Out with the Old in with the New

We moved in all our things over four days with some help from family and friends.  The move forced us to reflect on our relocation the previous year.  When we came down from Washington we fit everything we had in the world into an 8'x5' space, the overflow was either jammed in our Mini or sent to Palouse Treasures (the local thrift shop).  This time we rented a 14' truck and in no time we had that thing packed like a can o' sardines.  About four more trips with our cars and the apartment was cleared out.  The only thing we had to abandon at the dumpster was an old office chair. We moved the furniture into the garage mostly and the boxes into the dining room.

And then the work began. 

They say on HGTV to live in a house a while before making any changes, because after you have lived in it you will know better what changes need to be made.  Yeah, screw that.  I know myself better than to believe that crap.  If we don't do it now it ain't never going to happen.  So the Tuesday after we got the keys and the second day of actually living in our house, our house, oooouuuurrrrrr hoouuuuuusseee (I still LOVE saying it!) we had carpet installed in the TV room and Millie's room.  We got it on Craigslist special from an out of work flooring contractor.  $635 for the two rooms and the remnant removal.

 The old stuff, uck!

 The TV room stripped with just the fresh padding.

 A peek at the beautiful hardwood floors before they get covered up again.

 Ahhhh, nice fresh carpet for Millie to scoot around on!

TV room complete with fresh carpet, fresh paint, lazy boys and media center. 

Just missing one thing...yeah... the TV.

The next project was emancipating the hardwood floors in the living room and hallway. In one night I ripped up the living room and rolled the musty, old, shag carpet up along with the pitiful, disintegrating, yellowed padding.  I managed to tear up most of the staples and one wall of tack board before calling it a night.  The following day Adam helped out, he ripped out the carpet in the hallway and the remaining tack board, what a guy!  : D

A lot of dust came up with that carpet.

The hardwoods look pretty good, there is a little water damage in a couple of places but it's nothing that we can't live with for a while.  The plan being that when we remodel the kitchen we can refinish the floors then, right? Righhhhhhhhht. 

After three weeks of living in our house we figured it was about time to get our hands dirty.  Tiling the hall bathroom sounded like an easy "weekend project".  Uh-huh. Will helped me take out the toilet and Adam removed the vanity.  But, yeah, I totally underestimated the amount of elbow grease and will power that it would take to rip out the old laminate.  As per usu I was able to start the job over my weekend and Adam was able to finish it on his weekend.  Then I went to Lowe's and grabbed grout, a grout kit, and some "self-leveling" quickset =  $70.  We laid the quickset one night and started tiling the next.  It worked pretty well, me laying and Adam cutting. We grouted the tile the day after that and by the weekend were able to replace the toilet. The quickset didn't really "self-level" to expectations so the tile isn't super level but it looks pretty decent, at least for first timers.  

 

Before...During...After

Now that we have the floor tile done the next step will be tiling the tub surround.  We picked out some nice glass tile the other day on our lunch break.  All that's left to do is find some time.

The Keys to Paradise

I waited all day with bated breath.  I called my realtor twice before she kindly told me that she would call me when the transaction went on record and the keys were delivered to her office. Around 2:45 pm Joan called and said she would meet me at my house with the keys at 4 pm. Our downstairs neighbors at the apartments were moving too and needed a break from packing so I invited them to come and see the house. We caravanned over there and right at 4 pm I was turning an old tarnished brass key in my very own front door lock. I gave my very first tour of my new home, right then and there.

That night I could hardly sleep, I was so excited to get in and paint!

The next morning I dropped Millie off with her aunt and uncle and headed for our house.  I started by spackling dents and scrapes in the walls, then moved on to the wallpaper border in the master bedroom. The wallpaper was old enough that it came down with relative ease and all I had to use was a squirt bottle full of warm water.  I took a break and walked over to the neighbors to collect the paint that I stored in their garage.  Gene was eating breakfast and didn't have his hearing aids in so even though I could see him and I was knocking and ringing the door bell I didn't get his attention.  I went around back and his wife was out with their dog, Coco.  I introduced myself and asked if she could open the garage.  She complied readily, adding that her name was Emmy.  In the garage she filled me in on a little history of the neighborhood, burst into tears at the mention of Dorothy (the previous owner of our home), and informed me that under the mottled brown/orange/gray shag carpet there were hardwood floors.  After moving the paint from garage to garage I moved on to mixing paint for Millie's room and succeeded in creating a rich fuschia.  The paint mixing was followed by a realization.  I didn't have any paint pans.  Crap!  Luckily for me Chris was on his way to bring me lunch and offered to pick some up.  So I started with a brush, painting the hard-to-reach areas. 

