Project Wrap-up

We have been working on a number of projects around the house that are finally getting wrapped up.  Some are those annoying pesky projects that aren't glamorous but need to get done and others are completing projects that have been more or less hanging open for that one last step to be finalized.  Either way, the thing they all share in common is that they are DONE!  Here's the project wrap up!

The Master Bath

Before:

We started this overhaul the day after we got the keys to the house because I think wooden toilet seats are just the most disgusting thing on the planet.  So that was immediate and the paint job and new hardware were within the past month.  We put in a new towel bar to accommodate two towels instead of one and upgraded the toilet paper holder to match.  Some day we might tackle the tile, but not anytime soon.

After:

Kitchen:

Before:

This was one of those pesky projects that just required moving the stove and applying a coat of paint to make the wall look more continuous instead of like it had a huge void (by something like say a huge ugly double oven circa 1970s).

After:

Basement:

This is a two part project update/completion.

Before Part 1:

Apparently this is as close as I can get to a before photo for this part of the basement.  We did have our chairlifts in here against the far way (with the peg board) since we moved in, but they were largely in the way.  We moved them against the other wall, sorted through all the old paint the prior owners left behind, hung our bikes, and re-arranged the peg board.

After Part 1:

By placing all this stuff in this "cubby" in the basement, we were able to open up the floor space a lot more to allow for the next phases of the basement overhaul.  Which is essentially trying to make the most out of our storage space.

Before Part 2:

Our silly washer/dryer/deep sink configuration.  We knew we were going to need to fix this when we bought the house.  It was functional, but not very efficient for a few reasons.  One, the dryer piping (which you can't see) makes roughly 4 right turns just to get a good run along the ceiling.  For every right angle in the pipe, that's like adding another 5 feet of pipe to get to the outside.  Not to mention a choke point for dust and clogging.  Rob and my father-in-law were able to move the deep sink over to swap the configuration of the washer and dryer, cutting down the amount of pipe needed and eliminating all those right turns.  The other perk is that our washer (not shown) being a front loading machine has a door that opens to the right.  Now I won't have to toss clothes over the door into the dryer.  WOHOO!

After:

I am currently running a load of laundry now just to see what the improved efficiency of our dryer is.  When they took the piping off it was very heavily coated with dust and junk.  Now with clean flexible piping, we should be getting better air flow!  This is when you know you have reached adulthood folks, when new piping on a dryer causes you to do laundry just to see how much better your dryer runs.

So those were a number of projects just hanging open that are now officially closed.  Of course, let's celebrate but remember, there's a much longer list of "haven't even started" projects just waiting.  Ahhh, home ownership!

Going Green in the Kitchen

After we got back from baking in the sun, we decided we would tackle the project of painting the kitchen.  We had a color picked out and everything.  We just needed to go to Home Depot and pick it up.  So off we went and dove right in.

As a reminder this was the original state of the kitchen when we moved in.

  And here's our work in progress starting with what we did in those first few days we moved in.

Rob taking down the fluorescent lights

My sister helped hang our new lights before we moved in.

Sam and Wayne playing electricians

So now back to the work we got done most recently.

Rob working the ceiling.  We had to paint because we took down the fluorescent lights.  The stupid contractors didn't paint under them, so it was VERY obvious where they were.

Sarah cutting in along the floor boards

Finished product

Finished product

Finished product or so we thought.  After about a week we decided that we really didn't care for that color.  It was too minty and too bright, so we chose a second color, a shade darker.  So we went back at and this is the real finished product.

The next immediate upgrade is the stove.  Hopefully we can catch a good Labor Day Sale.  :)

Basement Updates!

So it's been a while since I have had a chance to post what's been happening here.  Let's see if I can get a few things updated.  For one, we made a lot of progress in the basement.  And by a lot I mean we are pretty much finished with what we wanted to do.  Hooray!  It took a while, but it's finally looking like home.  :)

First we had new carpet installed.  This was a phenomenal enhancement.  It took most of the day to rip out the old nasty stinky crap and install our plush cloudlike carpet.  :)

A reminder of what we were hauling out.  YUCK!

The old stuff starts to come out.

The original floor.  Looks like an indoor patio

The new stuff gets rolled out.  Seriously excited about that.

Brand new carpet all installed.

Yes, it's really that fabulous!

And add furniture and it looks like a real room!

We have a couple more movie posters we want to add to the wall and speakers to install in a more permanent way, but the rest is complete for now.  In the future I think we will change the light fixtures and a few other things here and there, but it can wait for now.  We have bigger fish to fry!

We Are HOMEOWNERS!

