As we worked our way up to the final inspections required to receive our certificate of occupancy (permission to move into the house), we tried to keep our expectations in check. Hardly anything had gone exactly to schedule, and we had failed some inspections in the past, so we didn’t want to get our hopes up too terribly much. That said, we definitely wanted to get into the house by Thanksgiving, and it was creeping up on us.
Then, the Friday before Thanksgiving, we got the final word: we passed! But we couldn’t get the Certificate of Occupancy unless we got to the planning department before they closed at 4:30. And we learned about the approval at 4:15. And the planning department was a half hour away. *grumblegrumblegrumble*
The fact that we knew we had passed meant that we could move in all of our stuff and start unpacking though. We needed a few days of that anyway before we could live in the place comfortably. So We got to it as quickly as we could, since we were tired of living in cramped quarters. That meant we got to see our kids starting to settle in, which was great.
Our Final Certificate of Occupancy
The other piece of good news was that when we went to go pick up our certificate of occupancy, they didn’t issue us a temporary certificate that was contingent on the outcome of the decks (they still didn’t have railings yet). Instead, we got our final CO! That meant that the house was ours, and we could unpack everything and get things setup how we wanted.
The week or so leading up to Thanksgiving was hectic, but we pushed hard to get things unpacked and art on the walls so that the house could feel like home in a hurry. We wanted to live in limbo for as little time as possible.
Shortly after, our deck railings were finished up and we even got our main coat of exterior paint on the walls! We went with Valspar Polished Silver, which really seems to shift in color based on the light. It also picks up a lot of the blue of our beetle kill soffits, and blends nicely with a grey winter day.
Overall, it was great to be home. We weren’t finished with projects yet, but it didn’t take long for things to feel like home.
