Wow. We love our new house!!!

The seller of the house was moving in to his girlfriend's fully furnished house. So when we went on our final walk-through, he was still packing and offered us a nice couch, his dining table set, and a few other items. The couch is fantastic (he says at retail it was worth $2000, though with the stains on it, you certainly couldn't sell it for that much) and it's actually long enough for Whateley to stretch out in. The dining table set is better than what we have, though to be fair, our set is third-hand (we got it from our old roommates who got it from someone else) so it's not much of a comparison.

Well, when we got the keys and walked in, we were rather surprised. I guess he figured since we were taking him up on all offers of furniture, he was going to leave behind everything he didn't want, and letting us take care of disposing it if we didn't want it. Well, that and he had a lot of stuff and not enough time to move all of it out and get rid of junk.

Anyway, the biggest thing he left behind that we didn't expect was the refrigerator. That will save us about a grand, though Whateley is a bit disappointed since he really wanted to get a stainless steel one from Costco (it's just black). But it's a good refrigerator, and it just doesn't make sense to pass up saving a thousand bucks. He also left a bunch of stuff in the kitchen such as a crappy little microwave, a deep fryer, one or two slow cookers (there was one high up on a shelf that looked like one), and some dishes and mugs. He also left a coffee maker, a whole bunch of cleaning products, and I believe he didn't take a single trash can with him. Though they are nice-looking and stainless steel.

He also left a DVD player, and in the bedroom, the TV stand, complete with a TV and a VCR. Suddenly, we've become a three-TV household. He also left his workout bench and a couple of dumbbells. We were thinking of canceling our gym membership and making a home gym, and with those we pretty much decided we're gonna do it. We got a pretty good deal on our membership before we got married, but it's still not worth it if you're not using it. It's been hard trying to make it to the gym after an 11-hr workday.

The seller was also a big hunter, so we're now the proud owners of a set of deer antlers mounted to the wall. I'll leave that for Whateley to play with. Who knows, our D&D group may encounter a giant-antler-monster in the coming weeks. With the exception of a few generic photos which the guy obviously didn't take, he took all his photos. Well, except the one of his now ex-wife on their wedding day. We found that funny. I think we're going to put some photos from our wedding in the frame. It's a nice frame. I wonder if it's disturbing to paw through the souvenirs of another man's failed marriage, but hey, he left them behind.

The garage was full of junk too. There was a shovel, a watering hose, and I believe some potted plants. I couldn't quite tell since the electricity was shut off so we couldn't turn on the garage lights. In the backyard, he took his rusted smoker, but left his gas barbecue. It's a nice-looking barbecue, though it's crusted with dirt and other stuff. He did us the great favor of dumping the charcoal ash in the weed-ridden grass and taking the propane tank out. Yaaaaay....

We're thinking one of the improvements we would like to make eventually would be to make a covered patio outside. Currently there's just a small concrete block, just big enough to hold a barbecue. The door to the backyard hasn't been caulked or sealed, so there was some water damage to the door frame from all the rain that falls here. Whateley thinks having a covered patio will at least keep the water away come the rainy season. I was just thinking if it would be feasible to have my dad come visit us for a few weeks and build it for us. He may be sixty years old, but he's still pretty spry. But it's probably not feasible since he wouldn't be able to bring his tools with him out here. That and I don't know what he'd do with himself while we were at work with our wacked-out schedule.

Hey, here's a question I'd like to throw out to my readers:

Which room should we use as our guest bedroom? One is bigger and it's right next to our room, the other is smaller and across the foyer. It's also partially over the garage, so in the summer it will bake and in the winter it will freeze. So the bigger room will be more comfy, but it shares a wall with our room, and then we can't be... ahem, loud... in the middle of the night.

I'm also thinking that when we finally squirt out a CHUD baby, we would rather make the bigger room his or her room. So if we make that room into the guest bedroom, we'd have to move it once we become in a family way. And if there's one thing Whateley and I are, it's lazy. We'd much rather not have to move furniture around later.

Anyway, to wrap up our initial visit to our new house (we couldn't stay long since it was getting dark and there's no power), we called our realtor and told him of all the stuff that was left behind. One of the things is a basket full of clothes and a really nice hunting knife. That made us wonder if perhaps some of the stuff he meant to take with him and just forgot. I'm figuring, he left it, it's now ours. But if he does contact us and want some of his stuff back, we're not going to be dicks and say no. But we're not giving back the workout bench or the TV.