Pretty soon Chris arrived laden with burgers, fries and paint pans.  It was his first time inside, so he took his camera and snapped off some shots.  We ate and then investigated the hardwood floors, oh, and our findings were beautiful.  They spawned further investigation which resulted in a full on demolition of the faux wood paneling and marbled mirror wall in the living room.  Chris took off after an hour or so and I finished the bottom half of Millie's room. 

In the garage I mixed up the top color, a soft yellow.  I was 80% done when Adam arrived with the young owner of said room and Greek take out . We had a nice picnic in the backyard.  Adam took over the painting for a while and I watered the lawn with Millie.  It was nearing 7:30 pm and she was none too happy to be receiving peripheral splashes from the hose.  I handed her off to Adam and sent him back to our dinky apartment.  I stayed and finished up the paint job in Millie's room, then I went through the house and made sure all the paint supplies were away and all the paint cans had their lids, at long last I shut off the lights and stepped onto the porch to lock up fumbling in the dark with the unfamiliar and yet wholly comforting keys.

Signing Away Your Life

I logged on to the Mini Financial site yesterday morning to view our payoff amount, to see if the check had cleared.  But, no, the balance was still there.  A little later, still there. Around noon, it was still there.  I began to wonder if my compulsive statement reviewing was doing any good when I logged on to find the site was unavailable.  An hour later I checked it to find the same message, then it clicked, hmm if they were making changes then the site might be unavailable.  Ten minutes later I was asking a Mini USA representative to e-mail an official letter declaring the sum paid in full and our financial obligations terminated! 

Today, Adam called in sick (with intergrity unmarred because he is in fact sick- with whatever end of summer flu bug that is going around) and I canceled my afternoon shift.  We waited all day for the Title company to contact us with an appointment time.  Then at 1:29 pm, as we were driving to the bank to submit the wire transfer for our down payment, we received notification through our realtor that our appointment was at 3 pm.  The transfer went smoothly and then we had some time to kill.  First order was getting a light lunch, Brugo's on the corner of Kietzke and Virginia, yummy!  Best cheesesteak ciabatta of my life!  Then some browsing at Borders, may it rest in peace. Finally, 2:45 pm rolled around and we excused ourselves to be a little punctually premature.

Joan, our realtor, met us at the Title office.  We waited about ten minutes and then I received more than enough opportunities to perfect my new signature.  The Title officer, Susan, was wonderful, nice and gracious.  She was thrilled to pieces with the fact that Millie was sitting on her desk munching on a rice cake and rifling through the loan documents as she explained them to me and Adam.  And Millie for her part was just as wonderful.  Yes, there was a time when she managed to call another Title officer via the intercom.  Followed by the decision to make Susan's business cards rain all over the table.  But for the most part she was her angelic self, cooing and gumming her rice cake in peace. After an hour and a half of sign here, date here, initial here.  We were done!  And the best part!  Our mortgage payment on our 1300+ square foot house (complete with front and back yard and one car garage) is going to be five bucks LESS than what we are paying now for a 900 square foot apartment.

Tomorrow, we get the keys...


Here are some teaser before photos of our new home.

 Millie's Room

 Laundry Room

 Kitchen

 Master Bedroom

 Master Bath

 Office

 Hall Bathroom

 View from the Driveway

 Patio (back entrance)

Garden and Storage Sheds

Close to Close

The 26th of August is coming to an end but we have yet to close on our house deal.  In order to satisfy the FHA committee of Military Family Home Loans we had to trade-in our beloved Mini Cooper Clubman, Hobie.  Which we did two weeks ago.  It was a sad day and brash transaction, we had hoped that the sacrifice would grease the house deal into place.  More red-tape and processing time has us waiting, however.  Nissan had to "process" our car purchase ( a sleek, inconspicuous, graphite 2010 Hyundai Accent) before sending their payoff check to BMW Bank.  With handshakes and promises to babysit our deal and "rush it through" the Nissan sales crew sent us on our way, only to come to us today with the news that the check was in the mail.  If we are lucky and USPS is on their "A" game then BMW Bank will receive the check Monday.  They need two days to "process" the payment from receipt.  Our prayers are going up that the payoff will arrive by Monday and will show by Wednesday so we can have our final walk through Thursday and get the keys to our new place on Friday.  Whew!

 Hobie and Adam on top of a log at the Redwood Nat'l Park

I have been perusing the Craigslist ads and scored gallons of free paint and polyurethane from paint stores going out of business or moving locations.  We have packed up our literary and media libraries, the living room in our 2 bedroom apartment is growing increasingly more "cozy".  But for now TGIF!  Who cares! The next two days will be enjoyed for what they are the mother effin' weekend!  Hell yeah! and hallelujah!

