Bill is doing most of the writing, but I wanted to say a few comments.
I still can't believe it. I can't believe we got a house, one that has so much potential. I remember thinking about what Bill wanted and what I wanted back in September. I never thought that there would be a place that would meet both our needs.
I wanted a garage to be able to work on my own projects that need space. He wanted a quiet street, I wanted a big back yard and small front yard. He wanted at least a 3 bedroom house, I wanted something close to where I work. He wanted the loan to be no more than 4% and I wanted a brick home with all exterior walls being brick. He didn't want a 2 story house, and we didn't get one.
Sure, its not perfect, it needs some TLC, but most of what is needed can be done by him or I, well...mostly me...let's not kid ourselves. Although he did surprise me by actually finishing a couple of tasks that he took up. He is good at removing wallpaper. Need your windows cleaned? He's just the man to do it. He also makes a good chauffeur, taking me to Home Depot once or twice a day as needed. I love Home Depot. They keep telling me if I enter my name on the receipt, I have a chance of winning $5000.00. We'd have to win a couple of times this year just to break even. If I won anything, surely it would be gone in a couple days.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Forgive me Father.....
It's been two weeks since my last blog entry. We've been busy!
It seems that every extra minute we have is going towards fixing up the house. We both took some days off and spent about 12 hours a day working on so many projects. We of course had to purchase a bunch more stuff from Home Depot, somewhere between $4000 and $5000 worth, and that doesn't include what was purchased before closing. The first thing we got was a new water heater, and with the help of a buddy of Lawrence, we got it installed with no problem. It's nice to have hot water as in comes in handy for cleaning things. This past Friday we also purchased a new washer and dryer, a matching pair from LG with all the bells and whistles. $1900 for the pair. Ouch.
Lawrence has been busy making and installing new solar screens on the outside of all the windows, but not until I have washed them well. They were filthy, but now gleam with clarity! We also scraped the ceiling and walls in the laundry room getting ready for the new toys, and then painted them. The ceiling looks good, but the walls didn't turn out the way we wanted them, so we went back to Home Depot and purchased our own air compressor and texture sprayer. The compressor came with a air-powered nail gun as well, so we'll use that for the moldings and anything else that needs nailing. We plan on applying the texture in a style called "orange peel", which isn't rough to the touch like popcorn texture, but it has a little crackle to it. We haven't applied any of it yet, but we're looking forward to it. We'll have to repaint the room again, but that's OK. It's the smallest room in the house and makes a good testing ground.
I was able to remove all three layers of wallpaper and contact paper in the kitchen, as well as a horrid dark blue wallpaper in the guest bath. I am also happy to announce that the awful wallpaper mural depicting a Mediterranean ocean scene with sailboats and Roman columns once firmly glued to an entire large wall in the living room is now gone after three days of scraping. We're down to white walls in all rooms waiting for sanding, then texture, then paint. The big decision now is what colors to use in each of the rooms. I never thought it would be difficult to choose until I realized how semi-permanent it is. We know what carpet we want, now we have to make sure the paint and tile floors match. By the way, there will be no hardwood floors this time. I love them, but we couldn't figure out a way to make it work in this house.
An exciting moment for us was the first time Rusty got to run free in his new yard without being on a leash! He's never been able to do that, and he's happy. Needless to say, he has "christened" the yard a few times. It seems all our neighbors, including on both sides and to the rear of us, all have dogs as well, and those dogs have noticed a disturbance in the force...a new dog has arrived! They bark like crazy, and Rusty pays them no mind. He doesn't bark back since he has nothing to prove. We all know he's a snob. That's our boy!
Lawrence went up on the roof to seal around some of the vents that protrude above the shingles, and it seems that in the 27 years since the house was built, no one sealed anything. Inside the house all the light fixtures, air conditioning vents, light switches, wall plugs, dryer vents, gas and water lines...everything...never got sealed. Lawrence, armed with his new caulking gun and many tubes of caulking and silicone sealant, has resolved that problem. I had to giggle a little when Lawrence was on the roof....he doesn't like being up there. He was nervous and moving slowly. He only did about three of the many vents up there before he had to come down. I'll go up later and finish the job. Roofs don't intimidate me at all.
When you walk into the house, you see tools everywhere. We have just about everything a professional home remodeling company would have. Electric this, and air-powered that, every hand tool known to man, this doo-dad and that gadget. Even a rolling tool cart to haul everything from room to room. Show of hands on who has their own air compressor with attached nail gun and texture sprayer? I thought so.
Through all of this, we have had the pleasure of meeting our new neighbors. I was happy to find out that the guy on one side of us works for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Needless to say, we have a lot in common to talk about, and he was quite interested in my duties with the Union Pacific Steam Crew. The guy on the other side works for an oil company, but not sure what he does for them. He does have a hobby as a woodworker in his garage. That may come in handy.
