Foolishly, I had the Comcast disconnected Friday instead of, oh, I don’t know, Monday? So at about 7 pm (Friday) tonight we lost television and (horrors!) the internet. So I’m blogging into Word, and will paste and post as soon as my next free moment with wi-fi comes around.
And here it is: Moving Day. Or Moving Eve. It’s 10:30 pm on Friday the 17th and we’re winding down for the night. Tomorrow morning we’ll be packing up a U-haul truck with all of our (voluminous) worldly possessions and heading to 2607 Sandy to start a new chapter in our new home.
I absolutely hate it when people complain about how busy they are or how busy they have been; it’s just one of the least interesting topics of conversation I can think of. But here I go, I’m about to tell you how very, very busy we’ve been. Because almost every night for the last three weeks we’ve finished up our work day and headed straight to the new house to paint, prime, sand, scrub, rip and varnish every inch of the place. The bathroom is coming together amazingly well. Drywall is hung, bathtub is in place, walls are mudded, sanded and primed, and tonight my Dad, the hero, finished placing all of the (one-inch octagonal) tile in the floor. It’s been incredibly exciting to watch the bathroom come together, and I can’t believe he’s done it almost all himself. With lots of help from Austin, plus some from Patrick today. Simply amazing. We picked up a gallon of sky blue (Glidden Falling Rain) paint for the walls, and everything else is white, white, white. At first it seemed like an outrageous undertaking and expense (okay, it’s both) but making the bathroom a room we’re really proud of and love is going to turn out to be so worth it all in the long run.
In the meantime, the rest of the house came together beautifully. Paint is up on all the walls of the main floor. I finished the last coat of yellow in the kitchen this morning, and pulled all the blue tape down to reveal a completely transformed room. The backyard fence was finished Thursday and looks shiny and sturdy. The only major roadblock we’ve come across was revealed on Sunday night when Megan and I, excited to see how everything would look when it was finished, pulled up the carpet in the bedroom to reveal horrible stains on the hardwood floors underneath. I know we shouldn’t have been surprised, and we certainly should have found out for sure one way or the other WELL before a week before moving day, but I was simply heartbroken. Further investigation revealed the office floors were nearly as bad. Two days of discussions later, we decided to undertake a simplified floor refinishing project, and Wednesday night Brandes helped us sand the floors and bleach out the stains. Thursday morning he met me there again and we got woodstain down, then I applied poly that night and this morning and they look REMARKABLY better. Especially the office, where there is only one dark spot left and it’s going to be covered by a bookcase.
So other than the floor drama, which will most likely continue into our occupation of the home because we haven’t even pulled up the carpet in the hallway yet, everything has gone so well. The white trim, while being a major pain the labor ass, makes all the new colors look gorgeous, and this morning while we got things cleaned up it started finally getting exciting, as opposed to overwhelming. There is still so very, very much to be done, particularly to the basement, but the living space is ready for us to move in and start putting our things away.
I spent a lot of time this week picturing where everything would go, and I feel like I have a good game plan for unpacking over the next four days. I took a week off work for the moving, so I’ll have M-T-W there to really get my nesting on. Comcast is coming tomorrow for installation, including our new DVR, whoop! And Sears is delivering our new 25 cubic foot Whirlpool refrigerator in the afternoon, a hulking giant of an appliance, the kind with the French doors on top and the freezer on the bottom. We are hemorrhaging money, to the point where it’s like we don’t even notice anymore, but I know it’s gonna hurt in a month. The HELOC is still stalled in the approval process, mostly because no banks have any money or credit right now, I suppose? But we’re confident it will come through and we can start clearing everything up after that.
Packing up the old house has been laborious and bittersweet. I got a little sad, we’ve been really happy in this house and had many dreams for a future here. We absolutely got a better house out of the bargain and I’m so excited about our new home, but it is always an emotional time, stripping a home down to the walls and turning it into a stranger again. I’ve been lucky enough to have lots of tough-love help in packing (“Are you SURE you want to keep all fourteen of these ramekins? How many ramekins does one person need?!”) with VIP credit going to Jenny, who slogged away about six hours today and left a swath behind her of just-barely-contained possessions in dozens of cardboard boxes. I don’t mean to discredit the contributions of Casey, Megan and Lauren, who managed to box up the contents of the dining room and about sixty percent of the kitchen last night, all while surrounded by as many as five curious and muddy dogs, plus Charlie Murphy, who loves helping and packing and helping with packing.
*Editor's note* As I said, those were my comments from Friday night. It's now Sunday afternoon, and we're indulging in a lazy day before getting started on the absolute wreckage that is our new home. It's a maze of boxes and furniture, all just sort of plopped down willy-nilly, and I'm ready to tackle it with a vengeance. Unpacking is one of my favorite things.
Other than all the boxes, things are settling in just fine. We still need to clean the old house and empty the fridge, and take the remaining contents of the garage to recycling. And my cd/dvd shelves were screwed to the wall and we didn't have the right tools to take them down, so we'll need to rescue those before we close up the old house and give Tony back his keys.
By far the toughest part of yesterday was dealing with the pets. My sisters say we should all be alloted like 10 minutes over a lifetime when we can simply talk to our pets and have them understand. I would have taken three minutes to just explain to Charlie Murphy and Corvinius that we were not trying to kill, maim or abandon them by cramming them into a cat carrier and a picnic basket, respectively (poor Vinius). Jenny and Casey bravely took the lead on this endeavor and drove all three cats, wailing their fool heads off, to the new house. I'm so glad I wasn't in the car because I would have cried the whole time. Mackenzie, shockingly, adjusted quite nicely and was hanging out in the Man Room cool as a cucumber when I went to check on them an hour later (Charlie and Vinius were huddled together behind one of the doors). I suppose Kenzie has moved six or seven times now, while the boys were only brought into the Eastside house when they were still too small to care. Happily, by bedtime they were all three out and about, exploring, finding their food bowls, and eventually snuggled up in the bed with us like brave and forgiving kids. Charlie Murphy, especially, I believe has been extra sweet to me today as an apology for nearly gutting me yesterday in the Dreaded Box Incident. If I wasn't so embarrassed by the state of my belly I'd post a photo of the scratch that runs from my breastbone to my navel. He meant it at the time, but I'm getting lots of blinky eyes and sweetness today to make up for it.
The dogs also adjusted. We brought them over here and left them in the backyard before we went and picked up the moving van, and by the time we got back here with all the helpers and trucks they were pretty frantic. But they've been zooming around the yard and clearly enjoy all the space and shade. Last night proved more difficult; when it was finally time to bring them in for dinner it took much coaching (as expected) to get Bridgette and Mischa up the stairs. But they finally made it and explored the house (as much as they could with boxes everywhere) and spent the night sleeping on their three new dog beds in our bedroom. Then when they woke up at five am and refused to go down the stairs, things got temporarily ugly. We finally coaxed all three of them out at about 7 and went back to bed until ten. We spent some time playing with them outside this morning and I think they are really going to love it here. Hopefully by tonight we'll have made more sense of all the mess and they can get a better feel for the new place (and the new couch on which they are not invited...).
That's my excessively long update. Better get my unpacking groove on. Look for a Special Thank You edition of the Delusions blog, coming up next...
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
another quick update
One more week of painting, painting, painting done. The living and dining rooms are done (except for the lighting fixtures) and the kitchen just needs ceiling and wall paint. We've got two coats of red in the bedroom and it looks like it's going to take a third. The bathroom is completely gutted and Dad started replacing the insulation yesterday. We still have to paint the office, rip up the carpet in the bedrooms, paint all the interior doors and put up cabinet hardware, etc.
Sunday night we went to Home Depot and made an exhaustive list of everything we need for the bathroom. Bathtub, toilet, vanity cabinet, sink, faucet, lighting fixtures, towel rods, the works. We took the list to the customer service counter where a helpful little lady named Luz entered all of the things we wanted, issued us a line of credit, and arranged for everything to be delivered Wednesday morning. It was an astonishingly easy process. We just kept looking at each other and laughing. It was pretty much the exact opposite of the process we're experiencing with the Home Equity Line of Credit, which has been drawing out for a week and a half now with no resolution. It must be historically the worst time ever to ask for credit, even secured credit. We've got some (financially irresponsible) contingency plans in place, but it would be nice to have that HELOC to make things more comfortable over the next few weeks.
So we're clicking right along, right on track for moving day a week from tomorrow. We took a break last night and stayed home to make shepherd's pie and watch The Office. It's been extra funny this season so far. I can't wait for the return of 30 Rock in a few weeks! Last Saturday night after painting all day Austin went to Jon's house to watch football and I showered, climbed in my favorite pajamas and watched 5 episodes of 30 Rock after talking to my mom on the phone for an hour. It was not my most glamorous Saturday night ever, but perhaps the most welcome one. Oh, and Monday night we went to the Sears Scratch-and-Dent appliance store in 100 Oaks and it was a goldmine. I think that will definitely be where we get our new fridge. They had great prices on massive, nice fridges with only some cosmetic damage. Very exciting!
Oh, I updated my Picasa with more "during" pictures of the house, and also an album of the best of 2008. Check them out!
Sunday night we went to Home Depot and made an exhaustive list of everything we need for the bathroom. Bathtub, toilet, vanity cabinet, sink, faucet, lighting fixtures, towel rods, the works. We took the list to the customer service counter where a helpful little lady named Luz entered all of the things we wanted, issued us a line of credit, and arranged for everything to be delivered Wednesday morning. It was an astonishingly easy process. We just kept looking at each other and laughing. It was pretty much the exact opposite of the process we're experiencing with the Home Equity Line of Credit, which has been drawing out for a week and a half now with no resolution. It must be historically the worst time ever to ask for credit, even secured credit. We've got some (financially irresponsible) contingency plans in place, but it would be nice to have that HELOC to make things more comfortable over the next few weeks.
So we're clicking right along, right on track for moving day a week from tomorrow. We took a break last night and stayed home to make shepherd's pie and watch The Office. It's been extra funny this season so far. I can't wait for the return of 30 Rock in a few weeks! Last Saturday night after painting all day Austin went to Jon's house to watch football and I showered, climbed in my favorite pajamas and watched 5 episodes of 30 Rock after talking to my mom on the phone for an hour. It was not my most glamorous Saturday night ever, but perhaps the most welcome one. Oh, and Monday night we went to the Sears Scratch-and-Dent appliance store in 100 Oaks and it was a goldmine. I think that will definitely be where we get our new fridge. They had great prices on massive, nice fridges with only some cosmetic damage. Very exciting!
Oh, I updated my Picasa with more "during" pictures of the house, and also an album of the best of 2008. Check them out!
Friday, October 3, 2008
fair enough
You're right, you're right, I should have updated by now. Here's the breakdown:
Actually, after typing several different versions of the breakdown, I guess I should just sum up by saying that closing took longer than we expected, cost more money than we expected, and probably took a few years off my life expectancy in sheer stress and tooth-grinding. But it's over, we closed last Tuesday (the 23rd), it's possible that we got the last mortgage EVER in this crazy crazy economy. So that part is done; our name is on the deed. We celebrated with sushi after the closing, then spent that afternoon at the new house with Dad coming up with a Master Plan.
