A Master Retreat

e are back to waiting. We are waiting on the FHA appraiser to come in, value the home, and state what must be fixed for the loan. So during this time I thought I'd do a little day dreaming our master bedroom. Here is what I am thinking:

Target Pebble Quilt in Dark Grey | Target Pebble Shams in Dark Grey | Ikea ELAND 2 Drawer Chests in Grey | Ikea ELAND Dresser in Grey | Zebra Rug at Overstock | Etsy Purple Zebra Pillow | Dark Purple Pillow Target | Etsy Yellow Stripe Pillow | Martha Stewart Paint color Chinchilla | Hampton Bay Ceiling Fan

So the loveseat would be nice at the foot of the bed. However it is a one day sale item over at Kings Lane {Mitchell Gold + Bob Williams Jude Loveseat in Buttercup $699 on Kings Lane July 29, 2010}. We'd extend the stained cypress hardwoods currently in the hall and hall bath into the master, just gotta find someone to match it all up. And we already have2 of the 2 drawer ELAND pieces from ikea as well as the Target quilt and shams. Now just to find the budget for the rest of it all...

xoxo- Gulf Dreamin'

Something Magical

{Photo via PingNews Flickr}

omething magical and wonderous happened today. First though it started with an explosion. The explosion being the plumber finding items that keep the house from meeting code, would have never met code. Items that were found should have never been allowed for a certificate of occupancy when the house was built and sold to the first buyer. While under our confidentiality agreement we can't disclose it all right now, lets just say we had to begin thinking about letting our dream house go.

Just as the hubs and I were discussing our plan of action and preparing to call our agent, the phone rings and it is our agent Bev! She was calling with some good news. Some how or another the sellers have agreed to pay for any items keeping the home from qualifying for FHA lending. What!?! Did I hear that correctly? I am extremely happy about this turn of events but in the back of mind is my mom's pesky voice from childhood...

{If it seems too good to be true then it probably is.}

The child like side of me is jumping for joy and overly ecstatic about this, while the very adult side of me is proceeding with caution. So everyone please say prayers this all goes well. Our bank wants all repairs completed by August 13th, so the clock is ticking! We're proceeding with caution by preparing for the worst and hoping for the best as they say.

xoxo- Gulf Dreamin'

Garage Envy

have always, always, had garage envy. I have yet to have a home where I had one, grew up not using a garage as a garage. And our apartment living has put us to underground parking. Well our new home has a garage. And not just any garage but a detached beauty with wooden carriage doors. Although her doors are weathered we can replace them and she'll be as good as new.


And did I mention her ceiling?


I. AM. IN. LOVE. I love the the exposed metal roof through the beams. While the cheap fan leaves little to be desired it will help circulate air in there for now.


I saw her interior for the first time last night. And they even found the original paint for the home! That will make touch ups easy upon our move in.

xoxo- Gulf Dreamin'

We're Not Crazy

e're not crazy, at least in terms of thinking Santa Rosa Beach is great. This week Travel + Leisure Magazine named Santa Rosa Beach, FL as one of America's Best Little Beach Towns. The hubs and I are excited to one day call it home. Home, a place where we can plant our roots and begin building a different life for ourselves. I get misty eyed even thinking about it.

Pitty Party

do think I am not dealing with this whole process very well. At this very moment I am on the verge of tears as I am trying not to freak out over the whole thing. Yes folks we are still waiting. The sellers still have yet to make the house ready for an inspection. No big deal, right? Well it is bigger than you might think. See the sellers are requiring all loan closing papers be to them 2 weeks prior to the actual closing date. So before that happens we need to have the inspection, the appraisal, and the survey completed. Did I mention that since it will be a FHA loan that repairs will be have to made before we can even close on the home— out of our pockets on a home we don't even own yet. Did I also mention it all has to happen before Aug 14th? That is when the sellers need our closing docs. See why I am getting frazzled? I am terrified with the tight time lines something is gonna go to the crapper and leave us stranded. And homeless. And broke. And heart broken. And... And... And... You get the picture of it all.