Today, while we were at Home Depot, which we seem to go to multiple times a day, Lawrence wanted to pick up a couple of small trees to plant in the backyard. The yard is devoid of any foliage other than a flat field of weeds. No trees, no plants, no bushes. A clean slate to start new, and we did just that as Lawrence planted an orange tree and a lemon tree. There were other types available, but I recommended those since I cook a lot with lemons and we both love oranges.
I still get a bit overwhelmed by all of this, but not Lawrence. He's loving every minute of it, and is a busy little bee with all the projects to complete and yet to be started. I help a little, but mostly I just watch him being happy.
It seems that every extra minute we have is going towards fixing up the house. We both took some days off and spent about 12 hours a day working on so many projects. We of course had to purchase a bunch more stuff from Home Depot, somewhere between $4000 and $5000 worth, and that doesn't include what was purchased before closing. The first thing we got was a new water heater, and with the help of a buddy of Lawrence, we got it installed with no problem. It's nice to have hot water as in comes in handy for cleaning things. This past Friday we also purchased a new washer and dryer, a matching pair from LG with all the bells and whistles. $1900 for the pair. Ouch.
Lawrence has been busy making and installing new solar screens on the outside of all the windows, but not until I have washed them well. They were filthy, but now gleam with clarity! We also scraped the ceiling and walls in the laundry room getting ready for the new toys, and then painted them. The ceiling looks good, but the walls didn't turn out the way we wanted them, so we went back to Home Depot and purchased our own air compressor and texture sprayer. The compressor came with a air-powered nail gun as well, so we'll use that for the moldings and anything else that needs nailing. We plan on applying the texture in a style called "orange peel", which isn't rough to the touch like popcorn texture, but it has a little crackle to it. We haven't applied any of it yet, but we're looking forward to it. We'll have to repaint the room again, but that's OK. It's the smallest room in the house and makes a good testing ground.
I was able to remove all three layers of wallpaper and contact paper in the kitchen, as well as a horrid dark blue wallpaper in the guest bath. I am also happy to announce that the awful wallpaper mural depicting a Mediterranean ocean scene with sailboats and Roman columns once firmly glued to an entire large wall in the living room is now gone after three days of scraping. We're down to white walls in all rooms waiting for sanding, then texture, then paint. The big decision now is what colors to use in each of the rooms. I never thought it would be difficult to choose until I realized how semi-permanent it is. We know what carpet we want, now we have to make sure the paint and tile floors match. By the way, there will be no hardwood floors this time. I love them, but we couldn't figure out a way to make it work in this house.
An exciting moment for us was the first time Rusty got to run free in his new yard without being on a leash! He's never been able to do that, and he's happy. Needless to say, he has "christened" the yard a few times. It seems all our neighbors, including on both sides and to the rear of us, all have dogs as well, and those dogs have noticed a disturbance in the force...a new dog has arrived! They bark like crazy, and Rusty pays them no mind. He doesn't bark back since he has nothing to prove. We all know he's a snob. That's our boy!
Lawrence went up on the roof to seal around some of the vents that protrude above the shingles, and it seems that in the 27 years since the house was built, no one sealed anything. Inside the house all the light fixtures, air conditioning vents, light switches, wall plugs, dryer vents, gas and water lines...everything...never got sealed. Lawrence, armed with his new caulking gun and many tubes of caulking and silicone sealant, has resolved that problem. I had to giggle a little when Lawrence was on the roof....he doesn't like being up there. He was nervous and moving slowly. He only did about three of the many vents up there before he had to come down. I'll go up later and finish the job. Roofs don't intimidate me at all.
When you walk into the house, you see tools everywhere. We have just about everything a professional home remodeling company would have. Electric this, and air-powered that, every hand tool known to man, this doo-dad and that gadget. Even a rolling tool cart to haul everything from room to room. Show of hands on who has their own air compressor with attached nail gun and texture sprayer? I thought so.
Through all of this, we have had the pleasure of meeting our new neighbors. I was happy to find out that the guy on one side of us works for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. Needless to say, we have a lot in common to talk about, and he was quite interested in my duties with the Union Pacific Steam Crew. The guy on the other side works for an oil company, but not sure what he does for them. He does have a hobby as a woodworker in his garage. That may come in handy.
Today, while we were at Home Depot, which we seem to go to multiple times a day, Lawrence wanted to pick up a couple of small trees to plant in the backyard. The yard is devoid of any foliage other than a flat field of weeds. No trees, no plants, no bushes. A clean slate to start new, and we did just that as Lawrence planted an orange tree and a lemon tree. There were other types available, but I recommended those since I cook a lot with lemons and we both love oranges.