And then we started Operation Make This House Ours. It began with a long Wednesday night spent ripping up layers of berber carpet, indoor/outdoor carpet, disintegrating carpet foam and beneath all of that a layer of that green and beige marbled tile like from elementary school hallways. It was hard work but extremely gratifying, and now the Man Room has exposed concrete floors that we will leave unfinished for a while until we're sure all the moisture issues have been solved. The only other major projects we had planned for pre move-in were painting the whole main floor (including trim and doors) and a potential laundry room overhaul (and paying a professional to fence in the backyard). Friday night we drove to Greenbriar and picked up (part of) a new sectional couch that I found on Craigslist. Saturday we met Dad again to talk about the Painting Plan, and somehow over the course of that conversation decided to completely renovate the bathroom.
I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but neither Austin nor I are fixer-upper people. We were not looking for a project house. We don't walk around our house and itch to rip things down. We wanted to move into this new home, put away our things, and start having our normal life again, complete with an outrageous amount of free time and plenty of good home-cooked food. Even after we fell in love with this house, which most certainly needed updating, we figured we could spend a couple weekends with paintbrushes and rollers and be ready to go. A bathroom renovation was not in the grand scheme of things. But after looking at the recommendations from the Home Inspector, and realizing how much we truly, truly hated the tile on the walls and the sink cabinet (and the medicine cabinet. And the lighting fixture. And the weird little gray toilet. And the totally unnecessary striped wallpaper) it was determined that IF we were going to do something about this, now was the time, with three weeks of unoccupation and lots of volunteer labor.
So Sunday morning Dad and Patrick started demolition on the bathroom, while 9 other kind and amazing members of my immediate family (including Badness plus Brett plus Bill, who basically count) picked up screwdrivers and painter tape and trim brushes and fanned out throughout the house. We got a REMARKABLE amount done in that first full day, including a first coat of white paint on almost every bit of trim in the main floor. I was so excited and honored by all the help that I managed to (*mostly*) not freak out at the crashing and crunching sounds emitting from the bathroom. Kam suggested that, instead of having a panic attack every time I walked past and saw gaping holes in the walls, we have a photo of what we want the bathroom to look like (sky blue and white, please) screenprinted on a sheet and hang that over the door.
Progress throughout this week has been a bit slower. Monday night Austin and I got the second coat of trim on the office and most of the hallway, and otherwise realized a major glitch: there is almost no lighting in the front half of the house. Obviously this will be remedied when we install new fixtures and move in with our floor lamps, but in the meantime, painting at night is going to be severely limited. Tuesday some of our loveliest lady friends pitched in and helped me blanket the kitchen with a swath of white paint while Dad and Austin continued their ruthless barrage on bathroom demolition. Wednesday night Austin finished up the demo while I attacked a weird patch of fake parquet flooring in the basement that was apparently attached directly to the concrete floor with Gorilla glue. In 1959.
Then the nicest thing happened: we took Thursday night off. It was a rough week at work, too much to do and an apparent total inability to focus, and I was ready for a break. We made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and watched as much as we could stomach of the VP debate. I climbed gratefully into bed at 10:15 and felt completely refreshed the next morning. Tonight we cleaned up the demolition debris. This included vacuuming up an apparent 50 year supply of razor blades - razor blades!- that were stored in the back of the old-fashioned medicine cabinet (this means they just fell through the "safety" slot into the wall), a fascinating and horrifying endeavor. The bathroom is now down to stud walls and once we remove the bathtub (tomorrow) we'll be ready to start building everything back up again.
So tomorrow we're back at it. We'll get as much painting done in the front rooms as we can while there is daylight available, and I think by the end of the day we'll be rolling beautiful colors on the walls. I'm taking tons of pictures and will start assembling them into a before-during-after home improvement diary for those of you following along at home. I didn't expect this to turn into a big life-dominating project for a month. I'd just been thinking, "First we close, then we move." But I think we're doing the right thing, and with every blister this house becomes, more and more, ours.
Actually, after typing several different versions of the breakdown, I guess I should just sum up by saying that closing took longer than we expected, cost more money than we expected, and probably took a few years off my life expectancy in sheer stress and tooth-grinding. But it's over, we closed last Tuesday (the 23rd), it's possible that we got the last mortgage EVER in this crazy crazy economy. So that part is done; our name is on the deed. We celebrated with sushi after the closing, then spent that afternoon at the new house with Dad coming up with a Master Plan.
And then we started Operation Make This House Ours. It began with a long Wednesday night spent ripping up layers of berber carpet, indoor/outdoor carpet, disintegrating carpet foam and beneath all of that a layer of that green and beige marbled tile like from elementary school hallways. It was hard work but extremely gratifying, and now the Man Room has exposed concrete floors that we will leave unfinished for a while until we're sure all the moisture issues have been solved. The only other major projects we had planned for pre move-in were painting the whole main floor (including trim and doors) and a potential laundry room overhaul (and paying a professional to fence in the backyard). Friday night we drove to Greenbriar and picked up (part of) a new sectional couch that I found on Craigslist. Saturday we met Dad again to talk about the Painting Plan, and somehow over the course of that conversation decided to completely renovate the bathroom.I don't remember if I mentioned it before, but neither Austin nor I are fixer-upper people. We were not looking for a project house. We don't walk around our house and itch to rip things down. We wanted to move into this new home, put away our things, and start having our normal life again, complete with an outrageous amount of free time and plenty of good home-cooked food. Even after we fell in love with this house, which most certainly needed updating, we figured we could spend a couple weekends with paintbrushes and rollers and be ready to go. A bathroom renovation was not in the grand scheme of things. But after looking at the recommendations from the Home Inspector, and realizing how much we truly, truly hated the tile on the walls and the sink cabinet (and the medicine cabinet. And the lighting fixture. And the weird little gray toilet. And the totally unnecessary striped wallpaper) it was determined that IF we were going to do something about this, now was the time, with three weeks of unoccupation and lots of volunteer labor.
So Sunday morning Dad and Patrick started demolition on the bathroom, while 9 other kind and amazing members of my immediate family (including Badness plus Brett plus Bill, who basically count) picked up screwdrivers and painter tape and trim brushes and fanned out throughout the house. We got a REMARKABLE amount done in that first full day, including a first coat of white paint on almost every bit of trim in the main floor. I was so excited and honored by all the help that I managed to (*mostly*) not freak out at the crashing and crunching sounds emitting from the bathroom. Kam suggested that, instead of having a panic attack every time I walked past and saw gaping holes in the walls, we have a photo of what we want the bathroom to look like (sky blue and white, please) screenprinted on a sheet and hang that over the door.Progress throughout this week has been a bit slower. Monday night Austin and I got the second coat of trim on the office and most of the hallway, and otherwise realized a major glitch: there is almost no lighting in the front half of the house. Obviously this will be remedied when we install new fixtures and move in with our floor lamps, but in the meantime, painting at night is going to be severely limited. Tuesday some of our loveliest lady friends pitched in and helped me blanket the kitchen with a swath of white paint while Dad and Austin continued their ruthless barrage on bathroom demolition. Wednesday night Austin finished up the demo while I attacked a weird patch of fake parquet flooring in the basement that was apparently attached directly to the concrete floor with Gorilla glue. In 1959.
Then the nicest thing happened: we took Thursday night off. It was a rough week at work, too much to do and an apparent total inability to focus, and I was ready for a break. We made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and watched as much as we could stomach of the VP debate. I climbed gratefully into bed at 10:15 and felt completely refreshed the next morning. Tonight we cleaned up the demolition debris. This included vacuuming up an apparent 50 year supply of razor blades - razor blades!- that were stored in the back of the old-fashioned medicine cabinet (this means they just fell through the "safety" slot into the wall), a fascinating and horrifying endeavor. The bathroom is now down to stud walls and once we remove the bathtub (tomorrow) we'll be ready to start building everything back up again.
So tomorrow we're back at it. We'll get as much painting done in the front rooms as we can while there is daylight available, and I think by the end of the day we'll be rolling beautiful colors on the walls. I'm taking tons of pictures and will start assembling them into a before-during-after home improvement diary for those of you following along at home. I didn't expect this to turn into a big life-dominating project for a month. I'd just been thinking, "First we close, then we move." But I think we're doing the right thing, and with every blister this house becomes, more and more, ours.
Friday, September 19, 2008
from Alisha: morning face (past noon really)
1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
My levels of paranoia and superstition are at an all time high. I'm not going to talk about the house until we are the proud owners of keys. With our names on a deed.
Have a good weekend, y'all.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair...just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.
My levels of paranoia and superstition are at an all time high. I'm not going to talk about the house until we are the proud owners of keys. With our names on a deed.
Have a good weekend, y'all.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
staring down September
More house updates... the radon test came back great, very encouraging, and a physical inspection by the mold guy seemed to be fine on Tuesday. We went ahead and signed the release form that would tell the selling bank that we were 100% going to buy the house as is, and were just waiting for the official mold test to come back Thursday morning before we sent the form in. Just to be safe. And then that mold test came back pretty bad, reporting 27 times the "undesirable" amount of mold, mostly in the basement, and recommending $3000-6000 worth of remediation and professional cleaning. Yowza.
So we spent most of Thursday in crisis mode, trying to really figure out what this meant and if maybe we should reconsider the whole deal. Casey and Jenny both encouraged us to try to think objectively; that regardless of how much we love THIS house, maybe all the trouble of mold cleaning and painting and fence building and carpet removal isn't worth it, and maybe we were signing up for more than we would have ever originally agreed to. Which is certainly true, we said from the beginning that we weren't fixer-upper people and didn't want a huge project house. But now that we've seen it, and pictured many years of happy life there, and gotten excited about things like red bedroom walls and screened-in porches, it all seems completely worth it.
The whole time we were having this "is it worth it?" discussion, I felt physically ill and just so confused. That awful feeling seemed familiar, and finally I figured it out: I felt exactly the way I did the day they told us Charlie Murphy had feline leukemia. The vet did the test on his first kitten visit, and very vaguely recommended that maybe we should just go ahead and put him to sleep right away, since he had this terrible and expensive disease. And we didn't even consider it, we just scooped him back up and took him home and loved the hell out of him and gave him liquid vitamins in his food and he GOT BETTER. He kicked that disease before he was even full grown, and tested negative on his next visit. Not to mention grew up to be one of the coolest cats ever. And I can't even tell you the millions of times that I have been so grateful that we didn't listen to that vet, whose job it is to give you the bad news and the worst case scenario. And that's what this mold inspector does as well. He has to tell us the most extreme possibilities so that we don't come back to him in a year and say, "You told us this was fine!" And mostly we were just overwhelmed by being told that something really bad was happening that we didn't understand, and then were being recommended the worst case scenario, passing up this house that we love.
Austin talked to Dad about it, and Dad said it was absolutely not a reason to walk away. So we went to dinner and talked it all out, and went to Home Depot and looked at paint chips and got excited again. And Friday morning we told our realtor to go ahead and send over the Inspection Contingency Form, and to tell the selling bank that we do want this house, moldy basement and all. And then yesterday at lunch we met with our lender, signed a ton of papers, gave him all of our tax documents, and had the house appraised for the lending bank. We should have the appraisal back on Monday. Everyone involved is enthusiastic and encouraging, and thinks we should be in good shape to close by Sept. 19. It all feels more real every day! I think I won't let myself get completely excited until we have a key in our hand and our names on a deed, but it just keeps getting better and better.
In the meantime, I'm starting the longest and most exhaustive To Do list ever. And I'm going to roll out on the town with my girls tonight for a little Guilty Pleasures action. And I'm sure we aren't through with crises and home-buying drama, but we're going to keep going with our guts and moving forward, because there isn't really anything else to do.