My plan right now? Go home, have a good ol' fashioned pitty party with a cry, then dust myself off, and continue onward. What else is there to do?

Nobody Said Downhill Was Easy

{photo via millzero flickr stream}

ou all know the saying "its all down hill from here"? Meaning that you have over come the hard part of climbing the hill. Never mind those stupid obstacles going downhill that cause you to stumble, rapidly push you forward, or cause discourse— downhill can be just as much part of the battle. With that all said yes we finally got our contract back on our house.

Yes take a moment to jump up and down to celebrate just as we did. Long enough? Now that is over with lets start the descend.

{Okay people lets do this, we can get through this!}

This morning our fabulous agent had scheduled the home inspection. The sellers assured us that all was in working order for the inspection. Whoops, they forgot that something wasn't hooked up thus causing a slight flood in what would be our hallway. While I am disappointed they could not finish the inspection, and I hate that our agent's and inspector's time was wasted, it is rather comical, if it isn't happening to you that is.

That is where we are at currently. Back to waiting. And yes I chuckle as type this, I laugh to keep my stress levels at bay.

Still Waiting

{Photo Via StockVault}

o 10 working days with a holiday thrown in the mix equals the longest wait. EVER. It does not help I don't have much patience either. So we still don't have our contract back yet needless to say. We should have it by the end of the week. I sure hope at least! Until then I am back to being in waiting mode.

Good news? Well packing is coming along well, I think. We have sold our guest bedroom suite which used to be our master. We just did not want to move it again and shove it into a possibly small room. For the time being our plan is to have our master bedroom, a guest bedroom with a queen bed (which we have in storage), a guest bedroom with a pair extra long twins, and the other one will be our office. So I guess I have to pass my time with day dreaming about all the decorating I can do with a clean slate.

We'll keep you all posted about the house as we move forward!

Waiting

o I feel sure many of you are wondering why are we being so quite, why aren't we screaming from the mountain tops yet about our house? Well ladies and gents we are waiting. We still have not gotten our signed contract, so we wait. We have been told it can be 1 -10 business days. The only thing that is allowing me to sleep at night is the fact that the MLS shows the house as being under contract with our agent. So we wait. Have I mentioned yet we wait? No it is not our specialty but we are trying.

So in the meantime I am going to make you all jealous and myself included for the time being. Wouldn't you love to see this everyday?

{Photo via South Walton}

This image is worth a thousand words of why we are moving to Santa Rosa Beach. Wouldn't you want to move there too? And no Danielle that is not the Caribbean, it really is a picture from where we are moving to in Florida— start booking your flights now honey.

Living Room Dreaming

o with moving cross country we are selling everything we can to make the move simpler. Which means we'll need furniture for our new home. I love redecorating so it will be a fun task. I just have to remind myself it won't happen over night! If you see me in the coming months while out shopping and I am uttering those words, you'll know I am trying to talk myself out spending too much moola too quickly.

So for the meantime I'll be day dreaming about my new rooms. I see there are lots of furniture consignment stores throughout the Destin area, so you bet I'll be scouring those from top to bottom to save some, or save a lot actually.

Here is a living room for now to dream about:

In the background is the basic room, blue walls, stained cypressed, stain concrete floors, and white trim. I love the current basics in the living room so I will be working with what is in place already. The room is rather small so picking light and airy colors and items will be a must for the project.

I dream of cream or white sofas. So being slipped covered would be a must so they can be washed, I'll probably need 1-2 extra covers in the linen closet for any big "oops" and wear and tear so this one from Ballard Designs would work just great.

The coffee table we fell in love with first at Restoration Hardware, but then I came across it again here. Wow half the price! That makes it so much more feasible for our budget.

The accent chair is just my style from Pier1. It is graphic, colorful, tufted, and even utilizes the house's current wall color.

The driftwood end table is from Crate and Barrel, although I am half tempted to try to enlist the hubby in us making one ourselves.

