Flat Screen TV Question

I'll say upfront that this post is not to debate whether or not it's a good idea to put a tv about the mantle. We know some people like it and some don't - we do and we have no shame. Plus, the layout of the living area we're working with will work out best this way.

This post is about what to do with all the extra components - the cable or dish box (woohoo DISH SATELLITE!!! We've missed you!), dvd player, the wii, etc. It looks like our options are:

• buy some type of cabinets to go on either side of the fireplace to house the stuff
• use a nearby closet to put them in (which isn't really an option with this floor plan)
• do built in shelving/cabinets
• put all the components in some kind of "something" in the room and get one of those infrared remotes - although I don't know how that would work with all the things other than the dish box?

Here's an idea of what the built-ins would/could look like, minus the funky lights and picture and rug. Also ignore the brick fireplace since we won't have brick, but that probably doesn't even matter right now, huh? Ok, so basically just look at the things made of white wood. Thoughts? Does this seem like the best route for all the tv stuff? Is there something we're just not thinking of? We're just trying to get this wall settled in our thoughts. Somebody help a girl! =)

A New Roof

The last couple of days have been a blur since I've been sick with what I think is strep throat. We don't have insurance so I can't go to the doctor so who really knows - but that's another story.

The owners of the house are officially insane as they decided they wanted $250 a day for us to go in early. They can go find some extra spending money somewhere else though 'cause they're not getting it from us. We'll just wait for Tuesday.

In other news, the seller's disclosure noted that the roof was in good shape. Our offer was made under the assumption that the disclosure was correct. However, the inspection we ordered showed the roof to be in very bad shape. Totaled actually. They are selling the house "as is" so we proposed that they make the claim on their insurance to get it taken care of and we in turn would give them $250 for their trouble. They refused that offer - we think because they probably had already made a claim and then pocketed the money instead of replacing the roof.

John was tired of playing nice though. They should have taken our $250 offer because his next move was to have our agent tell their agent that they were going to lose the deal. Their disclosure was wrong and they needed to give the money for the roof to be replaced. I guess they finally had one moment of sanity since they agreed to give us $6500 at closing for the roof. Woohoo!

I wish I could have seen their faces when they had to agree to that. hehehe. These people have been irritating to no end and I'm so glad that we won't have to meet them at closing since they are doing it all through the mail. Why in the world are some people just so ridiculously mean and grouchy? Two more days and this part will all be behind us......

August 28th

We still can't go inside the house to work so the day was used to work on the fence. My big contribution was going over to take the few pictures you see in this post. Oh, and cooking dinner for the hard workers. I grilled chicken and everything so it's not like I was being lazy. (besides, if you think for a moment that I was hanging around on the couch being lazy today then you obviously have not read my main blog.)

John learned today that putting up a new fence is no small or easy task. If it were I suppose they would be done. They did make a lot of progress but it's a big yard and they had to get materials and everything. They'll work on it more tomorrow as well as putting in the sprinkler system, I think.

John and Jake unloading all the fencing from the trailer.

The growing stacks in the garage.

A sampling of the classy fence we inherited with the piece.

A slight mess from where the water line was cut! Oops. =)

This is the screened in porch. It's not in good shape and we're still thinking about what we want to do with the area. We may just let it be a covered patio.

August 27th

Today the sprinkler system was mapped out and all the materials purchased. The fence was mapped out and the grass was mowed. John David got to help dig up a post so he was thrilled. Oh, and I found out tonight that our guy from Dallas who's helping us cut through the water line when he was digging for the sprinkler system. Oops. The city came out and fixed it. Tomorrow the fence goes up - that's the plan anyway. No pictures today since I didn't really have a car and was stuck at home. I'll have to send it with John tomorrow. I'm falling asleep now so I really, really need to go to bed. Less than 6 hours of sleep a night on a consistent basis is wearing on me. Off to dream about tile colors......

Lots of Drama for your Mamma!

