2 Animal Family

Now that we have settled in, had our requisite house warming party we have decided to get a cat.


We have pig, our dog that is almost 4, who is a spoiled lazy excuse for a dog. I thought that since he did so well this past summer when my brother in law's dog Milo stayed with us, that if we got a cat pig may do well with that to.


So, we went to the APA on Hanley and looked for a cat. I like going there despite the smell of poo, because the cats are kept in a room with the puppies. And I guess because cat's are smaller it looks like they have more room in their cages.
The APA is a great place and they really take animal adoption seriously, they check where you live and ask you the right questions even before you can touch an animal. They also have a lot of pit bulls and make the rules for adopting them even harder.

We looked around, and I had no real prerequisites for what I wanted in a cat other than wanting the cat to have been around dogs before. You never really know what you are getting when you adopt, but any background info helps.
We ended up picking a girl cat, who is about a year old who had been in a home with a dog before so the paper said.

We really picked her because the minute we went and got her out of the cage, she rubbed noses with us and just wanted to be held. She was not scared, she just purred and wanted attention. On top of all that she was full-grown and really small with short hair.

We adopted her, got her fixed and named her NOSEY.


When we brought her home; she loved us, and ran to pig and loved him

(he is tolerant of her purring and rubbing up against him)

This is an example of a decision that was quick and not really planne that turned out good!

Before and After

So, we moved in I went crazy and managed to paint all the rooms and unpack in about 2 weeks.
Now you can get to see the before and after pic's. Our changes are in the photo below the previous owners.

We really are buying a home

So our offer was accepted with a few changes. The sellers wanted full asking price but would pay our closing costs and sell all their appliances for a dollar.



We accepted!


We breezed through the inspection with just a small hiccup when the inspector almost electrocuted himself when he poked his screw driver in the box. But that was a happy coincidence because there happens to be a great electrician next door that is friends with the owner who came right over and replaced what needed to be for free.

We decided to get a sewer snake done and found a couple of branches growing in the pipe. We got worried but realized at prompting from our broker to look into Maplewood's sewer lateral program. (First just let me say . . . what?). Who knew that that was a term that I would get to know, and then even better we found out that the program is great and you already pay into it through your taxes.

So pain was averted and we went on and scheduled the closing. Everyone warned us that if the sellers did not pre-sign we may not get the keys until the end of the day. Turns out that the sellers pre-signed and we had our closing scheduled for 10am, so chances were that we could have the keys by noon.

Meanwhile we were packing our apartment, coming up with a budget that we thought was reasonable to stick to for the move and all the fixing up costs.

That started a bit of fighting just because my husband wanted to make sure that we would stick to the budget and not throw it out the window the minute that I saw something fab that I had to have.

I am trying to stick to the budget. . .


So we had the closing and I signed a lot of paper most of which I did not read, and I shook my loan officer's hand and fully expected to get a bottle of champagne like people get on tv. We did not. I am still waiting for that.




We got our keys and in about 45 minutes became proud home owners in Maplewood, Missouri!

We are maybe going to buy a home?

So as said below, a friend of ours who is a homeowner herself suggested that we look at this home that just came on the market in Maplewood.

In my mind there are 2 parts to Maplewood one side of the tracks and the other. There is no economical difference as you may think it's just that there is a train that carried freight through the town about every hour. Our apartment is on one side a bit far away from the tracks and this home that was suggested to us is one the other.

Previously I had decided against looking on the "other side" of the tracks just really because it helped narrow our search. But now since a friend of ours suggested it we went down and took a look. As we drove up we saw a quite neighborhood filled with large old homes, and as we got to the corner lot where the home we were looking at we noticed that it was probably the smallest one in the neighborhood. The agent and the home owner were sitting on the porch swing and I look over at my husband and he has the largest grin on his face.


We walk up the stoop do the introductions and get the tour. As the buyers agent is showing us around I am thinking oh how cute this is, and my husband is ohhing and awwwing. (He never does this) I start thinking I had better find something I don't like about this home or this may be it!:) Which is not a bad thing I just felt like it was all happening so fast.