An Old Lady and a Baby

Well our freaky luck just changed.  As soon as our realtor, Joan,  informed us that the current deal was going south I hit the web, surfing for new potential homes.  I found one of interest and made an appointment to view it.  Adam had to work but I figured I could go check it out and see if it was worth his time.   When I pulled up Joan was there to greet me.  She confirmed that our previous deal was no longer on the table and then gave me the scoop on the home we were about to view.  The elderly woman (Dorothy) who owned the home, and has been living alone, recently had a vertebrae collapse and as a result is moving into an assisted living center.  Hmm, interesting...

So as we made our way into the house I cheered Millie up and cooed to her that it was important she be on her best behavior and adorable as possible.  Dorothy was waiting at the door for us and before we even got inside she was gushing over how cute the baby was and what lovely red hair!

The home listed at 99.9k is around 1300 sq ft, 3 bedroom, 2 bath, attached garage with a beautifully green and groomed backyard, on a .17 acre lot.  There are three parks within walking distance and the elementary school is only a block away. The home itself had been very well maintained but, naturally, everything was outdated. Brown shag carpet, faux wood paneling flanked by gold flecked mirrors from floor to ceiling and every surface was draped first with a doily and then adorned with a family picture. Very livable but very vintage.

As we stood on the patio and admired the lawn I told Dorothy how much Adam and I wanted to see Millie take her first steps in a home that we owned.  I could see her melting.  I asked her about the neighbors and complimented her prolifically on her housekeeping. And then Millie and I said good-bye and let her know she would probably be hearing from us soon. 

I discussed the property with Joan and it didn't take me long to think 1) this home is just what we are looking for and 2) it is not going to stay on the market long.  I made a decision.  It was go time.  We went back to the house and told Dorothy that we were very interested and we would be putting an offer in.  And she responded that she hoped we would get the house too.

Later that day Adam and I signed a formal offer for 91.5k and waited for a response. The next day Joan called to say that our offer was one of two.  The other offer, however, was from an investor and it was cash.  "So what does that mean?"  I asked waiting for another rejection.
"It means you got it, kid." Joan replied. 
I screamed so loud that I startled Millie awake from her nap.

I couldn't believe it.  I was sure that something would happen in the coming days to make the deal fall apart and so I waited.  But today is the day we get the inspection done and Adam gets to see the house for the first time.  I couldn't keep that to myself.  This is the fifth home deal with have had in the last five months, our lease is up August 31st and after all the online research and HGTV and books borrowed from the library all it took to get us a house was a cute little baby and sentimental old lady. 


Here's to our closing date of August 26th!

Heave-Ho!

GAR-fun-KEL!  Mr. Jerky McJerkyface, the seller, lowered himself just enough to tell us that if he were to sell the house he would sell for a higher price but he is probably just going to take it off the market.  OMG! After he informally accepted our offer!  I guess the saying is too true, never trust a handshake. Do we have freaky awful bad luck!

AAAaaaaarrrrrrRRrrrrrrrtttTTTTT!  GaaaAAAarRRRfuuuNNNnnKKKeeeELLLL!

Breaking Through the Red Tape... Too Late?

    Just might was right and just might is currently right where we are.  In the time it took our lender to ask for additional information not only once but twice (why, oh, why couldn't they have asked for all the information they needed in the first place?!) our offer went from being accepted to being back in limbo.

    Before signing off and approving our offer our lender wanted more information about our W-2s, a letter of explanation on why there was a gap in unemployment, and the house address.  What really got me was the letter of explanation or in loan officer speak an LOX.  Do they really need an explanation of why it took a pregnant, recent college graduate almost a year to get a job?!  One word followed by six words "Baby" and "THE ECONOMY IS IN THE TOILET!"  For those of you wondering, that was not the explanation I gave them at least not verbatim.

    So here we are thinking, okay, cool all we need to do is get this paperwork in and then our lender will gives us a thumbs up and we will FINALLY have a house. WAnH-wanh.  Of course reality had to come and bitchslap some sense into our silly home starved heads. Our lender sent over our commitment letter and instead of getting back a "Great! Let's sign some paperwork!" from the sellers agent instead we got "Have your agent call me later".  What could this mean? We were perplexed and frightened.  Then the news came through.  Multiple offers and... yup, you probably guessed it, ours is the lowest.  But we are still in contention because of our level of commitment. Blueeeehpuuu! (<--my version of a fart sound) yeah, and white guys still make competitive boxers.

     In a few days we will probably get the heave-ho on this house and then more fun times searching for homes. yay. I'm so excited.