I still get a bit overwhelmed by all of this, but not Lawrence. He's loving every minute of it, and is a busy little bee with all the projects to complete and yet to be started. I help a little, but mostly I just watch him being happy.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
It's a Done Deal!
Dateline: Houston, Texas
Date: February 14, 2012 (Valentine's Day)
Time: 10:00am
Please sign and initial here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and of course, here. An hour and a half later, we walk out being the proud new owners of a lovely home in Southwest Houston!
For a couple of reasons, it almost didn't happen. Yesterday I received a call from the insurance company, 24 hours before closing, saying they wouldn't insure the house because they looked at some pictures that indicated to them that the roof was damaged and may have to be replaced if a major storm occurred. Really? You tell me this now? There is nothing wrong with the roof as evidenced by the inspector we hired to inspect it, and he found no problems with it. They wouldn't believe me, but they did offer to sign me up through another insurance entity that would accept the house. I was very upset at the time, but it turned out to be OK as the new insurance cost was substantially lower than the original quote, so we needed over $1000 less at closing! Sweet!
A couple of days before that, I tried to establish water service for the house. I called the city and they said they couldn't sign me up because there was a very large past-due bill for that residence well over $600. Good grief, that's a LOT of water, but no one has lived there for a few months. Lawrence and I went to investigate and noticed the meter was running outside, but no water was flowing inside. This told us there was a break in the line between the meter and the house, which is 4 feet underground. Lovely. Something else to fix. We squawked about it and tried to get the seller to fix it, but we agreed to buy the house as is, so it's our problem. We could have pursued it, but it would have delayed the closing even further, so we told them to never mind. Luckily, Lawrence has a buddy that had the same problem at his own place and he offered to help us fix it. I don't know how much he will charge us, if anything, but I'll have a wad of cash in my pocket just in case. Either way, it will be a lot cheaper than calling a professional plumber!
Beginning this Thursday, we are both off of work for a few days so we can begin on the interior of the house. A daunting thought as we don't really know where to start. There's so much to do, and not enough money to do it, and only limited time. But luckily, as I mentioned before, we still have the free apartment to live in for as long as we want, so there is no hurry to move, although we are anxious to get moved in as soon as we can. In my mind, I'm expecting to move in no less than 4 months. We'll see.
First "big" items to purchase....a Water heater, then a washer and dryer, then a gas stove. There's already a fridge in the house that works well, but is extremely dirty. The inside looks like a lab experiment petri dish exploded. A bucket of water with clorox, eye protection and rubber gloves should do the trick.
We want our friend Stephanie to come over and see the place since she will be helping us with ideas for the restoration, but we need to clean the inside as best we can beforehand. We wouldn't want to alarm the neighbors with a screaming woman running out of the house in terror after what she just witnessed. Doesn't make a good first impression.
Date: February 14, 2012 (Valentine's Day)
Time: 10:00am
Please sign and initial here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and of course, here. An hour and a half later, we walk out being the proud new owners of a lovely home in Southwest Houston!
For a couple of reasons, it almost didn't happen. Yesterday I received a call from the insurance company, 24 hours before closing, saying they wouldn't insure the house because they looked at some pictures that indicated to them that the roof was damaged and may have to be replaced if a major storm occurred. Really? You tell me this now? There is nothing wrong with the roof as evidenced by the inspector we hired to inspect it, and he found no problems with it. They wouldn't believe me, but they did offer to sign me up through another insurance entity that would accept the house. I was very upset at the time, but it turned out to be OK as the new insurance cost was substantially lower than the original quote, so we needed over $1000 less at closing! Sweet!
A couple of days before that, I tried to establish water service for the house. I called the city and they said they couldn't sign me up because there was a very large past-due bill for that residence well over $600. Good grief, that's a LOT of water, but no one has lived there for a few months. Lawrence and I went to investigate and noticed the meter was running outside, but no water was flowing inside. This told us there was a break in the line between the meter and the house, which is 4 feet underground. Lovely. Something else to fix. We squawked about it and tried to get the seller to fix it, but we agreed to buy the house as is, so it's our problem. We could have pursued it, but it would have delayed the closing even further, so we told them to never mind. Luckily, Lawrence has a buddy that had the same problem at his own place and he offered to help us fix it. I don't know how much he will charge us, if anything, but I'll have a wad of cash in my pocket just in case. Either way, it will be a lot cheaper than calling a professional plumber!
