We sold the house!

 I'm not sure whether I mentioned this before, but we moved before selling our old house. It  ended up being way more stressful than I thought it would be trying to move into this house while  also maintaining the old house and trying to sell it. We picked a terrible time. Home sales in Regina are down, there are more houses on the market than there have been in 10 years, and overall the prices  of homes is down about 10% since peaking, which happened very shortly after we bought our old house. 

 we also had problems that we did not anticipate. The basement was in worse shape than we thought, and we ended up needing to get some work done on the floor as well as getting bracing done.  The first estimate we got for getting the work done on the floor was $30,000.  There was no way we could afford that. The next estimate we got was  $2,000,  which although expensive, seemed far more reasonable than the first estimate. Unfortunately, you get what you pay for, and we ended up having all kinds of problems, including concrete dust  all over the house from grinding down the basement floor, and concrete in the sump pump pit.  Jeff spent so many hours cleaning and dealing with the aftermath of getting the floor fixed. It was kind of awful.

Then came the bracing on one wall.   Many homes in Regina end up getting bracing done on one or more basement walls, because the soil is volatile and  the weather is extreme.  This tends not to be good for basements and foundations of houses. We did not expect to have to get the work done, but the house was not selling and we figured that getting the work done might help the sale. We went with a reputable company, and they did  good work, but left a mess. One of the worst things they did was take a hose out of the water softener and not put it back. What ended up happening  was that water got all over the basement floor. So more cleaning for Jeff to do. It turned out that one of the guys involved in doing the work on our basement ended up getting fired because we were not the only ones to complain. They took a couple hundred dollars off, but it was a serious pain. 

 We started to worry that the house might not sell this summer, and around here it is really really hard to sell a house in the winter.   We dropped the price, twice. Then, last week: 

It was such a relief. Possession is not until the end of August,  and we sold the house for about 6% less than we bought it for. But that's fine. We wanted to move, and although it was expensive to do to so, I think it  was worth it for improved quality of life. Selling the old house is a huge weight off our shoulders, and a huge weight off financially as well.  Once possession is final, we will be able to afford  a few  things for this house that we have been holding off on but that will significantly improve  how settled we are  – a couch for the room that has no furniture for sitting on, blinds  that actually block light  for the bedrooms.  And then maybe I will actually post some photos of the new house :-)