So we spent most of Thursday in crisis mode, trying to really figure out what this meant and if maybe we should reconsider the whole deal. Casey and Jenny both encouraged us to try to think objectively; that regardless of how much we love THIS house, maybe all the trouble of mold cleaning and painting and fence building and carpet removal isn't worth it, and maybe we were signing up for more than we would have ever originally agreed to. Which is certainly true, we said from the beginning that we weren't fixer-upper people and didn't want a huge project house. But now that we've seen it, and pictured many years of happy life there, and gotten excited about things like red bedroom walls and screened-in porches, it all seems completely worth it.
The whole time we were having this "is it worth it?" discussion, I felt physically ill and just so confused. That awful feeling seemed familiar, and finally I figured it out: I felt exactly the way I did the day they told us Charlie Murphy had feline leukemia. The vet did the test on his first kitten visit, and very vaguely recommended that maybe we should just go ahead and put him to sleep right away, since he had this terrible and expensive disease. And we didn't even consider it, we just scooped him back up and took him home and loved the hell out of him and gave him liquid vitamins in his food and he GOT BETTER. He kicked that disease before he was even full grown, and tested negative on his next visit. Not to mention grew up to be one of the coolest cats ever. And I can't even tell you the millions of times that I have been so grateful that we didn't listen to that vet, whose job it is to give you the bad news and the worst case scenario. And that's what this mold inspector does as well. He has to tell us the most extreme possibilities so that we don't come back to him in a year and say, "You told us this was fine!" And mostly we were just overwhelmed by being told that something really bad was happening that we didn't understand, and then were being recommended the worst case scenario, passing up this house that we love.
Austin talked to Dad about it, and Dad said it was absolutely not a reason to walk away. So we went to dinner and talked it all out, and went to Home Depot and looked at paint chips and got excited again. And Friday morning we told our realtor to go ahead and send over the Inspection Contingency Form, and to tell the selling bank that we do want this house, moldy basement and all. And then yesterday at lunch we met with our lender, signed a ton of papers, gave him all of our tax documents, and had the house appraised for the lending bank. We should have the appraisal back on Monday. Everyone involved is enthusiastic and encouraging, and thinks we should be in good shape to close by Sept. 19. It all feels more real every day! I think I won't let myself get completely excited until we have a key in our hand and our names on a deed, but it just keeps getting better and better.
In the meantime, I'm starting the longest and most exhaustive To Do list ever. And I'm going to roll out on the town with my girls tonight for a little Guilty Pleasures action. And I'm sure we aren't through with crises and home-buying drama, but we're going to keep going with our guts and moving forward, because there isn't really anything else to do.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
sunday, sunday, sunday
Good news! The inspection went well. It was a painstaking process (our inspector was so thorough and meticulous, it was just a marvel watching him work) but the overall diagnosis on the house seemed to be positive. We certainly have our work (and cash outlay) cut out for us, with projects and updates necessary to the electrical, plumbing, insulation, gutters, what could be left after that? But there were no immediate safety issues, and the general foundation/condition of the house is looking pretty good. We are going to have radon and mold tests on Tuesday, and will find out the results of those by Thursday. That's cutting it a little close because we have to turn the contract back into the selling bank by end of day Thursday, but so far, so good.
I think the best part about the inspection was just getting to hang out at the house for a few hours and confirm our belief that it just *feels* good in there. It feels comfortable and like we're surrounded by the place we'll be able to call home. We're coming up with ideas for paint colors, and starting to shape a (very tentative) schedule for painting, carpet rip-up, fence and electrical updates, and then move-in. We're so lucky to have such an amazing support network of friends and family who are willing to help.
I'm still in bed at 11:19 on Sunday morning, and Corvinius is giving me the most outrageous show of affection. I'm thinking that if we needed HIM to help us paint the trim in the new house, he'd totally do it. Because he loves us. And so would Digby, but he'd probably make a mess while he was trying to be helpful. I think we'd give Bridgey a project where she could work quietly by herself but still feel like she'd accomplished something. And maybe let Charlie Murphy just be the team leader for Troublemaking and Enthusiasm. Mischa could help us check all puddles and water receptacles for water content. And I don't think we could ask Mackenzie to do anything. I mean, we don't ask for much now, and we're still catching a lot of attitude.
I know we're pet crazy. But the mere fact that they live here with us really shaped our househunting process. One of the houses we really liked (but was in a very sketchy neighborhood) had the awkward aspect that the door to the backyard was through the master bedroom. The idea that our bed would be the first thing the dogs would encounter when we were letting them in from a muddy backyard was sort of a dealbreaker. Other houses that were otherwise strong possibilities got axed because they didn't have big backyards or weren't fenceable for whatever reason.
And now I love the idea of thinking about where they will all hang out in the new house. I think it's likely that Mackenzie could claim the entire attic as her (lofty) territory, and I doubt she'd get much argument on that matter from the pups. I'm a little worried about the transition of having to have the dogs go down a flight of stairs into the basement before they can go out. Digby, I'm sure, will barrel down headfirst and end up in a pile of limbs at the base of the stairs. He's not afraid of much, nor graceful in his enthusiasm. But I'm pretty sure both Mischa and Bridgette will require some coaching/bribing to get them comfortable with the process of ascending and descending. I'm just hoping that the need for their dinner and their desire to hang out with us will help motivate them to overcome their fears.
Another thought I'm wrestling with is the desire for a dog door into the backyard. That would also probably take some encouragement and time with Mischa and Bridge, but I know they'd get used to it. We just have to find another solution to Austin having to get up in the middle of the night, sometimes multiple times, to let the dogs out. It's more disruptive (to him, not me, I sleep right through it) than having a newborn baby, I swear it. But Austin's concerned that any door the dogs can get out, so can Charlie Murphy, and despite his regular vociferous claims to being perfectly capable of going outside and not getting into trouble, we are just not willing to let him take that risk. David at work suggested trying one of those dog doors that only open to a chip on the dogs collar, but I have a feeling that Charlie Murphy the Wiley would find a way around that.
I've been accused of having homebuying goggles on right now, and I'm sure that is true. I mean, buying our first home is a huge deal, and certainly the biggest thing we've accomplished together, but I can find other things to talk about, right? It's just that most of it sounds so obnoxiously simperingly cheerful that it's rather embarrassing. Work? GREAT. So good, I can't even explain it to you. Life with The Boo? Just super. We're just smile a lot, and are otherwise just having a great time. Yesterday we borderline-crashed a barbecue in Nippers Corner with Jon and Ali, and got to feast on championship worthy brisket and pulled pork until we thought we were going to die. Then a few short hours later (and by a few short hours I mean, literally, two) I met up with some of my favorite ladies for my favorite sushi and may or may not have permanently injured myself by overeating. After that we rolled to the Mercy Lounge for the Bomb show and I spent most of the time holding my stomach and moaning, until the band played and we ran up to the front to dance.
Other than my adventures in overeating, there isn't much to report on the cooking front. I made a pretty killer quiche on Monday, with zucchini, mushrooms and bacon. I forgot to buy Gruyere so I (over)compensated by tossing in every cheese in my fridge. Cream cheese in the filling, layered slices of swiss and mozzarella, and shredded cheddar and parm on top. YUM. We've got lots of vegs from the CSA to roast soon, and sausage links and bulk sausage to find a good use for. I doubt we'll have any problems with that.
In the meantime, I think it's a patty melt and onion ring kind of day. Gold Rush, here we come!
I think the best part about the inspection was just getting to hang out at the house for a few hours and confirm our belief that it just *feels* good in there. It feels comfortable and like we're surrounded by the place we'll be able to call home. We're coming up with ideas for paint colors, and starting to shape a (very tentative) schedule for painting, carpet rip-up, fence and electrical updates, and then move-in. We're so lucky to have such an amazing support network of friends and family who are willing to help.
I'm still in bed at 11:19 on Sunday morning, and Corvinius is giving me the most outrageous show of affection. I'm thinking that if we needed HIM to help us paint the trim in the new house, he'd totally do it. Because he loves us. And so would Digby, but he'd probably make a mess while he was trying to be helpful. I think we'd give Bridgey a project where she could work quietly by herself but still feel like she'd accomplished something. And maybe let Charlie Murphy just be the team leader for Troublemaking and Enthusiasm. Mischa could help us check all puddles and water receptacles for water content. And I don't think we could ask Mackenzie to do anything. I mean, we don't ask for much now, and we're still catching a lot of attitude.
I know we're pet crazy. But the mere fact that they live here with us really shaped our househunting process. One of the houses we really liked (but was in a very sketchy neighborhood) had the awkward aspect that the door to the backyard was through the master bedroom. The idea that our bed would be the first thing the dogs would encounter when we were letting them in from a muddy backyard was sort of a dealbreaker. Other houses that were otherwise strong possibilities got axed because they didn't have big backyards or weren't fenceable for whatever reason.
And now I love the idea of thinking about where they will all hang out in the new house. I think it's likely that Mackenzie could claim the entire attic as her (lofty) territory, and I doubt she'd get much argument on that matter from the pups. I'm a little worried about the transition of having to have the dogs go down a flight of stairs into the basement before they can go out. Digby, I'm sure, will barrel down headfirst and end up in a pile of limbs at the base of the stairs. He's not afraid of much, nor graceful in his enthusiasm. But I'm pretty sure both Mischa and Bridgette will require some coaching/bribing to get them comfortable with the process of ascending and descending. I'm just hoping that the need for their dinner and their desire to hang out with us will help motivate them to overcome their fears.
Another thought I'm wrestling with is the desire for a dog door into the backyard. That would also probably take some encouragement and time with Mischa and Bridge, but I know they'd get used to it. We just have to find another solution to Austin having to get up in the middle of the night, sometimes multiple times, to let the dogs out. It's more disruptive (to him, not me, I sleep right through it) than having a newborn baby, I swear it. But Austin's concerned that any door the dogs can get out, so can Charlie Murphy, and despite his regular vociferous claims to being perfectly capable of going outside and not getting into trouble, we are just not willing to let him take that risk. David at work suggested trying one of those dog doors that only open to a chip on the dogs collar, but I have a feeling that Charlie Murphy the Wiley would find a way around that.
I've been accused of having homebuying goggles on right now, and I'm sure that is true. I mean, buying our first home is a huge deal, and certainly the biggest thing we've accomplished together, but I can find other things to talk about, right? It's just that most of it sounds so obnoxiously simperingly cheerful that it's rather embarrassing. Work? GREAT. So good, I can't even explain it to you. Life with The Boo? Just super. We're just smile a lot, and are otherwise just having a great time. Yesterday we borderline-crashed a barbecue in Nippers Corner with Jon and Ali, and got to feast on championship worthy brisket and pulled pork until we thought we were going to die. Then a few short hours later (and by a few short hours I mean, literally, two) I met up with some of my favorite ladies for my favorite sushi and may or may not have permanently injured myself by overeating. After that we rolled to the Mercy Lounge for the Bomb show and I spent most of the time holding my stomach and moaning, until the band played and we ran up to the front to dance.