Beginning this Thursday, we are both off of work for a few days so we can begin on the interior of the house. A daunting thought as we don't really know where to start. There's so much to do, and not enough money to do it, and only limited time. But luckily, as I mentioned before, we still have the free apartment to live in for as long as we want, so there is no hurry to move, although we are anxious to get moved in as soon as we can. In my mind, I'm expecting to move in no less than 4 months. We'll see.
First "big" items to purchase....a Water heater, then a washer and dryer, then a gas stove. There's already a fridge in the house that works well, but is extremely dirty. The inside looks like a lab experiment petri dish exploded. A bucket of water with clorox, eye protection and rubber gloves should do the trick.
We want our friend Stephanie to come over and see the place since she will be helping us with ideas for the restoration, but we need to clean the inside as best we can beforehand. We wouldn't want to alarm the neighbors with a screaming woman running out of the house in terror after what she just witnessed. Doesn't make a good first impression.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Saturday Shopping - Before the Big Day!
As you know, we received word that we will be closing on the house this Tuesday, Valentine's Day. Up to this point we have been very good with our money and not trying to send up any red flags for the bank to catch. Chase Bank is not only the one that will hold our mortgage, it's also where I have my personal account, so they are keeping a close eye on it everyday. All they have seen the past month and a half is bills being paid, groceries being purchased, and some meals around town. Absolutely nothing for the house.
As of today, that changed a bit, but there still haven't been any charges on my account, which holds most of the money. Being that we are going to closing and everything looks good, we went ahead and did a little shopping for the house today, but Lawrence bought everything on his account, which is not a Chase account. They have no idea we did anything.
We planned on getting a few small items that we need to get started. A few nick-knacks.
Lowe's: $191.91
Home Depot: $606.27
Light switches, wall plates, night lights, smoke detectors, dimmer switches, door locks, digital programmable thermostat, a ceiling fan for the kitchen, three light fixtures, closet poles and hardware. Oh, and various small screws and actual nick-knacks.
Lawrence was amazed saying "I thought it would be around $200!" I let him know the ceiling fan alone was close to that, and that this was only the beginning. We still have to buy bathroom counters with sinks and faucets, bathroom lights, a water heater, a washer and dryer, paint, crown molding, floor tile, and of course, carpet. Yes, so much more, and this was only the tip of a very expensive iceberg.
More shopping tomorrow? Only if Lawrence will relinquish the debit card from his quivering hand. I can't do anything until after Tuesday, then my hand will be quivering as I drain my account towards poverty.
We both came home and calmed ourselves with big bowls of Blue Bell Ice Cream. Dutch Chocolate. We're good.
As of today, that changed a bit, but there still haven't been any charges on my account, which holds most of the money. Being that we are going to closing and everything looks good, we went ahead and did a little shopping for the house today, but Lawrence bought everything on his account, which is not a Chase account. They have no idea we did anything.
We planned on getting a few small items that we need to get started. A few nick-knacks.
Lowe's: $191.91
Home Depot: $606.27
Light switches, wall plates, night lights, smoke detectors, dimmer switches, door locks, digital programmable thermostat, a ceiling fan for the kitchen, three light fixtures, closet poles and hardware. Oh, and various small screws and actual nick-knacks.
Lawrence was amazed saying "I thought it would be around $200!" I let him know the ceiling fan alone was close to that, and that this was only the beginning. We still have to buy bathroom counters with sinks and faucets, bathroom lights, a water heater, a washer and dryer, paint, crown molding, floor tile, and of course, carpet. Yes, so much more, and this was only the tip of a very expensive iceberg.
More shopping tomorrow? Only if Lawrence will relinquish the debit card from his quivering hand. I can't do anything until after Tuesday, then my hand will be quivering as I drain my account towards poverty.
We both came home and calmed ourselves with big bowls of Blue Bell Ice Cream. Dutch Chocolate. We're good.
Friday, February 10, 2012
FINALLY!!!
We just received word that we will finally be closing on the house next Tuesday, February 14th at 10am! It's taken nearly 2 months to get this done, and I will have comments concerning the bank AFTER we close. It ain't gonna be pretty.
The tough part will be the fact that I have to go directly to work afterwards and will be unable to go to the house with our new keys. This whole thing has been tough, but we'll get through it.
Now the fun part begins with a total re-do of the inside of the house. We will video and take pictures of our progress and keep you updated. Home Depot has been alerted!
This will be a nice Valentine's Day gift for the both of us. We deserve it.
The tough part will be the fact that I have to go directly to work afterwards and will be unable to go to the house with our new keys. This whole thing has been tough, but we'll get through it.
Now the fun part begins with a total re-do of the inside of the house. We will video and take pictures of our progress and keep you updated. Home Depot has been alerted!
This will be a nice Valentine's Day gift for the both of us. We deserve it.
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