After an escrow period that seemed to drag on for years, June 19th – closing day – arrived! We woke up at sunrise in the camper, battered and sore from the days prior, quickly showered and got ready for the day ahead.
Our first order of business was to head back to our house to get another small load of stuff out of the garage and basement. Matt’s dad met us there with his truck and another trailer (lol) and we planned to arrive when our buyers finished their final walkthrough. When we got there our buyer was still there, so we got to meet him prior to closing, which was really nice!
We learned that he had scheduled his movers to arrive soon (yup, 4 hours before closing, but we didn’t mind really), so we quickly got to work, wanting to be out of their way. We started with removing an old dog house Matt and his dad built not long after we got our first corgi, Dexter. The dogs never used it so it had been rotting away under our deck for over a decade.
The buyer’s moving truck showed up just before we finished up, so space was a bit tight in the cul de sac. Wanting to just peace out and get out of the way, Matt got in a bit of a hurry and started to pull out with the U-Haul trailer, forgetting he’d put a security boot on the wheel the night before.
The thing was bent to heck and back, we left a nice scratch on the driveway, and there was no way we were getting it off ourselves. So, Matt and his dad spent the next 45 minutes calling random companies trying to find someone who could come torch it off for us.
But the clock was ticking. After we got someone lined up to come by an hour or so later, we had to leave the trailer stuck where it was and rush over to Myrtle for *our* final walkthrough with our wonderful agent, Annie Turner. The walkthrough was spectacularly uneventful as Myrtle has been vacant for a long time, leaving little possibility for any new surprises to pop up.
Once we finished up, it was back over to our house to wait for the welder to come get the stupid boot off of the trailer. He arrived, took 3.2 minutes to melt the darn thing off, and we were on our way with just enough time to slam some Chick Fil-A in the parking lot of the title company before our closing appointment.
When we got inside, I asked for directions to the bathroom and was given a code to unlock the door. The second I pushed the first button, all the power in the building went off. “Great, what did I break?!” I thought, laughing at all of the crazy little things that had happened the last few days.
The power didn’t come back on immediately, so we completed the sale of our home in the dark. It was pretty funny, actually. By the time we were ready to start signing documents for purchasing Myrtle, the room suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree – another sign that this is a good decision, maybe?! Hopefully?!
We had been really anxious to meet Myrtle’s sellers since this has been such a long (and often difficult) process, but the whole thing went well. And about halfway through, we got a big surprise: my brother and sister-in-law waltzed in out of nowhere!! My sis-in-law had been handling all of our mortgage stuff (Sherida Farr with Motto… she’s a rock star. Call her.) and since she obviously had all the info on the where and when for our closing, they decided to surprise us with a visit! It was so awesome!
In a process that seemed so incredibly simple compared to the last month, we put pen to paper and that was that – Myrtle was ours. We said our goodbyes – promising to keep in touch with Annie – and headed over to Myrtle to meet our movers.
Our contractor asked us to keep the furniture and boxes in the house to a minimum, which meant we needed to rent a POD to put in the driveway to hold most of our stuff while the rest got piled into the garage. We did go ahead and have the heavy furniture moved inside and covered with drop cloths to save us the hassle of having to move it twice.
Day 2 of moving was infinitely easier than the first, and before we knew it all of our stuff was consolidated and we were ready to head back to our camper for a weekend of preparing for the renovation kick-off on Monday.
You guys… she belongs to us! We actually did it! Next up, DEMOLITION DAY! Things are about to get really exciting around here! Make sure you are subscribed to keep up with the progress!
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Dawn
So excited for you! That house has personality and needed just the right family for it. Congratulations on your new home!
Erin
I agree!! Thank you so much!