More beam:

And more walls in the bathroom:

you know some progress has been made!

The rest of the wall is gone:

and the thinset is gone:

(unfortunately it appears to be plywood underneath – not more nice oak, but that is a minor setback.)

The kitchen tile is gone:

The beam was attacked:

And there is lots and lots of debris:

There was lots of progress with the bathroom:

And last but not least, a preview for the future:

Here’s the floor:

And check out that doorframe:

(that’s the view from the back of the kitchen looking out)

One last view of the closet:

And this is what the kitchen looked like when I checked back in after work today:

The sink is in the living room:

Say goodbye to the closet:

And the doorframe:

And the floor:

Is that wood under there? Hopefully, we’ll find out tomorrow!

The kitchen is not the only place where there were big changes today. Let’s take a look at the bathroom, shall we?

Remember the hamper? That’s gone now.

Just in case it wasn’t clear how BIG what happened today was, I leave you with a shot of everything they got rid of. Check back tomorrow for more updates!

Now without further ado, let me introduce you to the apartment (apologies for the berry pictures – I have not been able to locate my card reader):

THIS is what the apartment looked like when the tenant was moving out:

Kitchen:

Living Room:

Bathroom:

Check out all these tiles in the bathroom:

and picture them covering ALL the walls.

They were not in great shape:

Now for the bathroom, AFTER:

Look at all these tiles! And, shockingly, we got most of them off intact. I was proud of us.

And here’s the living room post-appliance and cabinet delivery (not much visible difference there, I know!):

You may be asking, where is that all going to go? (at least that’s what the Boyfriend was asking.)

Check back tomorrow night to see!

So I have this former roommate from college. We were roommates our freshman and sophomore years and besties for awhile (not to overly promote myself or anything, but I made her and her now-husband happen. And later encouraged him to just wait it out when she broke up with him after graduation. Because I am a nice person.) until she sat by and let our other two roommates pull some serious mean girls shit on me (apparently I deserved it because I did evil things like drink non-diet soda and, you know, EAT real food and I had boys who liked me. Bad fifi! Also, although interestingly enough this was never thrown in my face like the other stuff, I was/am a bit bossy. No one is perfect.) and then, at the end of the day, she picked the mean girls over me (I mean, it’s worked out for them-they were in her wedding) and, at the time, I was deeply upset and sad, but let it go because we had been besties. However, as time when by, and she made what I see in retrospect to be very half-assed and fake overtures of continuing friendship, I eventually got to the end of my rope when she told me she could give me 10 minutes when she was in DC for a week and broke things off. And we have not talked since. However, we do still have mutual acquaintances and I hear things. And we are still face.book friends because unfriending someone, deserved as it may be, seems awfully spiteful to me and I just don’t really care that much.

As such, occasionally I log into fb and see things about her. And occasionally such things are enough to make me blow up Jill on gchat all: can you believe what horseface did now?!? (I’m a bitch. I get that. But she does also have a very narrow face…). Because she is FOR REALZ copying my life.

Granted I only have two incidents of this, but it’s enough. Exhibit A: of all the law firms in all the world, she summered at MY law firm. MINE. In the Chicago office, but still MINE. Which means we may have to cross paths sometime in the future. Of course, I don’t know if she’ll actually end up working there, but given the economy, I can’t imagine she won’t be on the list of new lawyers come fall. SIGH.

So then, (Exhibit B), I log into fb today and see that she has posted honeymoon pictures. And even though they are the wee little thumbnail pictures, I think, “hmmm those look AWFULLY familiar.”

That’s because they stayed at the exact same random (but very nice)hotel in Costa Rica that the Boyfriend and I stayed in when we went two years ago.

Yes, yes. I realize I sound crazy. The Boyfriend says I should be happy because we were trendsetters (we stayed there right after it opened). I say: MINE.

Sigh.

HOWEVER.

When he sleeps on his back, he snores. And by snores, I mean SNORES. I’ve been waking up two or three times a night, which is not good for my quality of sleep. Initially, subtle “accidental” pokes were enough to get him to roll over without waking him up, but as of late, he seems to have grown immune to these and it pretty much takes either pulling the pillow out from under his head (what?) or shoving him hard (again, like you wouldn’t) to get it to stop. Which, of course, wakes him up and makes him rather cranky.

So the question is: is it better for just one of us to be awake and suffering (SNORING people SNORING) or should we both be awake, but with a chance of falling back asleep? Or, of course, there is always the option of throwing a blanket or something over his face and seeing what happens. (What? You put the stuffed tiger on your own face. Seriously.).

Sigh. Maybe it is just time to break out the tylenol pm.

I find this so odd. I mean, a) wouldn’t it make more sense to just ask for my id instead of asking how old I am? This eliminates all confusion. And, b), if you really thought I was under 21, wouldn’t you ask before running my credit card? I can’t decide if I think this is some elaborate trap they set for the under-21 crowd in NYC or, if these sellers really could care less and just want to make the sale, but “check” just to halfway cover their own asses. Considering the fact that both times the sellers declined to actually see my id even when I attempted to give it to them, I’m leaning towards the second option. Which is really just EXCELLENT news for all the NYU students in the area.