We are officially homeowners!  We just purchased our first home and we are thrilled.  To finally have roots, to finally not worry about rental agreements and rent increases and what to do every year.  To do it, we only had to promise to pay back an obscene amount of money and fill out a lot of paperwork that said we understood what that meant.  The first year anniversary is supposed to be paper, so I think it was only fitting we signed about 300 pages to seal the deal. 

We are proud to be homeowners are excited about this new chapter in our lives.  We hope friends and family frequent it to fill it with laughter and love and great memories.

Furniture is Expensive (or at least my taste is)

Rob and I have decided that we are pretty much over our IKEA phase of furniture buying.  Don't get me wrong, we are still going to be going to IKEA for all their cool accessories and decorating gizmos, but we are just not going to buy our bedroom set from them.  We are looking for more solid hardwood that has the potential to last more that 10 years. 

Of course, we say that, but on the hunt for this "real furniture" we have had a bit of sticker shock.  Apparently if you want lasting quality furniture, it costs a lot.  Sigh...    But it's pretty to look at!

Dining Room Tables

Bedroom Sets

Some day we might be able to get some of these pieces.  In the meantime, we will day dream and window shop.  :)

Project List

Rob and I are about to take the plunge into home ownership this month (Wohoo!) which means all kinds of awesome things.  One of which is we can paint and decorate and remodel our home any which way we want to.  After years of being suppressed by apartment living and bland walls, we are determined to put paint of them and change stuff around immediately.  

Since we have been through the home a few times and have taken a LOT of notes and pictures, we have been able to daydream about what spaces could look like.  And because we are engineers, we made a pretty comprehensive list noting each project we have come up with, what room it's associated with and a tentative figure for how much it will cost.  The good news is, we are new at this and very optimistic.  The bad news, we are new at this and very optimistic.  We at least recognize we will be bounded by money for our ability to gut the house and redo everything all at once.  So that's helping keep us grounded a little bit.

In any event, our list is over 100 items long which might make you want to pass out, but it's by project in each room.  So changing out the 3 wooden toilet seats is 3 projects on this list.  Still, there's a LOT of things that are on here.  Some of which are future projects and some are like, this needs to be done yesterday.  For example the short shag carpet in the basement.  Umm no, not staying, no way to how.  And this bathroom:

is definitely not going to make it.  Thank god the wall papering was confined to one tini tiny room.  This might be what I work on once the champagne opens. Although, we can't forget the lovely chair lifts.

Those will be removed the day we get the keys as well.  So there's a small list of musts, but hopefully manageable.  Those in the area, you might get calls from us asking if you have a particular tool on hand.  Standby!  These might count towards our "before photos" because you better believe there will be "after photos".  I can't wait to share how well (or not) some of these projects turn out.  We are in for some serious learning.

Another more immediate projects is painting.  We know we aren't going to be able to paint the whole house in a day, but we want to paint as much as we can.  At first this task sounds simple, but then you start thinking about how each room will flow into each other and how the colors will blend.  Perhaps we are over thinking the process, but I also don't want a house that looks like an uncoordinated mess.  We finally came to an agreement on what colors the main floor will have and we are pretty pumped about that.  Now we would like to figure out a color for the basement and our master bedroom.  I do know that paint is not forever and we don't have to get it right on the first try, but it certainly would be nice.  Hopefully paint samples and careful selecting will help us get there.

This blog is going to be hopping with all the project news in the coming months.  Consider this the trailer for the summer smash hit - "Renovation Smiths" coming April 2011!

The Path To Home Ownership

So Rob and I have taken the plunge and decided to be part of the statistic on home sales for the month of April.  We are, as most first time home buyers are, extremely excited.  I have put off mentioning a lot of the guts of the operation, but am happy to discuss them with anyone who is considering buying a house.  We are having a great time and are enjoying the process even if it's a little nerve racking at times. 

First thing is first.  Our realtor Stan is amazing.  He is easy to get along with, VERY good at his job, and explains everything very well.  I have never once felt like he was pushing homes on us and have felt that he has always looked out for our best interest.  If you can, get a recommendation for a realtor and don't just pick one out of the book.

Our process of viewing homes was short, but it really didn't need to be very long.  It still took us over a month to put an offer in on a house and what's come on the market since then hasn't been much to look at.  So, why bother waiting if we found what we loved?  It was a bit scary to think we had found something so quickly, but it did feel right and continues to feel right.  I have had that "did we make the right choice?" question float around in the back of my head at times.  Then I go look at what has come on the market since we put our offer in (plenty has) and nothing beats it.  Sure there might be "nicer" homes, but they also cost more too.  So, the long and short of it is, no buyer remorse going on here.

The paperwork and transactions have been tiring.  We are buying from an elderly couple in Florida who have been hot and cold on responses.  They took a long time with our offer (which was very fair), but hopped on the water issues in the basement with no hesitation.  Overall it's not been too bad.  Of course it was hairy there a few times, but it seems to have worked itself out.

