Georgia Beers | This New House

This New House

Written by Georgia Wednesday, 09 September 2009 19:00

I forgot how exhausting a new house can be. And we haven’t even moved in yet! Poor Bonnie, I think I may be driving her crazy (not that she’s not used to it after fifteen years of living with yours truly). I’m a planner…to a ridiculous level. It’s almost a sickness. I can’t help it. It makes me feel like I have a little bit of control in a situation where I actually have very little. Anybody who’s purchased a house knows what I’m talking about…the bank’s questions, the paperwork, the dickering, the engineer’s inspection, the money, the money, the money…

I woke up recently, looked at Bonnie, and said, “What color should we paint our new bedroom?” She just blinked at me (did I fail to mention that we don’t even close for another two months?), interior decorating apparently not foremost in her mind at six in the morning. That’s typical behavior from me recently.

My head is a giant ball of swirly-ness, like a bowl of spaghetti, thoughts intertwining with one another like slick noodles en masse, twisting and turning and overlapping one another. Here, let me give you a small peek inside:

What should we do first? Wallpaper needs to come down, but then we’ll have to pick paint colors. Fencing needs to go up in the back yard…but what kind? Wood? Vinyl? Slatted? Solid? We’ll take down the wall between the kitchen and dining room eventually…or should we do that first? What about my writing room? What color do I want that to be? And the attic? Should I put my weights up there? There’s lots of room and the ceiling is higher than the one in the basement and some of my exercises involve lifting my arms over my head. The water heater is old. Should we just go ahead and get a new one instead of waiting for it to die and spill water all over the basement floor? How much extra money will we have after closing (if any), and how the hell do we prioritize? How? Somebody tell me what to do first!

Seen enough? I wonder how I’ll possibly last for another fifty-plus days without my head simply exploding all over the place.

Boy, that’ll be a mess.

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Comments (2)

|09-11-2009 20:45:29 Anne Laughlin - Let me reassure you

Georgia - I'm a real estate agent, and if it's any comfort to you at all, your ticker-tape stream of thoughts sound just like the ones most of my clients describe to me. It's part of the process, I think. It might be part of the fun. It can feel relentless at times, that's for sure.

I also have an expression that I stole from Bonfire of the Vanities that applies to how new homeowner feel - that they are hemorrhaging money.

Great new site, by the way!

Anne

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|09-11-2009 20:15:58 Rachel - I'll help.

First of all congrats! Second of all, I love to paint. Finally, if you upgrade to a tankless water heater by the end of the year you get a tax credit, if you wait until next year you aren't guarenteed tax break. So if you think the water heater might crap out real soon might be worth it to upgrade.

Rach

P.S. Love the blog!

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