Kate and I closed on our house on Thursday morning; there were eight people around the table — two real estate agents (ours and theirs), two buyers, two sellers, a mortgage broker, and a title clerk, all very friendly and nice. We signed form after form, initialed page after page, and there was some good-natured teasing between the various brokers and agents about the various “sweeteners” they had managed to get into the agreement. Our agent had a “transference fee”, common on the East coast, apparently. Our mortgage broker had given us the mortgage through a local company, who was immediately selling it to Wells Fargo, resulting in a twenty-dollar transfer fee that we were paying. The total amounts in play weren’t terrible, though, and I think that we could have saved all of $100.00 by popping a blood vessel and having to glare at our agents every time we see them in the coffee shop. So I feel like we made out okay, overall. Had we done the transaction in New York, I bet we’d both be wearing barrels with suspenders right now.

A flurry of handshakes, a passing back and forth of champagne bottles in silver party bags, and the next big thing on our horizon becomes home improvement. First thing: remove the metal awnings over the doors. Second thing: rip out the pink-and-purple ceiling fans. Third thing: remove ye olde colonial number plate from the lamp outside. Fourth thing: start painting. Small rooms take just as long as large ones, I discovered to my chagrin, as I spent all Saturday cutting in around closet doors.

The neigbors are nice, and I have a whole new cast of characters to Blog about: Dudley, the 15-year-old cocker spaniel next door, who barks ferociously as he creaks towards you, picking up and putting one leg at a time: the squirrels that our predecessors had been feeding, who come and beg outside the door, and the kid across the street who’s in one of Chester County’s big marching bands and does Peking-opera style kung fu with a polyester flag in the evenings, throwing it waaaay up in the air and catching it behind his back.

Pictures to follow!