Light at the End

      At the beginning of this home-buying process my husband and I made up a list of things that were important, our "must-haves".  Things like lot size, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, square footage, parking, yaddah yaddah yaddah.  We were looking for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house around 1000-1200 square feet on a lot over half an acre somewhere on the outskirts of town.  And, oh, almost forgot the most important part -price tag- we were thinking of spending around 75-80k.
     
       After the last joyous ride on the short sale-O-coaster (and with the end of our lease rushing to meet us) our realtor made the executive decision to screw short sales and foreclosures and look some regular sales.  A difficult task in this real estate market.  After sorting through the 130 properties in the area within our price range we narrowed it down to 3 that met some of our "wants" and were regular sales.
     The first was a Sears and Roebuck kit house that was built in 1946, 4 bedroom, 1 bath on almost half and acre and listed at 109k.  I had high hopes for this one because the public records and online pictures indicated that it had been flipped.  And it had been flipped, kind of.  It was like one of those pancakes that catches the edge of the pan so that one side gets folded under and on the other side batter oozes out unattractively.  The owners were contractors but not very good ones apparently or maybe they just ran out of funding.  It seemed like most of the renovation jobs were done part way but almost nothing was complete.  New kitchen cabinets but no toe-board, new windows but no window molding, new stairs but no banister/guardrail, new wood floors but they didn't have a finish on them. The yard was littered with screwdrivers, nails, hinges and other hodgepodge building supplies. Our impression was okay, we could definitely work with it but the unlevel floors and the cracks in the fireplace left us feeling pretty uneasy.
     The second house was built in 1924, 2 bedroom, 2 bath on 0.08 acres and listed at 95k.  Driving up we could see a neat little row of houses set across the street from a 55+ apartment complex.  Most of the homes had alley parking behind but the one we were looking at had its lot halved sometime in the past and therefore only afforded street parking.  The yard was tiny and pretty much just baked earth and a crazy overgrown bush taking up one side of the house.  There was a nice little porch populated by cheap plastic patio chairs but inside the place glistened with old world charm.  Huge windows, molding everywhere, in the formal dining room there was a dish rail all the way around on top of rich, dark wood paneling with a built-in dinette hutch in the corner.  The bedrooms were separated by a walk-through closet and a jack-and-jill bathroom.  The laundry room in the back was coupled with another washroom and downstairs in the cool recesses of the foundation a rec room and workshop were tucked away just for the vertically challenged.  Luckily, we fall into that category.  Anyone 5'10" or over might have had a problem or an aching head (or both).
        The third house was a 3 bedroom, 2 bath on 0.25 acres and listed at 110k.  It was the closest house to Adam's work (about 2 miles away) and the owners were also "flippers".  Freshly laid sod was being watered on the front lawn and we admired it as our realtor struggled with the lockbox.  Inside we found the place spacious and smelling of fresh beige paint.  One of the bedrooms had some beadboard, the master had hardwood floors and the his and hers closets were located in the bathroom (weird?).  The kitchen was large begging for an island. The backyard was still a blank slate, just dirt and a left over jungle gym.

       "So what will it be?" our realtor asked us. "House number one, two or three?"
My husband answered for both of us, "Number two was really nice."
       "Okay, then go home and think about it then give me a call."
He looked over at me expectantly and I said, "That won't be necessary.  We are ready, let's do this."


       After five months of house hunting, three failed offers and a few days of negotiation we think we have zeroed in on the house that will become our home.  Yeah, we had to give up some of our "must-haves", like pretty much all of them but so is life.  We learned along the way there were things we could live without; and now we might be living without them in a home of our very own.  I may be speaking too soon, I certainly do have a way of shooting myself in the foot but you know what?  Who frigging cares!  Today, I found out our offer has been accepted!  I am happy and I am shouting at the top of my freaking lungs!  The end is nigh! The end is nigh!  Pack the boxes and cage the cats we might be moving to a real home where we don't have to listen to our dumbass neighbors bullshit in drunk slurred voices until 4 am.  Yay!  I say.  Whoo-frikking-hoo!  Now, that could be the sleep deprivation talking, who knows.  All I know is that in a week we just might have a house and this hellish home-buying process just might be over.

Bah Humbug!

Bah gerafigins flipinooopsiks kuradik marfinkle tunsto pulapu!  Those are the words with which I choose to describe my current mood. 

