Category: life

I received my $500 check (I thought it was going to be a Home Depot gift card) from Lending Tree last week. That was what I was waiting for before buying blinds, since I can’t go wrong with free money.

A few weeks ago, when I was in “the Depot” getting other things for my place, I stopped by their blinds section to see what they had. I knew I wanted wood blinds. They would just go very well with all the other wood accents in my place. I originally asked if they had samples that I could take home and look at. They don’t. Can someone explain to me how that works? Well, I went through and looked at types/colors. I found I really liked the Bali colors, along with the Hunter Douglas Genuine Wood blinds. Well, I liked the Hunter Douglas ones until I saw the price associated. Needless to say, the genuine wood blinds, as opposed to simply stained basswood ones are significantly more. Think $500 as compared to $150. Since I needed 4 windows treated, and I was getting $500 free, I figured I’d like to buy more than one for that price.

I didn’t really do much past that, since I was still waiting for my gift card to come. Once the check (to my surprise) finally came last week, the search was renewed. I was talking to some people at work, and one of the ladies mentioned she had just purchased her wood blinds from Blinds.com. So, I went and visited the site only to find that I could order free samples! Now, I didn’t know if they were wood samples, or simply a printed paper, but something is better than nothing.

Needless to say, the samples came in yesterday, and they were actually pieces of the blinds. I had ordered quite a spread just to see how everything looked. Well, I ended up getting Bali Northern Heights with the Wheat (1710) color. They should be here in two weeks, probably when I’m on vacation over the fourth.

July will be a good month for the condo: blinds and the couch will arrive! Now I’ll have a place to sit, and some privacy!  Woohoo!

Yay!  I finally have a proper bed now.  Just delivered and setup.  Now I just need to wait like 6 more weeks before the couch comes.  It’s coming together.  Slowly.  Next thing is waiting for my Home Depot gift card and then buying wood blinds for the place. 

Last night was the first night at the Condo.  Man is that place a mess right now.  A big thanks to JoelD for helping me move my desk, mattress and the rest of the speakers.  I’m so glad I won’t have to move that mattress up or down 4 flights of stairs again.

Alright, I know everyone’s been asking for them, so without further ado, pictures of my new place (sans furniture). 

The first area we’ll visit is the living room/kitchen.  When you walk in the door, the view that you see is below.  You can see the bathroom entrance from this shot and most of the kitchen along with the eating area.  Need to get a couple of bar stools for that though. 

Looking exactly the opposite way (from the kitchen into the front door) is below.  You can see the alarm system, thermostat, utility closet with w/d and the entrance to the bedroom.  You can also see some of the awesome wood floor, but they’ll be a better picture of that later.

Below is the view from the corner of the kitchen into the SW corner of the living room.  Not a lot there, but I figured I’d give images of everything.

And then this is the view due west from where the utility closet.

I said there was a better image of the wood floor in the living room.  Well here it is.  A nice cherry wood floor with a maple inlay.  The details in this place are really nice.

Next we’ll move onto the kitchen, since, well, it’s right there.  From the first image in the entry you basically saw what the kitchen looked like.  Well, here’s another shot that is basically looking due north from the living room.  It gives a good overall view of the kitchen.

This next image is basically the same shot, only closer.

Showing off the dishwasher and stuff from a lower angle.

And then a couple more that are similar.

Moving along to the bathroom.  This is the view from the front door, if the bathroom light is on and the door is open.

The sink and the tub.

Close up of dirty tub.

Shot of toilet and entry way (not much space!).

This lighting fixture needs to go!

Onward to the bedroom.  This is if you were in the opposite corner to the doorway.

From the corner just to the west of the one above you can see the closet and the light from the window.

And looking from the closet area back into the room.  There’s not really much to see there yet.

Since we’re right next to the closet, I may as well show a few of those as well.  Nothing really that special, except for the nice closet system already built in.

Two more of the closet.

A couple of the utility closet that we skipped over.

And a closeup of the molding that goes around the ceiling of the whole condo.

I think that’s about it.  I hope that appeases everyone 🙂

The checks were cut and the keys are mine!

Today is the big day to close on my place (less than three weeks after putting in my offer).  I have the check in my hand, and now I wait till 1:30 to sign my life away!!

Woohoo!  I got the place I put the bid in on!  Sometime in the next month or so I’ll have the keys to my own place!  I’m crazy excited!!

Way to go Erin on passing your boards!  And you were worried, ha!  Maybe next time you should just listen to me, because I obviously know what I’m talking about. 😀

As a followup to getting pre-approved for a loan, being a first time home buyer sucks.  Either you get screwed with Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) or you pay out the nose for a second mortgage to cover the 20%.  However, shopping around is a good thing!  I initially went to Citibank since I do most of my banking there anyways.  So far, they’ve been the highest.  Lendingtree has actually been pretty helpful in finding better deals.  Oh, and the best way to find a deal is definitely with a local company.  Chicago gives a lot of benefits and incentives to first time home buyers in my price range, and the large companies don’t know anything about them. 

Oh, and I’ll be looking downtown, most likely West Loop, West Town, Wicker Park, or Bucktown.

Yesterday I went in and filled out all the paperwork to get pre-approved for a mortgage.  Yay!