Other than my adventures in overeating, there isn't much to report on the cooking front. I made a pretty killer quiche on Monday, with zucchini, mushrooms and bacon. I forgot to buy Gruyere so I (over)compensated by tossing in every cheese in my fridge. Cream cheese in the filling, layered slices of swiss and mozzarella, and shredded cheddar and parm on top. YUM. We've got lots of vegs from the CSA to roast soon, and sausage links and bulk sausage to find a good use for. I doubt we'll have any problems with that.
In the meantime, I think it's a patty melt and onion ring kind of day. Gold Rush, here we come!
Saturday, August 23, 2008
trying to overcome...
...the crippling superstition of talking about things before they are certain. I don't want to jinx this whole deal.
But the day after that last post, we found three new houses that caught our eye. We went the following morning (Saturday) and looked at them all, and two were nothing special, and one on Sandy Drive was pretty great. Great enough that my heart was racing while we walked through it, and we kept just looking at each other and smiling. And our realtor seemed pleased with everything he could see.
So we went back to Sandy on Sunday, in the morning with Casey and Trent, and in the evening with Dad and Richie. And everyone approved. I think Trent and Casey were withholding enthusiasm a little bit, trying to not get too gushy in case everything fell through like last time. They also seem to think this house is in the middle of nowhere, as well as "too big," as if that exists for a family with six pets. But I think they can see all the things we love about it (I'll detail below, even if I'm nervous to talk about it too much), and when Trent saw the 30 x 15 foot "man room" in the basement, he yelled, "We're moving in!" Dad was leaping about in joy and detailing the treehouses he will build for his grandchildren at this house (uh, Dad? Why not harass my MARRIED sisters about this topic?). Richie also kept stomping his foot like Elijah and declaring that he was jealous. Very wholehearted endorsements from that front.
So we decided to meet with Peter on Monday and assemble an offer. Then he called Monday morning to let us know that he had spoken with the seller's agent (the house is a bank foreclosure, so we're dealing with A Bank and not A Person) who said that the bank was not accepting FHA loans on the house. Uhhh, what? After all the trouble of being told we only qualified for an FHA loan (and therefore weren't eligible to buy our own house that we've rented for three years), we ended up finding a conforming (conventional) loan that would work for us, with only 3% down in a gift form and no requirements about the condition of the house. This was all accomplished during the work day on Monday, so we still got our offer put together and sent to the bank Monday night.
Then we waited and waited. We had requested to hear back on our offer by Wednesday at 6, but the seller's agent didn't seem to think it would happen in that time frame. He did say it was a "pretty good" offer, and hoped the bank would just take it and not draw out the process. Wednesday came and went, and Thursday. Luckily we had the Cheatham County Fair Demolition Derby to distract us from the agony of waiting for an answer. Finally, Friday afternoon after lunch we got a quick email from our realtor: "ACCEPTED!!" Hooray!
So now we have to see the addendums placed on the contract by the foreclosing bank, and approve them. We have to fork over 3% earnest money, which will also be our down payment. We have to line up an inspection and then figure out what our lending bank wants from us. And then we've got to BUY A HOUSE.
A big house. 2025 square feet. With a finished attic, a finished basement, 3 bedrooms, two bath, a huge kitchen with baby blue formica countertops, and a gigantic magnolia tree in the backyard. The living room, dining room and kitchen make up the front half of the house, all flowing into each other with huge doorways. This might be my favorite part of this place. Where we live now, the kitchen is the back of the house, the living room is the front, and there isn't a natural social flow in between. I love the idea of these three rooms feeling like one big area for visiting, dining, cooking, entertaining. The bedrooms are both large, in the back half of the house, with a large bathroom between. We will need to pull up the carpet in these bedrooms before we move in, but there are good quality hardwoods underneath and it shouldn't be a huge project. We also need to paint (as you'll see from the photos) and finish the fence in the backyard so our dogs will be safe and we can just kick them out of the basement door. Other than that, we could happily move straight into the main floor of this house and slowly update/furnish the attic and basement into our own usable space. I think we'll make the second bedroom on the main floor into an office/library, and put the spare bedroom in the attic. And I also think we'll get a grownup couch, and move the Big Brown Couch into the basement, along with the darts and eventually an entertainment center. It needs a good cleaning, it's been empty since May. Otherwise, it's a house where we could live for years, with privacy and big lawns and a covered patio.
I'm just so excited. More fingers crossed for all the contract negotiations to go quickly. With luck we'll be homeowners soon!
Oh, and thanks for all the amazing advice and guidance we've gotten from all of our friends and family. This whole experience has been vastly easier because we know so many smart, experienced people!
But the day after that last post, we found three new houses that caught our eye. We went the following morning (Saturday) and looked at them all, and two were nothing special, and one on Sandy Drive was pretty great. Great enough that my heart was racing while we walked through it, and we kept just looking at each other and smiling. And our realtor seemed pleased with everything he could see.
So we went back to Sandy on Sunday, in the morning with Casey and Trent, and in the evening with Dad and Richie. And everyone approved. I think Trent and Casey were withholding enthusiasm a little bit, trying to not get too gushy in case everything fell through like last time. They also seem to think this house is in the middle of nowhere, as well as "too big," as if that exists for a family with six pets. But I think they can see all the things we love about it (I'll detail below, even if I'm nervous to talk about it too much), and when Trent saw the 30 x 15 foot "man room" in the basement, he yelled, "We're moving in!" Dad was leaping about in joy and detailing the treehouses he will build for his grandchildren at this house (uh, Dad? Why not harass my MARRIED sisters about this topic?). Richie also kept stomping his foot like Elijah and declaring that he was jealous. Very wholehearted endorsements from that front.
So we decided to meet with Peter on Monday and assemble an offer. Then he called Monday morning to let us know that he had spoken with the seller's agent (the house is a bank foreclosure, so we're dealing with A Bank and not A Person) who said that the bank was not accepting FHA loans on the house. Uhhh, what? After all the trouble of being told we only qualified for an FHA loan (and therefore weren't eligible to buy our own house that we've rented for three years), we ended up finding a conforming (conventional) loan that would work for us, with only 3% down in a gift form and no requirements about the condition of the house. This was all accomplished during the work day on Monday, so we still got our offer put together and sent to the bank Monday night.
Then we waited and waited. We had requested to hear back on our offer by Wednesday at 6, but the seller's agent didn't seem to think it would happen in that time frame. He did say it was a "pretty good" offer, and hoped the bank would just take it and not draw out the process. Wednesday came and went, and Thursday. Luckily we had the Cheatham County Fair Demolition Derby to distract us from the agony of waiting for an answer. Finally, Friday afternoon after lunch we got a quick email from our realtor: "ACCEPTED!!" Hooray!
So now we have to see the addendums placed on the contract by the foreclosing bank, and approve them. We have to fork over 3% earnest money, which will also be our down payment. We have to line up an inspection and then figure out what our lending bank wants from us. And then we've got to BUY A HOUSE.
A big house. 2025 square feet. With a finished attic, a finished basement, 3 bedrooms, two bath, a huge kitchen with baby blue formica countertops, and a gigantic magnolia tree in the backyard. The living room, dining room and kitchen make up the front half of the house, all flowing into each other with huge doorways. This might be my favorite part of this place. Where we live now, the kitchen is the back of the house, the living room is the front, and there isn't a natural social flow in between. I love the idea of these three rooms feeling like one big area for visiting, dining, cooking, entertaining. The bedrooms are both large, in the back half of the house, with a large bathroom between. We will need to pull up the carpet in these bedrooms before we move in, but there are good quality hardwoods underneath and it shouldn't be a huge project. We also need to paint (as you'll see from the photos) and finish the fence in the backyard so our dogs will be safe and we can just kick them out of the basement door. Other than that, we could happily move straight into the main floor of this house and slowly update/furnish the attic and basement into our own usable space. I think we'll make the second bedroom on the main floor into an office/library, and put the spare bedroom in the attic. And I also think we'll get a grownup couch, and move the Big Brown Couch into the basement, along with the darts and eventually an entertainment center. It needs a good cleaning, it's been empty since May. Otherwise, it's a house where we could live for years, with privacy and big lawns and a covered patio.
I'm just so excited. More fingers crossed for all the contract negotiations to go quickly. With luck we'll be homeowners soon!
Oh, and thanks for all the amazing advice and guidance we've gotten from all of our friends and family. This whole experience has been vastly easier because we know so many smart, experienced people!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Even quicker additional update
So the sellers accepted another offer. We didn't get a chance to counter. We are back to the drawing board.
We went back and looked at our #2 and #3 houses from the previous weeks' searching, and were pretty uninspired. I don't want to suddenly get overly picky, but I also think that we're supposed to "know" when we walk in the door, right? And I didn't know. I feel like I spent a lot of time picturing myself and our selves and our stuff in the house on Wayne, and now I can't see us anywhere else.
So oh well. No other news from here. We had derby practice tonight, which was fun, and then I conned Austin into letting me pick up spaghetti at Pizza Perfect, which was all that I wanted to eat. Now Stranger than Fiction is on, and it makes me crazy happy, so that helps leave this pretty lame day on a high note.
Good night!
We went back and looked at our #2 and #3 houses from the previous weeks' searching, and were pretty uninspired. I don't want to suddenly get overly picky, but I also think that we're supposed to "know" when we walk in the door, right? And I didn't know. I feel like I spent a lot of time picturing myself and our selves and our stuff in the house on Wayne, and now I can't see us anywhere else.
So oh well. No other news from here. We had derby practice tonight, which was fun, and then I conned Austin into letting me pick up spaghetti at Pizza Perfect, which was all that I wanted to eat. Now Stranger than Fiction is on, and it makes me crazy happy, so that helps leave this pretty lame day on a high note.
Good night!
Quick update
We put in an offer on a house. On Wayne Drive, near Stratford and Porter. It has been our frontrunner favorite the whole time, and signs are looking good. I'm too superstitious to talk about it yet, so that's all I can give you. We should hear back on our offer by Friday morning (tomorrow!) at 10 am.
I don't even know what to tell you, other than that. It's pretty much all I can think about. I will send pictures as soon as I feel it is safe. Oh, and I finally got to talk one-on-one with our landlord and he was, as expected, so nice and sweet and understanding about everything. I am really relieved that it didn't turn into a combative situation. He's coming by this weekend to look at the condition of the house, and we're committed to give him at least 30 days notice when we're going to move out. So that all feels way better. No bad karma.
That's all I've got right now, folks. Hopefully I'll have even better news for you tomorrow.
I don't even know what to tell you, other than that. It's pretty much all I can think about. I will send pictures as soon as I feel it is safe. Oh, and I finally got to talk one-on-one with our landlord and he was, as expected, so nice and sweet and understanding about everything. I am really relieved that it didn't turn into a combative situation. He's coming by this weekend to look at the condition of the house, and we're committed to give him at least 30 days notice when we're going to move out. So that all feels way better. No bad karma.
That's all I've got right now, folks. Hopefully I'll have even better news for you tomorrow.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
I'm glad I don't have to think of a number reference to go with "ten"
Okay, okay, ten days. That's not so bad. It's just rather alarming to think about the shift in The Plan that went down in those ten days. Here's the scoop:
We've lived in this house for almost three and a half years, renting from a very kind if absentee landlord (I'll call him MT). He bought the house for a steal right after the big tornado that damaged much of East Nashville, lived here for a little while and then moved to a farm south of town and rented this house out. He's definitely not a professional landlord, or someone particularly savvy in the real estate world. But he's very kind, and totally hands-off. Most of the time this works in our favor. He doesn't mind about our menagerie at all (he even suggested we get a dog when we moved in, because the backyard is fenced and we're so close to the park). When the tree fell on the house last year, MT let us choose the color of the replacement siding, which was fun, but also let me be the contact person for the contractors and insurance people, which was maybe not really my job.
