordered a beer,
It's been forty years and I'm still sitting here.

But you know the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

It's here I had my babies and I had my first kiss.
I've walked down Main Street in the cold morning mist.
Over there is where I bought my first car.
It turned over once but then it never went far.

And I can see the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

I buried my Mama and I buried my Pa.
They sleep up the street beside that pretty brick wall.
I bring them flowers about every day,
but I just gotta cry when I think what they'd say.

If they could see how the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on now and kiss it goodbye,
But hold on to your lover,
'Cause your heart's bound to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to our town, to our town.
Can't you see the sun's settin' down on our town, on our town,
Goodnight.

Now I sit on the porch and watch the lightning-bugs fly.
But I can't see too good, I got tears in my eyes.
I'm leaving tomorrow but I don't wanna go.
I love you, my town, you'll always live in my soul.

But I can see the sun's settin' fast,
And just like they say, nothing good ever lasts.
Well, go on, I gotta kiss you goodbye,
But I'll hold to my lover,
'Cause my heart's 'bout to die.
Go on now and say goodbye to my town, to my town.
I can see the sun has gone down on my town, on my town,
Goodnight.
Goodnight.