The buyers agent goes outside and we take a look around alone and take one look at each other and say this is it!

It's a 2 bedroom 1 bath brick cottage. With a long living room and dining room.

This is the pic from the add.

It's got a front and back porch and a fenced in side yard. It's a few blocks from the train so you can't really hear it and there are luxury condo's being built across the street. The basement is also a full footprint and it walk out.

We say our thank you's trying not to seem overly excited and rush to the car to make our broker some and see this house so we can put an offer in.

2 hours later we are back with our broker and as we round the corner again, he says lets go back to the office right away and write up and offer.

We actually go in and he looks at it, examines the basement and deems it solid and we rush back to his office and put an offer in.

I sign papers hoping that I am not screwing something up by not reading them, and My husband is just beaming.

We submit the offer and find out we are the first offer, and that our broker knows the buyers agent from softball league and we cross our fingers that they will accept our terms.

We put a lower offer in with no contingency’s and asking for them to pay closing costs and include all the appliances even the washer dryer.

We wait again. . .

Looking for a home

So after about 6 months of renting above 2 loud dogs and a woman who cooks meat every night we decided to look for a home of our own.
It started as a joke, looking at listings and going to open houses in the neighborhood. We started out not knowing our price range but knowing that we did not want our mortgage payment to be more than our rent in NY. We found a few great places in our neighborhood in Maplewood, we went to see this one in particular that we thought was great.

It was on a corner lot, in our price range with all new appliances that came with the home, 2 stories and a basement that I would not be afraid of. We freaked out and called everyone we knew. Called a friend of ours who was a broker and hoped to start the process.

Our friend the broker got out of the car and took one look at the house and said walk away "this place is a dump". Turns out that the reason that the price was so low was that it had been on the market for a year and was sloping and cracking down the hill it was built on.

This realization began the start of having to know way more about the bones on a house than you'll ever want to know. Thankfully our broker/ friend is quite knowledgeable about this subject and from that point on only showed us homes that were built solidly well.

We looked at almost every home in Maplewood and Richmond Heights and even Dogtown. The experience was character building and made communication a necessity. My husband and I had it down to a science what we liked and did not like. We were able to walk into a home and within 5 minutes know weather or not we liked it.

At first there were cute things I would get hung up on, like a purple toilet and things I did not like such as the color a room was painted. But as the process woar on i started to realize that what mattered was the ground plan of a home and if it was solid.

Who knew that you could change all that cosmetic stuff? :)

After a few months of looking we got a call from a friend who saw a listing of a home that had just gone on the market. It was under our price range and in a neighborhood that I had not really thought of living in but still in Maplewood.

Now begins the waiting. . . .

Living and leaving

We rented the apartment in Maplewood it is a good place. A place that is bigger than I have lived in since my home growing up outside Boston.

Of course since I love something untill I find a problem, I was waiting for what that problem would be. Since this place is cheaper than most things in NY the rent for once was not going to be the problem. I had also over looked the fact that the balcony was falling off, and that we were on the 2nd floor.

The 1st problem came about 1 month into our stay. The power went out just on our block due to some outage down the street. I went into the Kitchen with the Mag lite (I swiped it from a function at the Ritz in Clayton I invited myself to) and saw my worst fear.

Crawling on the sliding door was the largest roach I had ever seen. This was somthing to rivel the largest ones I had ever seen in NY. Please keep in mind that the power was out. Because of this I went a bit crazy and thought I saw something on every wall and indeed saw antoher one on a wall on the other side of the kitchen. I insisted we leave immediatly and go sleep anywhere but there. My husband called his parents and we went there for the evening.

This started what is becoming a large issue. For some reason maybe it's the season but everywhere I look in the evening outside there are roaches . Allyways, sidewalks, curbs etc. WHY?

I thought that leaving NY that problem would be left on the east coast.

I have become obsessed and kind of a night time shut-in. The apartment that we chose to live in happens to be on the 2nd floor and below us is a woman and her son.
The woman who lives below us cooks meat every night and has what became problem number 2. She has two fat, loud, untrained and unwalked dachshunds.