But we haven't minded, we've acted like we owned this house the whole time, doing most small repairs ourselves, painting, installing ceiling fans, etc. And the plan has been the whole time to buy this house from MT. Two years ago, when the a/c went out in August, the repair company formally recommended that MT replace the whole system, and he said that he couldn't afford it right then but if we decided to buy the house, we could take the cost of a new HVAC system off the selling price. We've just basically been waiting for some sort of motivator to start the scary process of applying for a home loan, gathering a down payment, negotiating, etc. In the last year we've certainly been guilty of not pointing problems with the house out to MT, because we didn't want him to have to fix them, and also didn't want any repairs to increase the value of the house. We'd rather just wait and fix them ourselves as soon as it was ours. This especially applies to the bathroom floor, which is actively rotting out. The a/c system is having major traumas (the previously mentioned pouring of condensation onto the basement floor), and the hardwoods need refinishing sooner rather than later.
So two weeks ago, MT called and wanted me to know that he is considering a move to the east coast, and wants to sell the house before he leaves. He wanted reassurance that we still wanted to buy, and I very firmly told him YES. I told him we'd start the process of talking to banks, and get back to him. He mentioned that he had a friend who is a realtor, and when it came time to put together contracts she was going to help. I said that was fine. We still didn't talk about price, but Austin and I already had an idea in our minds. We had paid for a private appraisal in March so we would have an idea of what to offer, after taking approx $10k off for the HVAC replacement. It seemed like everyone was on the same page, and we were excited to have a reason to move forward with the home buying process, and also pleased that now MT was motivated to sell, which would hopefully make the whole transaction go quickly with minimal negotiation.
So imagine my surprise when a woman called me a week later (last Thursday the 31st) introducing herself as MT's realtor, and letting me know that she had prepared a private listing on the house, just for the purpose of our purchase. She assured me that there would be no listing on MLS, no sign in the lawn, no lock box on the door. The listing was just for our private transaction. What? Why would we need a listing if we were just going to offer MT our reasonable price, and he would just accept and we'd sign some paper? I tried to remain calm and asked her what price was on the listing. She named a number that was $60k more than our intended offer. WHAAAAT?
I told her the amount that the house had appraised for in March, and she sounded distinctly nonplussed. She asked if MT knew about this, and I told her no, we had just arranged for the appraisal privately so we would know any potential pitfalls in the house, and know a range for a reasonable offer. She quickly pointed out that a private appraisal was not the same thing as a bank appraisal, and I told her we were definitely aware of that. She asked what comparables the appraiser had used to determine the price of the house, and I gave her the range that the 17 comparables he had found determined (it was still approx $20k less than her listing price, at the highest end of the range). She said that there had obviously been new sales in the area, and started listing three bedroom sales. I pointed out to her that the house cannot be technically listed as a three bedroom. The room where we sleep doesn't have a closet or central heat and air vents, and you can only enter it through another bedroom (the room we use for a dressing room). Therefore, not technically a bedroom, it can only be listed as an office or a nursery. She says, "Well, that's debatable." NO. It's not so much debatable as real estate law.
Ugh. So I hung up the phone with her, letting her know that we had appointments at banks the NEXT DAY to talk about financing, and that I would contact her as soon as we knew more. Reported all this drama to Austin and my sisters, and we decided to go ahead with the meetings at the banks, and hope that MT would accept our much lower offer and just decide to move on. It seemed to us that his "friend" the realtor had accepted his request for help and then decided to turn the whole transaction into a commission for her, and maybe MT was just being taken advantage of and would be glad for our offer and that would be that.
But that is definitely the moment that the niggling doubt turned into something in the forefront of our minds. I remembered that night we discovered the water pouring out of the a/c system into the basement, and when I was walking back up the stairs looking at the total decay that is our basement, I thought for just a tiny second, "I don't want to deal with this." And the next day, when I was telling a coworker about the situation, he said, "Don't buy that house."
So we went to the banks, and were told, essentially, "Don't buy that house." Bank #1 told us that we basically were only qualified for an FHA loan, based on today's current market and most lenders not wanting to loan to anyone without solid homeowner history. A conventional loan would involve a big down payment as well as matching amounts of assets that we do not have. And in talking about our house, and all the things we wanted to fix about it, Banker #1 started to think that the house wouldn't pass an FHA inspection. He wanted to encourage us to start looking around the market; he said there were tons of great houses in our price range that don't have the problems that our current home does. He was very pleased with our credit scores and histories, and said we qualified for homes way above our price range.
After that meeting I took Austin to work and went looking for Casey. She wasn't at home, but Dad was there, working on her roof. I sat down with him and told him the whole story, and how I was trying to reconcile all this new information inside my head. The idea of NOT buying our house was brand new, and the thought of suddenly househunting was terrifying. Then my dad did the strangest thing: he gave me fatherly advice. In fact, it wasn't just fatherly advice, it was a very firm fatherly lecture. He said that ever since we'd been talking about buying this house, he thought it was a bad idea. He thinks that it will continue to have problems, and we weren't going to want to deal with them. He said that the amount of renovations we would eventually need to do would be disruptive and make life really hard for a while. He pointed out (extremely incisively) that neither Austin nor I are Home Improvement People, we both work full-time jobs, we have neither the skills nor the interest in renovating a house. He said that there are larger issues with a house that has been built out bit-by-bit that would possibly make it NEVER qualify for FHA financing. He said that if we had our hearts set on it, he would be with us every step of the way, but suggested that we get online and start looking at houses in our price range and see how nice they were and how we would feel about them.
So, whoa. All the sudden we were househunting. We met with Bank #2 and it was the same story as Bank #1. Banker #2 heard our story and laughed at the "listing" price on our current house and talked about how much she loves East Nashville and how many great houses were over here right now. She also told us that we qualified for much more expensive houses than we could afford, which I guess is comforting but also terrifying. She walked us through a Good Faith Estimate, including what we could expect to pay in down payments and closing costs, and it was all very educational. And becoming less scary by the minute.
So we went home and got on Realtracs. We went to Leia and Richie's house, where Richie already had MLS listings pulled up for dozens of homes he liked for us. We drove around Rosebank and Inglewood and Eastwood Neighbors and wrote down addresses and got a little lost. The next day we made lists of houses we'd seen online and drove around trying to find them. Monday we hired a realtor and gave him a list of thirteen houses we had seen and really liked. Thursday we got to look at six of them, mostly in the Inglewood neighborhood, and really really liked one of them. Then yesterday we went and looked at the other five on the list (we'd already eliminated two, one that was a duplex and one with a POOL that already had a contract on it, boooo) and found another house we felt great about in a neighborhood we did NOT feel great about. We started to feel like we had a first, second and third choice. Then we went back to the house from Thursday (on Wayne), and met the current owners, who told us point blank that the price was negotiable. The owner is starting a job in Texas on the 25th of this month, and is extremely motivated to sell. We poked around every corner of the house, took a ton of pictures, and even started talking about where our furniture would go.
So now what? Hopefully C & T are coming over today to look at the places we are interested in, especially the house on Wayne, and give us their opinions about neighborhoods, etc. I'm trying to get Dad to crawl out of his hollow and come up to take a look as well, because I don't think we'd buy a house until he got to kick the proverbial tires, inspect crawl spaces, bang on pipes, etc. But after that? Maybe we're going to put in an offer, possibly as early as this week. We got a crazy idea that since these current owners have to be out soon, and we would have to give 30 days notice on vacating our house, we would have a few weeks to make adjustments (paint and rip up carpet, etc) before we needed to occupy the space. It's an exciting thought, and gets more exciting the more we talk about it. I'll post pictures as soon as we think it's a good idea, and I'll keep you posted, in brief, now that I have the full story out.
Wish us luck!
We've lived in this house for almost three and a half years, renting from a very kind if absentee landlord (I'll call him MT). He bought the house for a steal right after the big tornado that damaged much of East Nashville, lived here for a little while and then moved to a farm south of town and rented this house out. He's definitely not a professional landlord, or someone particularly savvy in the real estate world. But he's very kind, and totally hands-off. Most of the time this works in our favor. He doesn't mind about our menagerie at all (he even suggested we get a dog when we moved in, because the backyard is fenced and we're so close to the park). When the tree fell on the house last year, MT let us choose the color of the replacement siding, which was fun, but also let me be the contact person for the contractors and insurance people, which was maybe not really my job.
But we haven't minded, we've acted like we owned this house the whole time, doing most small repairs ourselves, painting, installing ceiling fans, etc. And the plan has been the whole time to buy this house from MT. Two years ago, when the a/c went out in August, the repair company formally recommended that MT replace the whole system, and he said that he couldn't afford it right then but if we decided to buy the house, we could take the cost of a new HVAC system off the selling price. We've just basically been waiting for some sort of motivator to start the scary process of applying for a home loan, gathering a down payment, negotiating, etc. In the last year we've certainly been guilty of not pointing problems with the house out to MT, because we didn't want him to have to fix them, and also didn't want any repairs to increase the value of the house. We'd rather just wait and fix them ourselves as soon as it was ours. This especially applies to the bathroom floor, which is actively rotting out. The a/c system is having major traumas (the previously mentioned pouring of condensation onto the basement floor), and the hardwoods need refinishing sooner rather than later.
So two weeks ago, MT called and wanted me to know that he is considering a move to the east coast, and wants to sell the house before he leaves. He wanted reassurance that we still wanted to buy, and I very firmly told him YES. I told him we'd start the process of talking to banks, and get back to him. He mentioned that he had a friend who is a realtor, and when it came time to put together contracts she was going to help. I said that was fine. We still didn't talk about price, but Austin and I already had an idea in our minds. We had paid for a private appraisal in March so we would have an idea of what to offer, after taking approx $10k off for the HVAC replacement. It seemed like everyone was on the same page, and we were excited to have a reason to move forward with the home buying process, and also pleased that now MT was motivated to sell, which would hopefully make the whole transaction go quickly with minimal negotiation.
So imagine my surprise when a woman called me a week later (last Thursday the 31st) introducing herself as MT's realtor, and letting me know that she had prepared a private listing on the house, just for the purpose of our purchase. She assured me that there would be no listing on MLS, no sign in the lawn, no lock box on the door. The listing was just for our private transaction. What? Why would we need a listing if we were just going to offer MT our reasonable price, and he would just accept and we'd sign some paper? I tried to remain calm and asked her what price was on the listing. She named a number that was $60k more than our intended offer. WHAAAAT?
I told her the amount that the house had appraised for in March, and she sounded distinctly nonplussed. She asked if MT knew about this, and I told her no, we had just arranged for the appraisal privately so we would know any potential pitfalls in the house, and know a range for a reasonable offer. She quickly pointed out that a private appraisal was not the same thing as a bank appraisal, and I told her we were definitely aware of that. She asked what comparables the appraiser had used to determine the price of the house, and I gave her the range that the 17 comparables he had found determined (it was still approx $20k less than her listing price, at the highest end of the range). She said that there had obviously been new sales in the area, and started listing three bedroom sales. I pointed out to her that the house cannot be technically listed as a three bedroom. The room where we sleep doesn't have a closet or central heat and air vents, and you can only enter it through another bedroom (the room we use for a dressing room). Therefore, not technically a bedroom, it can only be listed as an office or a nursery. She says, "Well, that's debatable." NO. It's not so much debatable as real estate law.
