New carpets

On the bright side, we did want new carpets and now they will all be done before we even move in. On the down side – they are taking ALL our available funds. The entire slush fund that represented our emergency savings post settlement. OK, we do get paid this week, so we’ll be OK – as long as nothing else happens (dear God, was that bad horror movie juju or what? I take that back. I never said that!). We’re working on negotiating getting at least some of the money back from the security deposit. (Actually, basically, what we would like is enough money to cover all the carpets – not all were stained, but we had to replace all of upstairs and the stairs so that they match. And because we were going to do it anyway eventually, let’s just make it one big project. If that’s covered, we’ll worry about coming up with cash for the rough in at some future point when we get to that.) Sadly, the couple who’d been so nice up until this point is now digging in their heels. My husband pointed out that I probably wouldn’t want to just give up a few thousand dollars without a fight either, but I don’t like the way they’re doing it. They could argue that based on the grade of carpet or what have you, we should split the cost. Heck, they could even TRY to argue that the carpets weren’t that bad (they were). But that’s not the approach. They are arguing that we should have known about the carpets from our walk throughs (despite the furniture). Heck, they are now even arguing that they’re not responsible for the rough in that was in the listing and they confirmed was there multiple times. I think their argument is that it’s not listed in the contract. Yeah, you know why that is? Because plumbing conveys! You don’t HAVE to list plumbing!

Anyway, their demeanor on this is making us want to ask for even more! But I think we’re caving at 60% (slightly less than the carpet cost, but it will cover most of it) to just be done with it. It’s just all added so much extra stress! Because, given the state, we couldn’t move in with it – which meant it had to be done almost immediately. And, hey, if you’re carpeting, you should really paint first – which meant ripping down A LOT of red toile wallpaper (it covered the foyer, stairs and upstairs hall. If that doesn’t sound so bad, you should probably know that the dining room next to it was navy and the living room on the other side was sort of a peach color – and then there was other very busy wallpaper in the kitchen.). Sadly, we just ran out of time, so we just ripped down the wallpaper and prepped the rooms and then painted the baseboards – as they will be closest to the carpet. But in the plans to do this, my husband decided he was simply too disgusted by the carpet to even kneel on it while he worked, so he ripped it up first – discovering that the stains penetrated the carpet pad and had even stained the floor boards. Thank God they weren’t wet / didn’t smell or have mold. But can you imagine how gross they were / how much there was to pass through all of that?!

But now we have new carpets and have begun the work of painting – and have realized in the process that we have essentially recreated the design of our condo (essentially the same carpets and exactly the same wall color). Well, or we almost have – the condo is (sadly!) still nicer as it has crown molding! We’ll be remedying this soon… I’m beginning to wonder about our logic in moving (something I’m sure I’ll REALLY wonder about when the first mortgage bill comes due…)