One thing I haven't mentioned is that we're on a tight time line with this house. John leaves for his one week of job training in California around the 7th of September. Immediately after his training he will start working - not a 9-5 day job here in town but rather 4 nights a week teaching LSAT classes wherever they need him to. So basically he'll be home Friday through Sunday every week for this job.

All that to say.....we're trying to get most of the work done before he leaves for training or it will be forever before we finish this piece. When all of this first started we asked if the sellers would be ok with us going in before closing to start working. We even offered a big deposit check in case we messed stuff up and then backed out of the deal. They said we could start working once our financing was sure and they declined our deposit offer.

John went over yesterday to see if he could get in and start working. He found the back door unlocked so he went in. Soon our contractor showed up and surprised us by having his crew with him to start the scraping process. John let them start and he went about tearing out bookcases and stuff. Before long, the owner's brother came by and was quite taken back by lots of construction work going on. John explained everything though so the brother handed him his set of keys to the house.

Upon leaving, the brother called the owners and told them we were in there working and they called their agent freaking out that we were in there. Did we miss something here??? Apparently they are older people and now they're scared we're going to sue them if we get hurt while we're in their house. It's so annoying because from the beginning we told them it could be a deal-breaker if we couldn't get in early. Now they're saying no?

Our agent and their agent are now drawing up a paper that releases them from all liability so we can start working over the weekend. The weekend. Bleh. So in the meantime we're supposed to stay out of the house. John's been over there just working outside anyway. We brought a man from Dallas here to do the fence and sprinkler system because we were told it would be ok. Arghhh. Closing is set for Tuesday still.

August 26th

Hmmm....maybe we could salvage the carpet to save some money in the budget??? (I am definitely joking. Although, if we were really smart, we would just live on the cement floors underneath until Aulora is potty trained!)

Some classy garage doors, wouldn't you say?
And look - it has a pet door built right in! How handy!

The bookcases are gone! We debated for a time about whether or not to remove them, but they were just too outdated. Even paint wouldn't have helped enough. Besides, now we can dress up the fireplace like we want to. Oh, the paneling that was above the fireplace is out of there too.

Here's the beginning stage of the fireplace tile being taken off.
By the day's end they were all off but my camera was no longer there.

This is the area in the front of the house. It's kind of weird and so far, we have no big visions for it yet. The gravel has to go for sure, but what in its place? And then what? Nice patio furniture? Some really cool landscaping stuff? Somebody help a girl!

This picture is again of that weird front area. That light is soooo gone. A big beautiful pot with flowers and vines will sit in its place, I think. The left window belongs to the front room (the one that currently has a desk and a closet on either side). The right window is the current dining room. We're actually making that a fourth bedroom though.

The previous owners put up this awful rock border. We quickly realized each of those rocks are cemented into the ground. Won't that be fun getting the up?

Alright, enough for now. Off to look at sink bowls.....

Video Walk Through "Before"

Here's a video of a walk through John did today. You can see that a work crew was already scraping the ceilings.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

Here's just a few of the houses right by The Piece. There are some more that are gorgeous but I was in a hurry to go pick up Joshua's strep throat prescription. =( I wish I had taken a couple pictures from the end of some of the streets just to show all the big trees. I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood just like this one!

What Would YOU Do???

Do you see the stains on the brick? We're considering painting the house anyway, but if we don't.....how the heck do you get those off? I saw a home show a few months ago that dealt with this exact problem and they showed how to get rid of it with a simple homemade spray solution. Why didn't I write that down and file it away? Arghhh. Anyone know what to do? Talk to me......

Kitchen Picture

Here's an idea of the look we're creating in the kitchen (picture from kitchens.com). Obviously, the layout won't be the same (too bad! I love the bar!) but the cabinets, granite, and tile will be very, very similar. Paint color on the walls will probably be some kind of slate green. Does that make sense to anyone but me? Sort of a grayish green - a very subtle color. Thoughts? I wish I had a scanner to show the layout we're thinking of. Hmmmm......