Ugh. So I hung up the phone with her, letting her know that we had appointments at banks the NEXT DAY to talk about financing, and that I would contact her as soon as we knew more. Reported all this drama to Austin and my sisters, and we decided to go ahead with the meetings at the banks, and hope that MT would accept our much lower offer and just decide to move on. It seemed to us that his "friend" the realtor had accepted his request for help and then decided to turn the whole transaction into a commission for her, and maybe MT was just being taken advantage of and would be glad for our offer and that would be that.
But that is definitely the moment that the niggling doubt turned into something in the forefront of our minds. I remembered that night we discovered the water pouring out of the a/c system into the basement, and when I was walking back up the stairs looking at the total decay that is our basement, I thought for just a tiny second, "I don't want to deal with this." And the next day, when I was telling a coworker about the situation, he said, "Don't buy that house."
So we went to the banks, and were told, essentially, "Don't buy that house." Bank #1 told us that we basically were only qualified for an FHA loan, based on today's current market and most lenders not wanting to loan to anyone without solid homeowner history. A conventional loan would involve a big down payment as well as matching amounts of assets that we do not have. And in talking about our house, and all the things we wanted to fix about it, Banker #1 started to think that the house wouldn't pass an FHA inspection. He wanted to encourage us to start looking around the market; he said there were tons of great houses in our price range that don't have the problems that our current home does. He was very pleased with our credit scores and histories, and said we qualified for homes way above our price range.
After that meeting I took Austin to work and went looking for Casey. She wasn't at home, but Dad was there, working on her roof. I sat down with him and told him the whole story, and how I was trying to reconcile all this new information inside my head. The idea of NOT buying our house was brand new, and the thought of suddenly househunting was terrifying. Then my dad did the strangest thing: he gave me fatherly advice. In fact, it wasn't just fatherly advice, it was a very firm fatherly lecture. He said that ever since we'd been talking about buying this house, he thought it was a bad idea. He thinks that it will continue to have problems, and we weren't going to want to deal with them. He said that the amount of renovations we would eventually need to do would be disruptive and make life really hard for a while. He pointed out (extremely incisively) that neither Austin nor I are Home Improvement People, we both work full-time jobs, we have neither the skills nor the interest in renovating a house. He said that there are larger issues with a house that has been built out bit-by-bit that would possibly make it NEVER qualify for FHA financing. He said that if we had our hearts set on it, he would be with us every step of the way, but suggested that we get online and start looking at houses in our price range and see how nice they were and how we would feel about them.
So, whoa. All the sudden we were househunting. We met with Bank #2 and it was the same story as Bank #1. Banker #2 heard our story and laughed at the "listing" price on our current house and talked about how much she loves East Nashville and how many great houses were over here right now. She also told us that we qualified for much more expensive houses than we could afford, which I guess is comforting but also terrifying. She walked us through a Good Faith Estimate, including what we could expect to pay in down payments and closing costs, and it was all very educational. And becoming less scary by the minute.
So we went home and got on Realtracs. We went to Leia and Richie's house, where Richie already had MLS listings pulled up for dozens of homes he liked for us. We drove around Rosebank and Inglewood and Eastwood Neighbors and wrote down addresses and got a little lost. The next day we made lists of houses we'd seen online and drove around trying to find them. Monday we hired a realtor and gave him a list of thirteen houses we had seen and really liked. Thursday we got to look at six of them, mostly in the Inglewood neighborhood, and really really liked one of them. Then yesterday we went and looked at the other five on the list (we'd already eliminated two, one that was a duplex and one with a POOL that already had a contract on it, boooo) and found another house we felt great about in a neighborhood we did NOT feel great about. We started to feel like we had a first, second and third choice. Then we went back to the house from Thursday (on Wayne), and met the current owners, who told us point blank that the price was negotiable. The owner is starting a job in Texas on the 25th of this month, and is extremely motivated to sell. We poked around every corner of the house, took a ton of pictures, and even started talking about where our furniture would go.
So now what? Hopefully C & T are coming over today to look at the places we are interested in, especially the house on Wayne, and give us their opinions about neighborhoods, etc. I'm trying to get Dad to crawl out of his hollow and come up to take a look as well, because I don't think we'd buy a house until he got to kick the proverbial tires, inspect crawl spaces, bang on pipes, etc. But after that? Maybe we're going to put in an offer, possibly as early as this week. We got a crazy idea that since these current owners have to be out soon, and we would have to give 30 days notice on vacating our house, we would have a few weeks to make adjustments (paint and rip up carpet, etc) before we needed to occupy the space. It's an exciting thought, and gets more exciting the more we talk about it. I'll post pictures as soon as we think it's a good idea, and I'll keep you posted, in brief, now that I have the full story out.
Wish us luck!
Saturday, July 26, 2008
spacetime dimensions
We finally made it around to the Thai-Ginger Rubbed Salmon with Green Curry Sauce tonight. Beautiful and delicious! And pretty danged easy. As the name indicates, there is a spice rub and a separate green curry sauce. We made rice and a tomato salad (loads of pretty little yellow tomatoes in the CSA box this week) and roasted squash and zucchini with balsamic and pine nuts. The whole meal made tons of food (at least three times more than we could eat, just the two of us) and came together gratifyingly fast.I took pictures of the whole process, just like I've been threatening to do since the arrival of the new camera, but now that I think about it, Blogger just isn't going to let me share them with you gracefully. Hmm. There isn't a captioning option, right? I don't think just lining up a bunch of photos is going to look very nice. I'll work on this some more and see what I can come up with.
I also had a new disaster to add to my Disaster List. I tried Jenny's damned caramel kettle corn and something went terribly wrong. I made the brown sugar syrup and made popcorn on the stovetop (which is new for me) and when I poured the syrup over the popcorn, as soon as it touched the bottom of the pan it burned. The pan was off the heat and couldn't possibly have been THAT hot for THAT long, but when I lifted it off the pot holder it was resting on, the pot holder was burned. How is this possible? And all the burned parts got distributed throughout the popcorn, so as much as I tried to pick out the edible bits, it was pretty much an epic fail. And I'm scared to throw it all away and see the bottom of my pan. Ready for the Oxyclean miracle trick.
In non-food news, there was a rather large snake in the rose bush/morning glory mess on the front porch this morning. Terrifying.
And something went wrong with the hot water in our kitchen sink tonight, which led us to also discover that our air conditioner has been dumping gallons of water onto our basement floor for god knows how long. These appear to be unrelated issues, and are both things we would sure rather not deal with until we OWN THE HOUSE. Dad's coming Monday to inspect, and I feel like I'm tiptoeing around for fear that something else is bound to go wrong.
Is there anything more disappointing than opening a Netflix envelope to find the disc OBVIOUSLY cracked? Damn. We're never going to make it through the first seven seasons of X-Files at this pace.
Friday, November 30, 2007
double switch
I was going to blast out of NaBloPoMo with the Other 50, but that is going to have to wait. I have had A Day.
7:40 am Oversleep a tiny bit, which is novel, construction workers running late and only start milling around outside close to 8. Okay with that. Throw on slob clothes. Wrestle with conscience and decide that must go to work today and will be fine to leave the dogs in the backyard with workers, with whom they are now good friends. Workers say this is fine, they will be careful about opening and closing the gate.
8:45 am Meet Austin at Berry Hill Animal Hospital to pick up Precious Baby Mischa. Die a little inside when they hand us papers that say 10 day house arrest (for a puppy?! what are they thinking?) and a receipt for $255 (WHAT?!). Want to cry when they bring the Little Girl out and her belly is shaved and she's so happy to see us that she is wiggling and whimpering. Load her up in car and head to work. While starting car, think, "Why does it take so long for my car to start when I turn the key? I'll have to get that looked at next week."
10: 16 am Make exciting double date with Favorite Sarah and Ben that may or may not involve the new Pizza Hut Double Deep Pizza and our couch. Admit that if Sarah and Austin sat too close to each other on the couch, I would totally be okay with it if they ended up making out. Don't think Ben will really want to make out with me, though.
11:12 am Miss three consecutive calls from Dallas, the very very young foreman on the house construction (son of construction company owner). His message is panicked, announcing that the "brown dog" (Bridgette) escaped from the yard and they have her cornered in an alley. Says she is growling and snapping at them when they try to reach for her. Rush home to help them coax her back, leaving Pitiful Sleeping Mischa in care of coworkers. Well, rush home as soon as my car finally starts.
11:33 am Arrive home, run inside to grab the leash and a collar, and discover that Workers have no idea where Bridge is, and she is in fact not so much cornered as loose in Shelby Bottoms park.
12:01 pm Call off Workers from searching and send them back to work. Go into Rick's Market (Coldest Beer in Town) to give them my phone # and ask them to call me if anyone comes in saying there is a yellow dog in their carport, snarling at all overtures of friendship. Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady is in Rick's chatting with Whitehaired Lady behind counter. Whitehaired lady is understanding, approves of me coming to her, agrees that people are always coming into the store saying, "There's a dog out here." Indicates Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady, "She's always walking around. She'll keep an eye out for you." Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady smiles and nods encouragingly.
12:12 pm Decide to give up the ghost and head back to work, with the hope that Bridge will eventually return home to be with her Best Friend Ingrid. While driving out of the park, spy brown blur crashing through brush next to road. Stop the car, call out in an excited voice, "Bridgey! Bridgey, it's you!" Bridge comes running out of the woods, excited, straight to me, tail wagging. She puts her nose in the palm of my hand. I veeeeerrryyy subtly reach my hand around to grip her shoulder (and haul her like a sack of potatoes into the car, if necessary) and she bolts. Back into the woods, I can just see her through the trees and I know I can't go after her or she'll keep running. Call Dallas and have him come sit (silently) on the side of the road to monitor Bridge's movements and drive home to load up the car with the Biggest Ingrid.
12:25 pm Sit on side of road with Ingrid until eventually Bridge starts to approach. Very calmly get up and turn around to walk home. Ingrid is having a blast. Bridge doesn't mind walking with us if she thinks I'm not going to grab her. Call Workers and have them leave the gate open and clear out of backyard. Walk both dogs into yard and slam gate shut behind us. Want to cry from relief. Refrain from taking aggression out on Bridge. Workers are very relieved. Dallas says, "God, I was so nervous about the butt chewing I was going to get from my Dad tonight." Leave dogs locked inside for the rest of the afternoon.
12:46 pm Call Dad and tell him whole Dog Saga. He's amused and gracious when I blame him and call Bridge "His Dog." He cheerfully acknowledges that he would have been no help in catching her even if he had been within 30 miles of the situation.
1:12 pm Arrive back at work and process checks that arrived in today's mail. Put together today's deposit, hurrying to get everything together and to the bank before 2. Getting hungry. Want to give Kristin big hug when she offers to bring me a sandwich.
1:39 pm Run out to car with Mischa to take deposit to bank. More blank clicking noises when key is turned in ignition. Then smoke wafting out from under hood of the car. And smell of burning plastic. Look at Mischa and say, "This is what it looks like when I'm about to have a freakout." She tilts her head. Go back in office, slam keys down, complain to anyone who will listen, wander around office in huff.