So long as I am dreaming I wish for the seamaster floor lamp from RH. I'm hoping I can find a vintage one to be restored and it be MUCH less costly.

A few accessories to start; add a touch of color the sofa with the orange and red paisley pillows. Some faux blue coral on the end table.

The rug is one of the items we already have and will repurpose it in our new living roon. It was a great find for us here at Ikea and has held up especially well with the dogs thus far.

While this does not finish the room, it is a rather nice design board start I think. Hopefully I can be resourceful in the coming months and get everything just as I picture in my head.

The Cottage

o it appears as though we have gotten the contract on our house! Yippee! I thought the FDIC was gonna ask for blood samples yesterday— They have a long contract approval check list since it is a foreclosure. For instance they had to verify we weren't related to prior owners. Long story short, this morning when I looked at the MLS for the house it had been marked with a pink background flag and marked as under contract with Bev our Agent. I confirmed with Bev and she had not even noticed until I sent it to her. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning who snuck down early to see what Santa brought.

So ladies and gents we move forward! We'll celebrate this weekend, then hold our breathe again as we get through the inspection. Here's to hoping all goes well!

In the meantime here are some pictures to share with you all:

The stairs I fear will be a slip n' slide for Captain.

I love this fixture in the stairwell.

We'll probably relocate the ceiling fan to another room as it does not coordinate well with our master suite. Maybe a coat of light grey paint will be instore as well.
We shall see.

I am so excited about the kitchen. I love the cabinets and even the back splash! I have noticed a few knobs missing but those can be fun to replace if I cannot find the matching ones.

Patience

ll of those people who say patience is a virtue are correct. Albeit though, it is not my hubby's nor my strong suit.

We spent Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and the better part of Tuesday thinking we lost our dream house to the other buyers, their offer was cash. When dealing with this type of transaction the FDIC, or any bank for that matter, will choose cash every time— it is the safer choice from a business and closing stand point for a seller. We just could not compete with cash, even though we were tempted to offer more than our last negotiated deal we chose to stand firm in our offer and walk away from a house we had already moved into in our hearts and minds.

Well Tuesday afternoon presented itself with an interesting turn of events. Our fabulous Realtor had spent her Monday and Tuesday talking with developers and builders and searching for us other houses. We were moving on from the house we loved and lost and were looking at building in the same subdivision at least. In speaking with our Realtor Bev on Tuesday afternoon, she mentions to me that the FDIC has not heard back from the cash buyers and they have until the end of the day to respond to them. Did my ears deceive me? I think my stomach just churned and my heart skipped a beat. I am over joyed to hear this but slightly sick as I now have to wait to see if the cash buyers respond within their allotted time. The evening passes by with no news from Bev so we know she hasn't heard either way. On Wednesday morning we are greeted with an excited email to us from Bev, we have the option now to put a contract on the house we wanted!

We spent Wednesday evening going over the contract & disclosures, making changes per our last agreements, signing, scanning, and getting it all sent off. So now we wait again. As soon as we get a copy from them with the FDIC's signature we can start to celebrate, although not too much.

Once we actually have a contract we'll have to have the house inspected. It has been under bank ownership for more than a year, so that makes the possibility of all kinds of things going wrong with it being unoccupied. This inspection and an appraisal are the two items that I am most worried about. If the inspection finds minor items wrong we'll pay a contractor to go in to fix them. If it is anything major, then we'll have figure out a game plan or get out of the contract.

Once we are beyond an inspection we'll have to hold our breathe for the appraisal. See if the house doesn't appraise for a certain value then we can't get a mortgage. If the this happens we'll have to try to renegotiate the contract with the FDIC. It could work in our favor if the house doesn't appraise high enough because then the FDIC would have to have a buyer with cash, or surplus of cash to pay the overage of the appraised value, or come down to a lower price for us.

So please everyone, cross your fingers, do a dance, say a prayer, whatever you must, so that we can move forward with our dream.