From the Archives: Oh, totally forgot to mention WE BOUGHT A HOUSE LAST MONTH

 Hello, friends. We are traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday and then catching up from traveling, so I am posting a favorite post from the first 8 years of Harry Times in my absence.

This post was originally published on Tuesday, May 10, 2011.

I have been silent about it because we have been waiting on a million things-- blueprints for the basement we are finishing, the appraisal, our loan paperwork to process, a thousand trips to meet with the realtor and our designer to pick out finishes-- you get the idea. We bought the house already built, so we didn't get to pick the cabinets, countertops, light fixtures, bathroom floors, or wood floors on the main level. BUT with the exception of the counters and the bathroom floors, it's all stuff we would have picked anyway! We took our long-suffering realtor on trips to view about 64 (no joke) existing homes before we fell in love with a brand new neighborhood. We almost built a 2-story house in the neighborhood, but one day, Ben and I drove through and noticed an adorable already-built ranch with a walk-out basement. We looked in the windows for awhile then called the realtor. She happened to be driving home that way, stopped to show us the house, and bam! We bought it and designed a basement build the next week then took the kids on a hellish trip to pick out appliances, then took the kids on a hellish trip to pick out paint and carpet. Then stopped taking the kids on house errands, except for buying furniture, which is so far the shittiest thing I have ever done with kids. Today we walked through with the electrician to add 7,000 extra outlets because Ben never wants to be more than a finger-length away from a plug and a cable jack, and we took some terrible pictures. Terrible because the painters haven't come through, so everything is beige, and there is no floor in most of the house, and the basement is all 2 by 4s right now. That's me where our kitchen table will go.That's the electrician in our kitchen.Some of the great roomBen in the future playroom (I think)95% sure that's gonna be the downstairs bathroom because of that circle where I think the toilet goes?That's the guest room for sure-- I can tell because of the electrical box on the wallPart of the family roomLaundry room shelves? I took some seriously random picturesMasterMaster bathClosetMe looking out our bedroom window. The guy who lives behind us has lived there for a long time, which is good because there won't be any building right behind us and bad because he has a van and a propane tank in his yard.Randomly, here's some more kitchenDeckThis wall in the kitchen/great room will be a bookcaseKid bathroomBaby's roomH and J's roomTheir closetCute little front doorSo. Yeah. We are so excited and can't wait to close and move. Except, you know, moving sucks. Also, no. No we haven't sold our condo. Yes, that also sucks. Hopefully we do.