Negative air pressure in the house brings air in through the largest opening - the chimney. It makes quite a smokey smell in the house. I like it, but it was making Brian sick. There’s no problem as long as there’s a fire, but when there’s no fire, the smell is all over the house. We’ve read online that lighting a candle and placing it in the fireplace will help (since it draws air from the house and “up” the chimney). So far, it’s reduced the smell enough for Brian. It’s not a bad smell, just smokey.

Let me just start with the preface that despite 3 decades on this planet, I’ve never lit a fire in a fireplace. I had them growing up, but that was in Texas - it was never lit in 10 years of living there. My mom mentioned a fireplace when we lived in Philly, but that was long before I was old enough to even be near a fire, much less operate the fireplace and start a fire by myself. We had a chimney sweep come by last week to clean out the chimney and make sure it was safe to light fires in. Last night, I lit a fire in our new home - it was fun (it doesn’t hurt that I’m borderline pyro and like fires in general ).

The flue is annoying and hard to adjust. I know it’s supposed to keep the house warmer if it’s closed (when a fire’s not burning), but ours doesn’t seem to actually “close”, although it opens just fine.

Firewood needs both air and to be close to other firelogs. Brian had sort of showed me how to lay the logs on the “stand” in the fire place. Kinda like a triangle, and he said that there needed to be air between them, so I spread them out as far as reasonable. I learned later that no, they should be touching, but with air gaps between them. Just not as big of air gaps as I gave them.

Magazines burn just as well as newspaper. There was only one small newspaper in the recycling bin, so I resorted to magazines and junk mail for tinder. It works just fine, but you get some funky flame colors at first…

We need to buy more wood. There’s a pretty small pile of wood left by the previous owners, and we were using that. Very dry, easy to catch on fire, and old.

Wood is expensive. A cord of wood delivered (to the driveway) is $253. However, according to google, we should really only need 1/2 to 3/4 of a cord of wood per winter. The half cord was more expensive per cord than the whole cord. We have the storage for a full cord, might as well. Not only that, but it gets delivered to the driveway. We have to carry it a few pieces at a time back to the wood piles in the back yard. Oh well, it counts as exercise.

I fail at keeping the flames going. Brian is much better at it than I am. Every time I touched the fire, the flames would die down (not stop, it was quite hot at that point), and I’d yell to Brian that the fire was broke and would he come fix it please. I think I just need to learn how to manage the fire better and then I’ll get higher flames when I try.

It’s an ungodly hour of the morning on moving day, and Brian’s getting ready for work. Mom and I will be packing up the sheets and towels we needed this morning in a few minutes, and then we’ll be ready for the movers. It’s not supposed to be as hot as yesterday, and I’m really hoping it isn’t - yesterday was miserably humid and hot.

The FIOS doesn’t get installed until Wednesday, and I’m not going back to work until Wednesday, so no Internet for me for a few days. If you need us right away, our cell phones are the best method, although Brian is going into work and will have Internet.

Let the “fun” begin!

We now own a new house - new address in password protected post later - password is old houseno street (without Ct) for those who already have my address - and if you don’t and want it, shot me an e-mail.

It was interesting, and until we actually walked out of closing with the documents, we weren’t sure it was going to go through. See, we didn’t get the homeowner’s documents until about 11am that morning - and we technically should have 3 days to consider them and reject the contract at that point. Luckily, I had found them online and was able to read through them and make sure we agreed to them - the only thing I needed from the sellers was the financial documents and the letter that says there are no violations of the HOA rules on that particular house.

We met our Realtor at the house at 2pm to make sure that all of the things that were supposed to be done were - and mot of them weren’t - and there were still contractors at the house to boot. To start with, the built-in microwave was inoperable - and because it’s built in, it must be working. Then, we had asked that they repair a firewall gap in the garage (fire safety issue), it wasn’t done. They were also supposed to fix a few leaks, but it’s obvious that they painted them, but we have no documentation that they were fixed. There were a few other minor things that we didn’t really care that much about, we had just added to the “we’d like you to fix list” as things to remove during negotiation. However, the sellers agreed to make all the repairs by a licensed contractor (in writing), and provide receipts for all of that work. We never saw an invoice, and no receipts, so we went to closing asking another 1% subsidy (~$5400) to make sure everything was done - and some of the stuff on the list was very expensive - like electrical work. The sellers didn’t particularly like that, yet they hadn’t actually fixed anything they said they would fix, so we could have walked away then and there.

Unfortunately, our lender would only let us have subsidies up to the closing costs, and that meant only another $3000. We took that, and now we’re stuck fixing everything they said they would fix before closing. I don’t think the sellers had much to do with that as they’re in MA, and their Realtor had everything to do with it (she was a ditz of the highest degree).

We have the house though, and Thursday evening, we changed all of the locks - then I broke the heat pump by installing a new thermostat It’s wired correctly, and I verified that with the thermostat company, but the furnace just makes a humming noise. The A/C people are coming on Monday to fix it - which is good -we’ll be spending Monday night there.

My mom’s been down to help move, and we’re almost all packed. We won’t be doing much tomorrow though - Brian’s grandmother passed away and we’re going up to Baltimore for services tomorrow. We’ve got a few minor things to do before the movers arrive at 8:30am on Monday morning.

The Internet is barely existing at the old house (an old wi-fi router is directly connected to the cable modem), and we won’t have Internet until Wednesday at the new place. Next up is finding a roofing/siding contractor to check on the leaks and see if they were actually fixed rather than just painted over - my favorite doesn’t serve the area .

Next post is likely going to be from the new place on Wednesday night!

The sellers agreed to fix everything we asked for in the home inspection contingency - and I’m a bit surprised. We threw a few things in there (on the advice of our Realtor) that we really didn’t care about so that we’d have things to “give up” during negotiating. The sellers accepted all of them. On the one hand, they were all legitimate concerns: bad wiring (that I would have fixed myself anyway), minor leaks in the roof (that was one we really wanted them to fix), cracked/broken seals in double paned windows, but some of them I certainly wouldn’t have fixed as a seller. I guess that’s just me.

The movers are arranged for Sept 15, and we’ve started packing a little bit every evening. Mom’s coming down to help pack, unpack and babysit the house while we have various people come over (FIOS). She’s being a saint, especially since neither Brian nor I particularly like packing.

DC locals: I’m getting rid of some furniture and it’s free for the taking (you haul ), just get in touch with me if you (or anyone you know) is interested. I’ll have pictures up soon, and anything that’s not claimed by friends will be put on craigslist for the weekend of the 13th and 14th.

We have:

• Kitchen island - wood, drop leaf, two drawers, three cabinets (one big, two small). Also has a paper towel holder on it and a knife block (not currently attached) Picture - yes I ordered this one from QVC
• 2 bookcases - tall, black, not so cheap ones from Walmart (they’re still pressed particle board, but they’re a little nicer/stronger than the cheap ones)
• Cement blocks (the kind you’d build a wall with) - they were holding the bookcases 6″ above the previously flooded basement (luckily hasn’t flooded since I’ve lived here - except that one time I clogged up the laundry tub…..)
• Clothes sorter/hanger - plastic thing with netting bag with three compartments for sorting clothes and hanging them up
• HP 4L laser printer with extra toner cartridge. Parallel port - worked great last time I used it, but that’s been a while (we’ll have an HP 6 in a few months, stay tuned)
• Probably a few other things I can’t remember right now