2:10 pm Finally gather thoughts enough to call CarMax and have car towed to their service department. Call extended service plan company and argue about rental car reimbursement policy. Extended Service Plan Company Man is both reasonable and correct. Give up fantasies of driving hot rental car for weekend.
3:40 pm Tow truck picks up car. Realize am now stranded at work with pitiful puppy with shaved tummy, and big messy grownup dogs locked in house.
4:02 pm Have remarkably reasonable and productive negotiation with sister re: Family Christmas Vacation and Dogs, and whether or not those topics can coincide peacefully. Also discuss hypothetical sister tattoo ideas. Does not go over as well.
4:48 pm Arrange ride home with Brandes, guardian angel of desperate rides home with post-surgery puppies.
4:52 pm Spray air freshener in bathroom to be polite. Spend next fifteen minutes listening to Weird Computer Coworker complain about how bad the air freshener smells. Loud. Without stopping. Complaints. Want to point out worse alternatives.
5:12 pm Spend last twenty minutes in the office scrolling through I Can Has Cheezburger slide shows. Feel much better. Laugh out loud.
5:23 pm Have text message exchange with Chris Crofton about possibility of organizing Evel Knievel Memorial Poetry Reading.
5:33 pm Picked up by Brandes. Realize trying to carry too much stuff. Including puppy.
6:31 pm On couch surfing YouTube with puppy on my ankles and kitty on my lap. Realize it's all going to be okay. Eventually evict puppy and kitten to go into kitchen and start chopping vegetables for Favorite Sicilian Pasta. To which we add sliced sauteed andouille sausage tonight, just to be gross and delicious.
7:43 pm Settle down with dinner, Boo, many pets, first season of 30 Rock from Netflix. The day drains out of me as I'm filled with laughter, joy, comfort, home.
7:40 am Oversleep a tiny bit, which is novel, construction workers running late and only start milling around outside close to 8. Okay with that. Throw on slob clothes. Wrestle with conscience and decide that must go to work today and will be fine to leave the dogs in the backyard with workers, with whom they are now good friends. Workers say this is fine, they will be careful about opening and closing the gate.
8:45 am Meet Austin at Berry Hill Animal Hospital to pick up Precious Baby Mischa. Die a little inside when they hand us papers that say 10 day house arrest (for a puppy?! what are they thinking?) and a receipt for $255 (WHAT?!). Want to cry when they bring the Little Girl out and her belly is shaved and she's so happy to see us that she is wiggling and whimpering. Load her up in car and head to work. While starting car, think, "Why does it take so long for my car to start when I turn the key? I'll have to get that looked at next week."
10: 16 am Make exciting double date with Favorite Sarah and Ben that may or may not involve the new Pizza Hut Double Deep Pizza and our couch. Admit that if Sarah and Austin sat too close to each other on the couch, I would totally be okay with it if they ended up making out. Don't think Ben will really want to make out with me, though.
11:12 am Miss three consecutive calls from Dallas, the very very young foreman on the house construction (son of construction company owner). His message is panicked, announcing that the "brown dog" (Bridgette) escaped from the yard and they have her cornered in an alley. Says she is growling and snapping at them when they try to reach for her. Rush home to help them coax her back, leaving Pitiful Sleeping Mischa in care of coworkers. Well, rush home as soon as my car finally starts.
11:33 am Arrive home, run inside to grab the leash and a collar, and discover that Workers have no idea where Bridge is, and she is in fact not so much cornered as loose in Shelby Bottoms park.
12:01 pm Call off Workers from searching and send them back to work. Go into Rick's Market (Coldest Beer in Town) to give them my phone # and ask them to call me if anyone comes in saying there is a yellow dog in their carport, snarling at all overtures of friendship. Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady is in Rick's chatting with Whitehaired Lady behind counter. Whitehaired lady is understanding, approves of me coming to her, agrees that people are always coming into the store saying, "There's a dog out here." Indicates Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady, "She's always walking around. She'll keep an eye out for you." Crazy Tanned Neighborhood Crack Lady smiles and nods encouragingly.
12:12 pm Decide to give up the ghost and head back to work, with the hope that Bridge will eventually return home to be with her Best Friend Ingrid. While driving out of the park, spy brown blur crashing through brush next to road. Stop the car, call out in an excited voice, "Bridgey! Bridgey, it's you!" Bridge comes running out of the woods, excited, straight to me, tail wagging. She puts her nose in the palm of my hand. I veeeeerrryyy subtly reach my hand around to grip her shoulder (and haul her like a sack of potatoes into the car, if necessary) and she bolts. Back into the woods, I can just see her through the trees and I know I can't go after her or she'll keep running. Call Dallas and have him come sit (silently) on the side of the road to monitor Bridge's movements and drive home to load up the car with the Biggest Ingrid.
12:25 pm Sit on side of road with Ingrid until eventually Bridge starts to approach. Very calmly get up and turn around to walk home. Ingrid is having a blast. Bridge doesn't mind walking with us if she thinks I'm not going to grab her. Call Workers and have them leave the gate open and clear out of backyard. Walk both dogs into yard and slam gate shut behind us. Want to cry from relief. Refrain from taking aggression out on Bridge. Workers are very relieved. Dallas says, "God, I was so nervous about the butt chewing I was going to get from my Dad tonight." Leave dogs locked inside for the rest of the afternoon.
12:46 pm Call Dad and tell him whole Dog Saga. He's amused and gracious when I blame him and call Bridge "His Dog." He cheerfully acknowledges that he would have been no help in catching her even if he had been within 30 miles of the situation.
1:12 pm Arrive back at work and process checks that arrived in today's mail. Put together today's deposit, hurrying to get everything together and to the bank before 2. Getting hungry. Want to give Kristin big hug when she offers to bring me a sandwich.
1:39 pm Run out to car with Mischa to take deposit to bank. More blank clicking noises when key is turned in ignition. Then smoke wafting out from under hood of the car. And smell of burning plastic. Look at Mischa and say, "This is what it looks like when I'm about to have a freakout." She tilts her head. Go back in office, slam keys down, complain to anyone who will listen, wander around office in huff.
2:10 pm Finally gather thoughts enough to call CarMax and have car towed to their service department. Call extended service plan company and argue about rental car reimbursement policy. Extended Service Plan Company Man is both reasonable and correct. Give up fantasies of driving hot rental car for weekend.
3:40 pm Tow truck picks up car. Realize am now stranded at work with pitiful puppy with shaved tummy, and big messy grownup dogs locked in house.
4:02 pm Have remarkably reasonable and productive negotiation with sister re: Family Christmas Vacation and Dogs, and whether or not those topics can coincide peacefully. Also discuss hypothetical sister tattoo ideas. Does not go over as well.
4:48 pm Arrange ride home with Brandes, guardian angel of desperate rides home with post-surgery puppies.
4:52 pm Spray air freshener in bathroom to be polite. Spend next fifteen minutes listening to Weird Computer Coworker complain about how bad the air freshener smells. Loud. Without stopping. Complaints. Want to point out worse alternatives.
5:12 pm Spend last twenty minutes in the office scrolling through I Can Has Cheezburger slide shows. Feel much better. Laugh out loud.
5:23 pm Have text message exchange with Chris Crofton about possibility of organizing Evel Knievel Memorial Poetry Reading.
5:33 pm Picked up by Brandes. Realize trying to carry too much stuff. Including puppy.
6:31 pm On couch surfing YouTube with puppy on my ankles and kitty on my lap. Realize it's all going to be okay. Eventually evict puppy and kitten to go into kitchen and start chopping vegetables for Favorite Sicilian Pasta. To which we add sliced sauteed andouille sausage tonight, just to be gross and delicious.
7:43 pm Settle down with dinner, Boo, many pets, first season of 30 Rock from Netflix. The day drains out of me as I'm filled with laughter, joy, comfort, home.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
house update
This week started like the last five: without a word from contractors. No gutters, damaged siding and cracked plaster in the blue room, still. Then yesterday morning I got a call: they had finally stopped trying to find siding to match the pale blue (faded from baby blue, my guess) of our house. So we got to pick out a new color for our house, with very little notice. While waiting to meet a guy at the house with some color samples to choose from, we drove around the neighborhood and looked at houses we like, and decided to go with a darker color, since we already have white trim. And lose the black shutters.
We picked a sage green. Then a few hours later they call and say that green would take 6 to 10 days to get in stock, and they'd rather start the work immediately. More samples delivered to our house at 7:30 am today, and the final choice was only slightly lighter/more gray than the original option. They started ripping siding off the front of the house immediately. I left them working on the front and side and went to work for a few hours, then had to head home in the afternoon to bring the dogs in so they could start on the back of the house.
The front is done and looks great. There is still part of the east-facing side of the house to finish, and the back and then the west side will be done tomorrow. They're also bringing blue paint (Royal Breeze by Behr) to finally fix the blue room. I warned them that it took us three coats. So I'll be working from home again tomorrow, getting caught up on contracts that have been neglected for a month, while there are workers climbing all over the house and hopefully finishing up by the end of the day.
Here is the sad part: Mischa goes in for her lady parts operation early in the morning... and they keep her over night. I have to pick her up Friday morning and I'm taking her to work with me so she can rest and not rough house. This all makes me want to cry. I don't want to be home all day tomorrow without her, and I can't stand to think that she's going to be weak and pitiful when I see her again. I keep hugging her too tight when I think about it, and she squirms and looks at me like I'm crazy.
And Dad is picking up Big Ingrid tomorrow and taking her back out to his house. Bridgitte is going to stay and we'll see how the little girls do, just the two of them, for a while. I think they're going to have a good time, but if any of the bad behavior starts, or if Ingrid seems unhappy out at Dad's by herself, we'll reassess. Just having the two small(er) dogs will make our lives easier over xmas, when we're gone for over a week, first to Kansas and then to a cabin at Center Hill Lake with the sisties/husbands/Mom/Kam. We have a tentative housesitter lined up while we're gone, and I can't TELL you what a relief this is. The thought of scheduling 8 days of petcare with friends, or sending the dogs elsewhere, or even kenneling, was too much to even deal with.
Now if only I can figure out a New Year's Eve plan that somehow makes everybody happy AND get the Book Club Christmas Party details nailed down, maybe I'll be able to take a deep breath and possibly pick up the next guilty Scottish historical romance that is collecting dust on my bedside table.
We picked a sage green. Then a few hours later they call and say that green would take 6 to 10 days to get in stock, and they'd rather start the work immediately. More samples delivered to our house at 7:30 am today, and the final choice was only slightly lighter/more gray than the original option. They started ripping siding off the front of the house immediately. I left them working on the front and side and went to work for a few hours, then had to head home in the afternoon to bring the dogs in so they could start on the back of the house.
The front is done and looks great. There is still part of the east-facing side of the house to finish, and the back and then the west side will be done tomorrow. They're also bringing blue paint (Royal Breeze by Behr) to finally fix the blue room. I warned them that it took us three coats. So I'll be working from home again tomorrow, getting caught up on contracts that have been neglected for a month, while there are workers climbing all over the house and hopefully finishing up by the end of the day.
Here is the sad part: Mischa goes in for her lady parts operation early in the morning... and they keep her over night. I have to pick her up Friday morning and I'm taking her to work with me so she can rest and not rough house. This all makes me want to cry. I don't want to be home all day tomorrow without her, and I can't stand to think that she's going to be weak and pitiful when I see her again. I keep hugging her too tight when I think about it, and she squirms and looks at me like I'm crazy.
