Two months and five long hours later . . .

. . . and we have a house.
Finally.
For those of you who haven’t been following the entire saga, we started house-hunting back in June. We actually made an offer on the first house we looked at, but didn’t get it—the listing agent pushed the seller into taking an offer that was less than ours but came from someone she had found herself (which meant she didn’t have to split the commission with our realtors). Amusingly enough, that deal fell through later, but by then we’d moved on.
We saw this house back in late August, and loved it immediately. Made an offer on the spot. Got it accepted a few days later. Signed the contracts on Sunday, September 5. And then the waiting began.
And not waiting on financing, either. We didn’t start looking until I had been pre-approved for a mortgage. No, this was waiting on everyone involved—the bank, our lawyer, their lawyer, our realtor, their listing agent—to get their sh*t together. Lots of calls back and forth. Lots of me yelling at someone to just give someone else what they asked for now rather than later. We’d wanted to be in the house in time for Adara’s baby-naming. That didn’t happen. We wanted to be in by the end of October. That didn’t happen either. But finally this last Friday, November 5, we went to the lawyer’s to close. We arrived at 1pm. We left at 6pm, utterly destitute. But at least we have house.
Some of you have seen the pictures of the front and back. It’s a nice two-story brick rowhouse, with a stone front, a bay window, a small front yard, and a little backyard and driveway. It’s got three bedrooms, one-and-a-half bathrooms, a formal dining room, an eat-in kitchen, and a finished basement. The house was built in 1945, so it’s also got hardwood floors and nice woodwork throughout. And it’s all ours. Well, ours and the bank’s.
So that part of the ordeal is finally over. Now we just have to get it ready and move in.