No joke, barking and running and barking dogs. When we moved in they were kept under control so that we did not hear them. We soon found out that they barked all the time, at any sound or lack of sound. They also never get walked and poop all over the yard, even on the driveway. They poop on the driveway and stand there while you pull your car in almost daring you to hit them. (Please keep in mind I am an animal lover, just not a lover of dachshunds)

Roaches and poop have turned out nice large apartment into a place that we may not want to stay out our year in.

Where to live

My husbands brother has lived here his whole life other than college and trips places. He is a teacher and owns his own home. He has friends all over and was very instrumental about where we were supposed to live. We were also living in one of his extra bedrooms.

At first we were going to pay to much and live in the Central West End in these high rise apartments. The apartments were small and it kinda smelled like a sewer in the building all the time. But coming from NY we were just so excited to find a cute place that we kinda liked.

We were instructed that we were stupid to live there and we needed to take our time and look at places like Maplewood. Now that meant nothing to me. I could barley tell I40 (which I thought was called 64) from 170 to 270. I could have been told to live on the moon.

We went driving around and we were shown all the cute little neighborhoods a bit farther out from the city. Places like Clayton (which we can not afford), Richmond Heights (which we are almost priced out of) and then Maplewood.

I can say now, that I saw the little town strip and the Schlafley Brewery and Monarch Restaurant and I was sold. We freaked out and ran to look at this apartment. Now unlike NY everyone had for rent signs outside. And there are numbers to call, they could be owners, or landlords or rental companies, but people answer the phone and will show you what you want to see.

We looked at this one place and I walked up to stairs and loved it!


I went in to full speed foaming at the mouth mode to get it. That is something else you don't have to do here either. It's not like people are lined up around the block to get these apartments. Telling me that at the time would not have helped. I ran around getting Faxes and such and we got the apartment.

Side note and something that will I am sure happen over and over but the receptionist and the rental co, went to high school with my husbands mom's family and so we got an edge that way. Everyone here is connected through high school.

We got the keys in the next few days and moved in.

That couch had to go up through the back porch!


Maplewood is nice. It family orientated, safe and really as everything else 20 minutes from everything we could want.
As a transition from North Carolina it's already better and cheaper and we can walk to things without worrying about driving everywhere.

Moving

The sound bite I tell everyone is "that when leaving NYC my husband and I decided to find a place that was less expensive, a place that we could own and home and a place that we could raise a family."

We also wanted a place where we knew people, and had family. A place that has good restaurants and fun places to go out. Good outdoors activities, 4 seasons and a place where we could not do everything there is to do over just one weekend.
I think we went to long way but once we decided to come to St. Louis everything that we had wanted has fallen into place so far.

I grew up in Boston and after college moved to NYC, and my husband grew up in St. Louis and after high school moved to NYC. In 2006 after our wedding and deciding after 4 years for me and 9 years from my husband we would leave NYC.

We moved to North Carolina.

My friends now joke with me that I should be on the anti tourism board for the State but it was just not the right place for us. We decided to go there because I had some family there and there was a chance to buy a house at cost from that family. I now think that we did not really do our research and when choosing Carrboro as our landing ground I don't think that it was big enough to say the least.

I had all these high expectations of the southern hospitality and the cheap living and the cute farmers markets and the friends we would make. None of which happened. We moved to a dangerous part of town, and our neighbors rather than greeting us would watch what we bought at the store to eat and send their kids over to spy. There were deer everywhere so much so that I was not able to drive at night. And everything was just so far apart that we did not even make it into downtown Raleigh.
I could go on but I am stopping now before I get myself into trouble. Basically while we got fat from all the food and drinking to dull the pain, we realized what we actually wanted in a place to live.

So we sat down and picked between my hometown and my husbands home town. His won.

Our decision to move to St. Louis was compounded by the fact that all my husbands family lives here, he's got friends from high school here and it's a place that's still cheap to live while being a city.

We packed up the uhall truck and made the trek here and on February 15th 2007 we landed in St. Louis.


The blog will talk about what living here is like for a person who did not grow up here. Hopefully as I learn my way around and discover things our choice to live here and start a life will continue to be the correct one.