Sunday, August 25, 2013

Working with what we have

I realized today that most of our projects of late have involved taking crappy remnants from the previous owner that have fallen into disrepair, and fixin' 'em up. Which is great, because we're recycling and reusing, but more importantly we are totally broke. Really, other than the masterfully constructed squirrel cage (I'll get to that in a moment), all of our projects this weekend have been sprucing up old stuff, and it's worked out great so far!

First up, a few days after moving in we discovered the original 1960's brass house numbers in a spider pile on the side of the garage. Some black spray paint and voila! Elegant new numbers. We took down the hideous tile numbers (I can't even tell you what kind of horrors we discovered living behind it... sweet Jesus almighty) and installed the old-new ones. Then, we took off the cream(ish) colored doorbell and spray painted it black. We're working on doing the same with the old brass light fixtures, but they're not done yet.
I'm sure some people might enjoy this aesthetic, but I am certainly not one of them.
Delightfully dirty plastic grossness
After! Just imagine it with grey paint.... Soon, house. Soon....

Better!
 
I feel like the black fixtures will look especially great once we paint the house. The crappy tan color doesn't do much for them. It doesn't do much for anything.... Moving on!

Hidden in that jungle we chopped back a couple of weeks ago was a cool old metal and wood bench. The metal was dirty and stained, and the wood slats were completely rotten. We disassembled the whole thing and are going to (you guessed it!) spray paint the metal parts to look all shiny and new, and install new wood slats. I can't wait to finish this one!
The before pic. Really doesn't do the rotten wood justice, just trust me on this!
Pile o' metal.

So that veggie patch I built last weekend? It was crawling with squirrels and blue jays within 24 hours. Those jerks were digging up my seeds and burying shit in there! So, I spent an hour and a half this morning constructing a movable "squirrel cage". It is made of thick wire fencing around the sides, and lightweight plastic netting on top. Pretty darn proud of it, myself!
Let's see you get in there now, assholes!
And, since a great deal of my time is spent on gardening, here are some gratuitous flower pics.
Yellow canna

Hot pink dahlias. These are probably my favorite, and are really blooming well.

Herb garden on the left, lavender on the right. Between the two, the back deck smells amazing now!

Pink hibiscus


Sunday, August 18, 2013

Settling in (Or: There goes all of my extra time)

Obviously, we moved into the house and are now pleasantly knee-deep in projects. Until this past Thursday we were without internet, so I haven't been able to post updates on the 8,000 things we've done to this house.

There are too many updates to list, but here's a highlights reel:

1. We removed the god-awful white railings that were on the front porch (they were INTERIOR railings, by the way...), power washed the porch, and added flowers. Before the rains start, we will paint the house a medium grey, with white trim, black shutters, and a black door. The front flower beds also need some serious work.



















2. We power washed the back deck, added flowers and seating. Then, we cut back Mother Nature, who was attempting to swallow our deck whole.





































3. We painted everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I mean every single inch of the interior of this house. You'll all be happy to hear that after 3 weeks, my hair is finally paint-free! I still need to do quite a bit of touch-up, though, so don't be sad.... it will be back. I also spent quite a bit of time decorating the built-ins, so everyone BEHOLD.





































4. We ripped out the icky brown carpet from the 3 bedrooms and installed clean, pretty laminate. Also, my Dad installed a cool grey vinyl tile over the hideous linoleum that was in the bathroom. It is 800% better.
























































5. We set up the garage. It now has outlets, light switches, lights and tools a-plenty. This is an old shot, it's a bit tidier than this, but you get the idea.
















6. Today we are finishing up the Fall veggie patch. Here's a progress pic from last night.















Stay tuned!

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Finish line is within sight!

The appraisal drama is over! The house appraised for about $5,000 above purchase price. *Huge sigh of relief*

The drainage guy has been scheduled and the rest will follow suit within the next few days.

Final financial documentation is being sent over to the mortgage group this week. Good god, make it die! I yelled at a teller last week. James was there, he can vouch. In my defense, the credit union in question has been unbelievably painful to work with throughout this home buying process, so it was a cumulative yell.

The first boxes are being stacked in the corners of our apartment, and our moving day has been scheduled for August 3rd. Friends and family, bring your elbow grease! We close in only 18 days. Onward!

Thursday, June 20, 2013

35 days until closing!


This is a picture of a bird and mouse that are friends. It has nothing to do with anything, it's just cute. Onward...

So, the repairs are negotiated! Seller met us halfway and will pay for the crucial fixes (a french drain and new automatic sump pump, and mold remediation in the attic). We will help pay for the remaining fixes - some crawl space cleanup and minor roof repairs. These are the non-sexy but essential doing-stuffs for this house. The tenants are required to be out by July 15, so we have only 10 days to get these contractors in and out.

We close on Thursday, July 25th, and plan to move in (most likely) the following Saturday, August 3rd. There are some cosmetic updates we want to make before moving our stuff (and sweet, fluffy, asthmatic cat) into the new house. These include:
  1. Paint. Paint everywhere!! Low fume, no VOC paint to be exact.
  2. Ripping out carpet in bedrooms and installing laminate hardwood.
  3. Putting new vinyl tile in the nasty-ass bathroom. Just so my feet aren't as revolted to stand there....
  4. New front door! The existing front door is not only 90s and ugly, it has the seller's last name on it. That simply won't do.
  5. Possibly start on re-molding the house (base and crown), but that's pretty damn ambitious.
 That's all for now, friends and fam. Fingers crossed that the appraisal and scheduling of repairs goes well!


Monday, June 10, 2013

Next month I'm gonna start doing stuff to my house!

We're in the process of buying our first house in the Commonwealth Lake area of Cedar Hills. Currently, we're haggling over the necessary repairs (drainage system, mold remediation in attic, roof, etc etc). Who pays what and when? I vote not us, but the seller disagrees.

The next big hurdle will be appraisal, and if all goes well we close on July 25th! The house has boatloads of potential and we're planning to tackle this mofo one project at a time. I wanted to keep a journal of everything we update so that one day we can look back at where we started and how far we've come.