And Dad is picking up Big Ingrid tomorrow and taking her back out to his house. Bridgitte is going to stay and we'll see how the little girls do, just the two of them, for a while. I think they're going to have a good time, but if any of the bad behavior starts, or if Ingrid seems unhappy out at Dad's by herself, we'll reassess. Just having the two small(er) dogs will make our lives easier over xmas, when we're gone for over a week, first to Kansas and then to a cabin at Center Hill Lake with the sisties/husbands/Mom/Kam. We have a tentative housesitter lined up while we're gone, and I can't TELL you what a relief this is. The thought of scheduling 8 days of petcare with friends, or sending the dogs elsewhere, or even kenneling, was too much to even deal with.
Now if only I can figure out a New Year's Eve plan that somehow makes everybody happy AND get the Book Club Christmas Party details nailed down, maybe I'll be able to take a deep breath and possibly pick up the next guilty Scottish historical romance that is collecting dust on my bedside table.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
oh right, about that tree...
Thursday October 18: the first really major storm this fall. You know it's been a horrible drought in middle TN, and I know in many other areas as well. On the news, they've been warning us that the drought may cause some trees that look otherwise healthy to fall in high winds. I saw this information on the news Wednesday night, the 17th, and I spent some time in the backyard that night, when I was outside with Mischa, examining the trees around our house, trying to spot any weak areas, particularly the huge tree between our house and Kyle's, our next door neighbor. During the storms around the same time as Hurricane Katrina, in August/September of 2005, a limb from that tree fell that was the entire length of our house. It landed perfectly between the fence and the west-facing wall, and did no damage other than pulling down a clothesline. But this was a big limb. I'm only telling you this because it is pretty odd that I was even thinking about possible tree fallings. I mostly don't think about our trees at all.
So Thursday night, it was getting late, almost bedtime, but Austin and I were still up, watching the Nashville WX weather updates. We were in a tornado watch, and trying to decide if we really needed to box up the kitties, grab the pup and head downstairs. They were saying things like "wind damage likely" and that made me think, oh, cool, we're in the clear. That's no bigs. It wasn't really even storming that hard, and looking at the radar, it looked like just patches of red, mostly yellow, moving fast. Then there was a crash. It shook the roof and the floor and Austin and I jumped to our feet, yelling. The sound just kept happening, thumps, crashing, metal scraping, heavy brushing sounds against the roof and walls. It was still happening when Austin ran into the blue room and saw sparks flash outside the window. The lights inside barely flickered, and then there was silence, other than the storm outside that had come up so fast we barely had registered it. We threw on bathrobes and ran outside to try to see what was happening (note to future self: not always smart to run outside in torrential rains/possible tornado weather). The tree between the houses had splintered, with only one tall but spindly branch remaining, and the rest had fallen on our house. We had to run all the way around the front yard to get around the fallen tree to see the damage.
It could have been SO much worse. This tree could have crashed right through our roof, instead of doing (reasonably) superficial damage. It could have come through the windows, or landed on a car, or caught on fire. The most inconvenient aspect of it was to our poor neighbor Kyle, whose power and cable were out for four days. It didn't take any of our utilities out, they all run to the back of the house. We let Kyle run an extension cable from our garage, so he at least had tv and fridge for the weekend.
The day after the storm, contractors came and covered the hole in the roof with a tarp, and we were told that the tree would have to be removed before any further repairs could be made, or even a reasonable estimation of what had to be fixed. The siding on the front and side of the house was damaged, the gutters were all pulled down and the roof was, of course, in serious need of repair. You could see through the hole into the attic (before the tarp). Inside, the corner of the room where the tree hit (the blue room, which is our spare bedroom and Austin's closet) was split up the seam, and some of the crown molding had split away from the ceiling, but it all looked pretty simple. The tree had also taken off about half of the beloved (very pretty) pear tree from the front yard, but it looked like no damage to the trunk.
Fast forward over a week, when a tree removal crew finally shows up at 9 am on a Saturday. It had rained almost every day during the week, so no crews were out working. We had started to get used to having the entire front of the house blocked by fallen limbs. It gave us some nice shade and lots of privacy. We joked that it was a brilliant landscaping decision. But we had to say goodbye to the shade, as well as to most of the pear tree (they trimmed it down to basically nubs). The crew was remarkably efficient and conscientious, and left our yard spotless. They removed the rest of the tree, which was hovering in a threatening way over the neighbors' roof. The trunk was so big they had to shave down the sides to fit it into the grinder.
Another week passed once the tree was removed with no sign of contractors, still just a big hole in the roof. The house looked so ghetto, with gutters and siding still hanging down, big glamorous blue tarp, and that corner of the house now strangely naked and exposed. I called our landlord on Friday afternoon, asking about progress, and didn't hear back from him all week, after he said he knew nothing and would check in with the insurance agent. This morning I was getting dressed and Austin was in the shower when we heard footsteps on the roof. Oh. I guess the contractors are here.
Now it's after lunch, and I'm still holed up in the living room with the dogs. That's my main responsibility today: as Dad says, Ingrid eats contractors. I'm glad I'm not really trying to work from home (nothing too pressing going on over there) because the cacophony of saws, hammers, shouting and banging is distracting. To me at least. The dogs, remarkably, don't mind in the least, and have been sleeping happily, sprawled out on various pieces of furniture. I haven't been told how long this will last, only that the damage was not as bad as they thought, no broken rafters. From what I can tell, we're getting a new roof. I'm not sure what's happening with the siding yet.
Oh, you're waiting for the punchline? Well, actually, here's the joke: Thursday the 18th of October, Austin finished giving Richie all the information he needed to apply for a mortgage. We've been talking for over a year about buying this house from our landlord (who has already said he would sell it to us), and we finally started to move forward last month. We were waiting to get more information as far as mortgage costs and home inspections, but then a big tree fell down and set us waaaay back. Now what? Assuming the contractors don't turn up some structural skeletons in the closet, it's still the same house, right? I mean, sans one shade tree. But what if the new roof puts the value of the house out of our price range (everyone I've put that question to has shut me down, saying that's a non-issue)? I guess, right now, I don't know how our plans might be changed. Maybe this won't affect them at all. But still, what are the odds? It makes me feel a tiny bit superstitious about it now... maybe every step we take towards signing a mortgage, something else is doing to fall down. Maybe we should just drop it and be commitmentphobe renters for life.
Oh, and because we live where we do, our neighbor Frank is out there right now, scavenging aluminum from the wreckage. Mama Snee has said it better than I have, but bless East Nashville for being a small town stuck in a big city with a wider range of characters than you would expect from either place.
So Thursday night, it was getting late, almost bedtime, but Austin and I were still up, watching the Nashville WX weather updates. We were in a tornado watch, and trying to decide if we really needed to box up the kitties, grab the pup and head downstairs. They were saying things like "wind damage likely" and that made me think, oh, cool, we're in the clear. That's no bigs. It wasn't really even storming that hard, and looking at the radar, it looked like just patches of red, mostly yellow, moving fast. Then there was a crash. It shook the roof and the floor and Austin and I jumped to our feet, yelling. The sound just kept happening, thumps, crashing, metal scraping, heavy brushing sounds against the roof and walls. It was still happening when Austin ran into the blue room and saw sparks flash outside the window. The lights inside barely flickered, and then there was silence, other than the storm outside that had come up so fast we barely had registered it. We threw on bathrobes and ran outside to try to see what was happening (note to future self: not always smart to run outside in torrential rains/possible tornado weather). The tree between the houses had splintered, with only one tall but spindly branch remaining, and the rest had fallen on our house. We had to run all the way around the front yard to get around the fallen tree to see the damage.
It could have been SO much worse. This tree could have crashed right through our roof, instead of doing (reasonably) superficial damage. It could have come through the windows, or landed on a car, or caught on fire. The most inconvenient aspect of it was to our poor neighbor Kyle, whose power and cable were out for four days. It didn't take any of our utilities out, they all run to the back of the house. We let Kyle run an extension cable from our garage, so he at least had tv and fridge for the weekend.
The day after the storm, contractors came and covered the hole in the roof with a tarp, and we were told that the tree would have to be removed before any further repairs could be made, or even a reasonable estimation of what had to be fixed. The siding on the front and side of the house was damaged, the gutters were all pulled down and the roof was, of course, in serious need of repair. You could see through the hole into the attic (before the tarp). Inside, the corner of the room where the tree hit (the blue room, which is our spare bedroom and Austin's closet) was split up the seam, and some of the crown molding had split away from the ceiling, but it all looked pretty simple. The tree had also taken off about half of the beloved (very pretty) pear tree from the front yard, but it looked like no damage to the trunk.
Fast forward over a week, when a tree removal crew finally shows up at 9 am on a Saturday. It had rained almost every day during the week, so no crews were out working. We had started to get used to having the entire front of the house blocked by fallen limbs. It gave us some nice shade and lots of privacy. We joked that it was a brilliant landscaping decision. But we had to say goodbye to the shade, as well as to most of the pear tree (they trimmed it down to basically nubs). The crew was remarkably efficient and conscientious, and left our yard spotless. They removed the rest of the tree, which was hovering in a threatening way over the neighbors' roof. The trunk was so big they had to shave down the sides to fit it into the grinder.
Another week passed once the tree was removed with no sign of contractors, still just a big hole in the roof. The house looked so ghetto, with gutters and siding still hanging down, big glamorous blue tarp, and that corner of the house now strangely naked and exposed. I called our landlord on Friday afternoon, asking about progress, and didn't hear back from him all week, after he said he knew nothing and would check in with the insurance agent. This morning I was getting dressed and Austin was in the shower when we heard footsteps on the roof. Oh. I guess the contractors are here.
Now it's after lunch, and I'm still holed up in the living room with the dogs. That's my main responsibility today: as Dad says, Ingrid eats contractors. I'm glad I'm not really trying to work from home (nothing too pressing going on over there) because the cacophony of saws, hammers, shouting and banging is distracting. To me at least. The dogs, remarkably, don't mind in the least, and have been sleeping happily, sprawled out on various pieces of furniture. I haven't been told how long this will last, only that the damage was not as bad as they thought, no broken rafters. From what I can tell, we're getting a new roof. I'm not sure what's happening with the siding yet.Oh, you're waiting for the punchline? Well, actually, here's the joke: Thursday the 18th of October, Austin finished giving Richie all the information he needed to apply for a mortgage. We've been talking for over a year about buying this house from our landlord (who has already said he would sell it to us), and we finally started to move forward last month. We were waiting to get more information as far as mortgage costs and home inspections, but then a big tree fell down and set us waaaay back. Now what? Assuming the contractors don't turn up some structural skeletons in the closet, it's still the same house, right? I mean, sans one shade tree. But what if the new roof puts the value of the house out of our price range (everyone I've put that question to has shut me down, saying that's a non-issue)? I guess, right now, I don't know how our plans might be changed. Maybe this won't affect them at all. But still, what are the odds? It makes me feel a tiny bit superstitious about it now... maybe every step we take towards signing a mortgage, something else is doing to fall down. Maybe we should just drop it and be commitmentphobe renters for life.
Oh, and because we live where we do, our neighbor Frank is out there right now, scavenging aluminum from the wreckage. Mama Snee has said it better than I have, but bless East Nashville for being a small town stuck in a big city with a wider range of characters than you would expect from either place.
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