Way to save, Johnny!

There's no question about it - the fence definitely has to be replaced and the cost involved was beginning to worry us. As I called around to get some estimates (which I quickly found out are very difficult to squeeze out of someone on the phone - come on man! just give me ballpark here!) we learned that we might be looking at around $8,000 just for a 6 foot high wooden fence and over $11,000 for an 8 foot high fence. Those fence people are running some kind of scam if you ask me. But whatever. And in case you're wondering, we're not talking acreage here. It's a yard about the size of our last house - 325 feet around.

John scouted out fencing materials today and boy did he do good. At Home Depot he spotted their sectioned fence materials and they were marked down to $25 for each 8 foot section. They're normally about twice that, but for some reason they were trying to get rid of these. He bought all they had (which is more than what we even need) and he did it just in time because there was another man lurking around wanting it too. Sorry Lurker Man. Better luck next time.

The second part of the fence news is that an acquaintance of ours does fences and he's going to do the labor for just a couple hundred dollars. Sooooo........

Cost of fencing materials: $1800
Cost of labor: $200
Total Cost: $2000

Estimate Given: $8000+

We saved over $6,000 today! Can I go furniture shopping now?

The Stats

• 3/2/2 built in early 70's
• 1977 square feet
• listed 30k below tax appraisal (appraisal based on current condition)
  
• purchased for 48 below tax appraisal

Projected Budget:
$20,000
$24,625
$26,825
$27,125
$28,125
$32,000

note for kablot: no that is not green indoor outdoor carpet in the laundry room - it's a beautiful green linoleum. if you wish, we can roll it up and ship it to you. and I think we have the painting covered this time. =) thanks though! hehehe

Today

Since we don't know when exactly we're getting the key, it's hard to say just what work we can get done today. There's still plenty to do to get ready though. We need to do all these things right away, hopefully today:

• shop around for new fencing materials and/or fencing people
• go to the store to order our kitchen cabinets, counters and tile, that we have picked out
• order garage doors and purchase openers

John may have already done the first and last things on the list so we're looking good.

It's not easy to know how much money to put into a house sometimes. Our last house had so many more things we wanted to do but we couldn't because it was at its price cap for the neighborhood. BUT, this neighborhood has houses selling for 200,000+ and some are even over 300,000. That means the potential is so much greater. We're definitely going all out by gutting everything and putting in super nice stuff. Granite, recessed lighting, stainless steel appliances, new doors, new, new, new. New, new, new = lots more money, but honestly, there's not much to salvage anyway. Did you SEE the turquoise counters? I wonder if I should put those on Craig's List? Any takers?

I should add....

the pictures you see below were taken by the sellers' agent. In other words, they were taken in a way that make the house look as good as it could. I'll soon be adding our own pictures. We're hopefully getting the key today to start the work.

It's Really Happening

After not having our own house for nearly a year now, it's weird to think that so very soon we'll have to be responsible adults again. Living with parents hasn't been all bad you know. In fact, if it was just the two of us, we probably could swing it a few more months until moving out of town. But as it is, 2 adults + 4 kids + 4 kids' toys all in 2 bedrooms = some pretty crowded living space. So we found a house.

It's dog ugly right now. Let's just get that out of the way, because we don't want anyone thinking we have that kind of taste in counter tops and bathtubs and linoleum. Trust us, though. It's going to be classy.

Our closing date is less than a week and a half away, but our work will start before that. It actually already started today when John dug up some ugly rose bushes. He had some nerve not taking before and after pictures of the first project - sorry. He will be severely reprimanded.

In the days to come you can have many sleepless nights looking forward to before and after pictures, how-to (according to us and our handy man "Fernando") videos, and many sleep-inducing edge-of-your-seat-exciting tales of demolition and construction woes. Woohoo! It's going to be great. Off to look at door knobs.......