We heard back from the bank finally.  Ha ha, yay!  Am I just naive?  Was it possible that things would just, I don't know, work out?  Silly me, how could I have thought that?!  My overpowered optimism and naivete actually led me to believe it would not only work out but it would (gasp, sigh, head-shake) work out in our favor!  By now you may have guessed that the response we received from the bank was not a favorable one.  The negotiator had the balls to come to us and say, here is our FINAL counter offer we need at least 108k.  Haha haha haha... is it funny yet? Can you believe it? I am finding it difficult.  They seriously thought they could come back asking for almost 30k more than our offer and we would be like... hmm let's think about this... yeah, we could do that in maybe NEVERLAND. 

So long story short, more jokers wasting our time and another house bites the dust.  House hunting on a budget certainly has a way of deflating sails, raining out parades and kiboshing almost any party.  Ugh.  Well, just in case anyone is looking for me Monday, I will be out viewing homes AGAIN.

The waiting game

Yesterday I heard news, our file has moved from the seller's agent to the bank's negotiator.  Yay?  This is progress, that cannot be denied but like so many steps within the short sale process it is ambiguous in it's affect on the time line.

For those of you who don't know the ins and outs of short sale (I'm not saying I'm an expert by any means) I will gloss over the general details right now.  Example time, say a house was purchased for 230k in 2007 (at the height of the real estate bubble) and now four years later the home owner wants to sell and get out of their mortgage.  The kicker is the property is only worth 100k now, so what do they do?  They ask the bank if they can sell it for fair market value and ask the bank to take the hit.  Voi la! A short sale.  Banks have a choice in this, they do not have to approve any property for short sale they can choose to foreclose instead but for the homeowner a short sale is much less damaging to credit.

Sounds simple enough, right?  Yeah, huh, right!  Every short sale is different, including the number of mortgages on the property in question.  It can get very complicated, very quickly.  We are lucky the house that we have offered on only has two mortgages and they are through the same bank.  Some unfortunate properties have three mortgages through three different lenders and in those situations patience is of the essence because an offer has to satisfy all three, headache!

So what are we waiting for?!  Now that our file has been turned over to the bank's negotiator we have to wait for bank approval.  I don't know all of the what the negotiator does but I know it includes determining market value of the property and then determining if the offer is acceptable. In some cases the property will appraise for higher than the offer is for and then either the current homeowner or the buyer will be asked to make up the difference.  We are hoping that won't happen, please no!

Note: I am the Jo Schmo of real estate, all I have going for me is wanting to be an informed buyer.  So if any information above isn't quite right please don't fault me on it.  As far as my limited understanding goes this is the way things work.

Back to the waiting game... What am I going to do with myself?  Well, I already walked the four miles to our local library and loaded up on do-it-yourself home plumbing and electrical wiring books and dvds guess it's time to study up.  So far I have read through a Popular Science home plumbing book and watched the plumbing section of Hometime How To Plumbing & Electrical dvd.  And in additional to the hosts' 80s wardrobe being a crack-up, there has been a lot of good information. Maybe I am not crazy for thinking I could do a diy kitchen remodel and bathroom addition.  The longer we wait the more confidence I have that I will be able to accomplish just about everything my little construction minded heart desires.

To get to the beginning

It is just over eleven months since our wedding and now we are taking another big step in our lives.  We are (attempting) to purchase our first home.  After the year we just had this should seem easy.  But in this real estate market and with our budget easy is not what it used to be.  On one side of the coin we are lucky.  It is only because of the real estate collapse that we are even able to think about purchasing a home.  However, the homes that are now within our financial grasp are most if not all foreclosures or short sales.

A month ago we put an offer in on what we considered our charming dream home and within two weeks the deal fell apart. So we cast away our dogmatic dream home fantasy and elected for a more pragmatic choice.  A home that was not full of personality and old world charm as well as old world plumbing but a newer home that would suit our needs and our pocketbooks.

The house was built in 1971, about 1650 square feet, three bedrooms and one and a half bath, two car garage, fireplace, separate living and dining room, you get the picture.  It was originally listed for $130k and after sitting on the market for five months we offered $80k.  We viewed the property twice and both times the place was a mess.  The house is currently inhabited by three bachelors and it definitely reflects that.

The seller has accepted our offer but what now?  Now we wait for the bank to accept it.  Ugh!  If this happens quickly it could be 45 days if it happens not so quickly it could be a series of months.  I am not a patient person, never have been, and waiting is the most malicious torture anyone could inflict upon me.  So in my free time, these endless hours waiting I am planning.  Oh, I have such plans! New floors, new carpet, new paint, the list goes on and on.  My husband just rolls his eyes and refrains from comment.

This has got me thinking... Can I do what I conjure?  Or are these plans going to be finely laid but abandoned?  Is it true what Will Hunting said, could I learn all I need to know at the public library?  If we get this house I just might have to find out...