Our home inspection didn't reveal anything too spooky.  A few issues, but at the age of our place (37 years) how could there not be?  They are all manageable as far as we are concerned.  There are a few HOA violations, but nothing awful and the homeowners agreed to fix them.  We also got appraised for the purchase price of the home.  This is good news as it means we can get financed!  Yipee!!  The interesting thing we saw in the report is that the twin of this house (same exact floor plan) one neighborhood over was asking $35K more than this place and it was shown in the report as a comparable.  However it was an extreme outlier for (much higher) than what we and other people were paying for their houses in the area.  I have noticed it's now listed $10K less, but I have a feeling they are upside down on their loan and trying to get some money back which has long since gone.  I am not sure how they would react knowing we saw their house and this empty one and ended up buying this one over theirs.  Not that I plan to tell them, but it's like an episode of "Get it Sold" and "House Hunters". 

Now we are waiting on the bank to prove we are are who we said we are and that we really made as much as we told them we did and that we are not going to commit loan fraud.  I don't even know where one would begin for that mess.  There's too much triple checking these days.  As the saying goes, "The stupid few ruin it for the good many."  Not that I had grand plans on becoming a crook, but I just had to sign about 30 extra sheets of paper to make sure I really meant it.

Now we a closing date set and the end of apartment living in sight, dreams are starting to become reality.  We have created a spreadsheet full of home projects that we would like to tackle.  Everything from replacing wooden toilet seats to painting to changing out metal closet doors.  Some of it's a pipe dream, but most is in reality easy DIY projects.  I can't wait to get my hands dirty.  :)

Short Sales

Not unlike the 80s hit, Star Search, we are looking for a unique shining "star" (aka- home) that dazzles us and makes us happy.  This process seems easy to those hanging on the outside, but has proven to be quite a complicated thing.  The good news?  We are no longer in 2005 where people are snapping up properties at $50K over their market value a minute after they hit the market.  It's definitely a buyers market, so we are on the right side of the coin there.  So what does a buyers market get you?  Generally it would imply that buyers can have their "pick of the litter", but in this case the litter has many runts and is kind of on the small side. 

Because banks were handing out loans like idiots to idiots buying properties at $50K+ over their true market value thinking "there's no place to go but up!" (it had been for a few years), we are now in a bit of a pickle and short sales are the new fad.  This past weekend we got quite the education on what a short sale really is. 

Short sales?  Why the name sounds like it would be painless and quick!  In reality it's quite the opposite.  The short in short sales mean the buyer is short on their loan from what they took out to buy the place and what they are trying to sell the place for today.  Let's look at an example shall we?

Idiot A bought home at $450K, Home was really worth $425K, Idiot Bank gave them loan anyway.  Five years later, home is now worth $400K and Idiot A still owes the Idiot Bank $430K.  They are "short" $30K of the value of their home.  They probably could continue to make the payments, but they are forever going to play catch up for the losses (assuming we will not get another boom like our last one).  For many, it's just not worth it.  For a while many sellers weren't willing to own up to this idea that their home wasn't worth what they paid and so there was a huge disparity in the market.  Buyers weren't going to buy at those prices and sellers weren't willing to take a loss.  So the sellers held out, but their options did not improve and now the drift in the amount the are "short" has probably increased. 

There are short sales all over the place, but the problem with going this option is that you and the seller can't just come to an agreement.  By having a short sale the seller is essentially asking for the bank to forgive the difference and allow them to just sell the house for a loss.  They don't get a foreclosure on their record and the banks still gets money (although not all of it).  Unfortunately, the banks have come under a lot of scrutiny and so this process has been complicated.  They have to agree to the purchase price, but often times they are slow to respond, could change their mind, and of course, the seller is more than likely emotionally on edge considering it means their finances are more than likely in ruin.  So you as the buyer, who is just looking for a good deal and wants to make everyone happy by making the purchase can quite often become angry with waiting on people and how much they change their minds while being on this emotional roller coaster. 

For those of you who know me, you know this is a bad wrong idea.  So this narrows our "litter" drastically.  On a listing of 30 homes, half are short sales, another handful are out of our real range commute wise, another handful are just on the upper edge of the budget we aren't ready to really consider, and that leaves you with less than a dozen that may or may not work.  Did I mention that what you may consider buying is usually snapped up by people who are probably 3 months further down the process than we are?  Many of the "good ones" are snatched up within the month. 

Right now it feels like we are getting to the buffet late and we are picking through everyones half chewed on leftovers.  I am sure once we get going and understand how this process really works and see what our money will buy us, it will be easier to jump on properties.  For the time being, I am just happy I figured out short sales are something to stay away from.  So we will see how this goes as our home buying journey has begun!!