So this is it: I am buying an apartment!!!!

And we are closing in less than an hour.

Obviously, I’ve wanted to tell you all about this sooner, if for no other reason than that DEAR LORD this has been a process, including dealing with incompetent sellers who take a month (A MONTH) to return the signed contract of sale, a tenant who enjoyed playing fun games like locking the top lock so the appraiser couldn’t actually get in the apartment (that was a fun $75 fine), and brokers who hid the fact that the tenant had a 60 day notice clause in her lease and said notice could only be given on the 1st of the month. (Surprise! Even though you all came to agreement on Dec. 2, we can’t give notice until Jan. 1, so the soonest the tenant wil be out is March 2! Oopsie!), BUT with all these fun little hiccups, I didn’t want to push my luck and jinx everything. Now, though, I have the keys and, even though the last 24 hours have been full of the ridiculousness that has characterized this whole process, I feel pretty comfortable spilling the beans. No celebrating just yet, but I feel like that’s close too.

But let me tell you about the last 24 hours…I hired a lawyer who was recommended to me as competent by a friend who said that said lawyer (“Urkel”) who is generally awkward and twitchy and likes to talk about how he is looking out for me because he thinks of me as a little sister, but then fails to back that up with action. Urkel has been promising all week to send the closing breakdown, but didn’t finally send it until about five last night (it is always somebody else’s fault and NEVER Urkel’s) and that is when the fun really started.

In retrospect, I think that between me, the Madre and the Boyfriend we could have handled this just fine without Urkel, but everyone said that I needed someone who was familiar with New York co-ops and the process and the law, so I retained him in a burst of “better safe than sorry” logic. I have no doubt that we are, in fact safe because Urkel is generally competent, but sorry is another question entirely, because, frankly, dealing with Urkel makes my head hurt.

So anyway, as it turned out, Urkel had made some mistakes. There were small ones (none of his math actually added up) and big ones (he got the purchase price wrong on the final documents and these documents cannot be changed. So now in all the filings while I (we-my parents helped SO SO SO much with this, but it is technically my apartment) paid X for the apartment, it appears we paid X + $3,000. Luckily, this doesn’t really have an effect on anything, but STILL). He also sprung on us that, OOPSIE, even though he had assured us that the sellers would take a personal check, it actually has to be a certified check and that’s not a problem, right, when you are writing the check from a brokerage account, OH WAIT. Yes that actually is a wee bit of a problem.

But bygones. We sorted that out (with no help from Urkel). Then, my favorite: it turned out that even though Urkel told us he held firm and got reimbursements from the sellers for the $75 fees from when THEIR tenant refused to let the appraiser in, it turned out that he is a big old WIMP and basically convinced my broker to reimburse me out of pocket. Obviously, that is not how these things are supposed to work.

As a result of these issues, we spent about five hours trying to call Urkel, but he was clearly avoiding us. The Madre sent Urkel an email detailing the issues. It was pretty calm, although she did end it with “I am disappointed with your handling of this matter.” The result of THAT was me getting a call from my broker at 10 to midnight saying that Urkel was “scared” and that could we please, please let the reimbursement thing go because it was totally cool with him.

SIGH. Clearly, some people do not have the personalities necessary to be lawyers.

And, seriously, to those of you out there who have taken PR, doesn’t that just sound like a bad PR case? “Lawyer is called before the Board for because he screwed up and then avoided client calls for five (5) hours because he was scared.” Clearly Urkel has forgotten everything he learned studying for the MPRE.

But anyway, we did everything settled and we CLOSED and as of Thursday around four pm, I am now officially a homeowner (well, co-op owner if you want to get all technical about it). Now the real fun starts-fixing everything up to move in! I’m hoping to document the process with pictures here so stick with me. I hope to get some “before” pics posted in the next few days.

*Also, as you may have figured out, I started this post on Thursday on my way to the closing, but while at the closing got an email asking me to come into work. I went straight there from the closing and then didn’t leave until about 1:30 Friday. I proceeded to go home and sleep for about 17 hours before coming into work this morning. Oh, the very exciting life of a corporate lawyer! Besides, it is letting me be a homeowner, so I can’t complain too much.

He told me when he got home that he could not engage in banal conversation with me because he just has too much on his mind. I have been reading on the couch while he ate and played around on his computer.

He just asked me if I was upset about something (I wasn’t) because I haven’t offered to do anything for him to “make his life easier.” By this, I infer that he means heat up his dinner for him, do his dishes and rub his shoulders for more than the five minutes I did (I prob. could have rubbed longer but his dinner was ready.

I am seething right now. We have groceries because I bought them yesterday. We have water because I picked it up. The apartment is clean because I cleaned it Friday night after I got home from work. We will have clean laundry tomorrow because I will do it, just like I’ve done it by myself for the last three weeks. Obviously I do these things to contribute to our life in the apartment and not to get thanked or keep score.

But seriously? I don’t think I’m a bad girlfriend because I didn’t heat his dinner up for him.