Roy and I both work for oil & gas companies, where safety is always front and center. Every meeting either of us go to is opened with a safety moment either from an attendee volunteer or by the presenter. We both tend to back into (or pull through) parking spaces everywhere, as trained by our companies (in an emergency situation, being able to get in a vehicle and see where you are going and see any oncoming vehicles is a big win, versus having to back out with blind spots). This is an ingrained behavior at this point.
Many of you know that I also began harping on ladder and tree-cutting safety issues after Roy's accident in 1994. And we always are ultra-cautious messing with electricity for any reason.
So, you would think that we'd just be increasing our "days since lost-time accident" counters.
But sometimes, even when an unsafe condition is recognized, it is just such a hassle to get it fixed, and when you aren't around the area, you tend to forget about it. Such was the case of a poorly-anchored "walking board" in the new house's attic. Every time we were up there, and I crossed on that board, I made a verbal comment that we needed to fix that. Someone had screwed it down funny, such that it wasn't really secure on one end. To fix it would mean going down and bringing a cordless drill back up into the attic, unscrewing it, and then repositioning it. But we were always in the middle of something else and couldn't spare the 10 minutes it might have taken to fix it.
On Saturday, 12/10, I stepped on that board and it flipped me backwards, like stepping on a see-saw. My arms flew up in their natural reaction, and the right arm near the wrist came into contact with one of the few braces between two rafters. That stopped my fall and allowed me opportunity to throw my weight forward and steady myself on that fickle board. However, the arm took a pretty heavy hit, and by that night, I couldn't use my hand. Having sat in an ER all day before, I had no desire to do so again. I finally had it x-rayed at the chiropractor's office 4 days later, and no break was seen, though they had suspected a stress fracture.
Day by day, it has gotten slowly better. I was finally able to tolerate bracing it 6 days after the incident and braced it for for a week during the day. I lightly bumped it on Tue the 20th and it let me know that it was still really bruised and did not appreciate the contact whatsoever. On Wednesday, my physical therapist did Feldenkrais work on my arm. It finally started moving better (though after painting on Thursday, it is back to being a wee bit unhappy with me).
So the moral to this story is, do not pass up an opportunity to correct an unsafe condition. Had that brace beam not been there, I could have gone through the ceiling, backwards, or at the very least landed badly on joists in the attic, in an uncontrolled backwards fall. Things could have been so much worse than a banged-up arm/wrist, and I remind myself of that every time I am annoyed at my arm being messed up.
To bring everyone up-to-date on the sheetrock work, we moved back into the new house on the 16th, having cleaned up (most of) the sheetrock dust everywhere, and started decorating for Christmas on Tuesday night - we put up one of my small, 4-1/2 ft tall trees and some lights outside. We primed the Music Hall on the 22nd with one of our summer workers. We hope to get its ceiling painted this week, but we aren't sure of our worker's availability yet.
Monday, December 26, 2011
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
A Tale of Two Moves
It was the best of blogs, it was the worst of blogs.
It has been pointed out to me by many folks that I have not made an update since before we moved to the new house (always politely phrased in the "I'm subscribed to your remodel blog, but haven't gotten anything in months!"). Yes, we successfully moved on 8/11. We have continued to move things as we needed them (like, cold weather clothes). We are not fully moved out of the old house — our computers and laundry room remain at the old house, because the new house is not yet set up for them. (That's also why no new blog posts — computer isn't where we live.) We also haven't moved any of our gardening or sewing stuff, or 17 years accumulation of other "stuff".
But — much, much has transpired since my last post.
Like, us moving back to the old house yesterday morning! Only now, we have two cats to move, not just one. Meet Rugen, a polydactyl black kitten rescued from our local community garden back in October (is it really December already?!?!).
Why did we move back to the old house, to sleep on borrowed air beds for more than a week, you ask? (and thanks again, Randy & Janette!)
We are finally getting all* of the drywall work completed in the new house. That means, working in both bathrooms, the hallway ceiling and several walls, two walls in the SE bedroom, one wall in the SW bedroom (my office aka Rugen's room), the den ceiling, two walls in the entryway (the only two walls), all of the living/dining room (aka the Music Hall) walls and ceiling, and the breakfast room walls.
Notice what that leaves out? Only the master bedroom, kitchen, and utility room*.
We evaluated living in wet sheetrock mud, lots of sheetrock dust on days they sand, with two cats and we decided that we are simply not that crazy. So we packed everybody up and moved back up the street instead. Of course, we had to move the cats' tower to the old house, so Roy rolled it down the street on the furniture dolly at 7am. Our neighbors are used to our crazy behavior. Or they certainly should be by now!
Once this current round of work is finished, we'll be able to finish painting the office and hall bathroom (one wall each), paint the hallway (color is selected), breakfast room (color is selected), and master bathroom (colors might be selected - we'll see what we think when that dark red/brown is gone and not affecting impressions), then prime the entryway, Music Hall, and SE room (colors are not yet selected). We currently plan to do a lot of painting the week between Christmas and New Years.
*The utility room is still gutted. Our carpenter's schedule and our schedule have failed to mesh for more than a month, so the joists are still not repaired, so there is still no insulation or sheetrock in there. And yes, it is wickedly cold in that room, so we keep the door closed (not that it helps a lot) when the weather is like this (cold and colder, for those of you not in Houston). We are hoping to get him in there Very Soon Now, like maybe this weekend.
It has been pointed out to me by many folks that I have not made an update since before we moved to the new house (always politely phrased in the "I'm subscribed to your remodel blog, but haven't gotten anything in months!"). Yes, we successfully moved on 8/11. We have continued to move things as we needed them (like, cold weather clothes). We are not fully moved out of the old house — our computers and laundry room remain at the old house, because the new house is not yet set up for them. (That's also why no new blog posts — computer isn't where we live.) We also haven't moved any of our gardening or sewing stuff, or 17 years accumulation of other "stuff".
But — much, much has transpired since my last post.
Like, us moving back to the old house yesterday morning! Only now, we have two cats to move, not just one. Meet Rugen, a polydactyl black kitten rescued from our local community garden back in October (is it really December already?!?!).
Why did we move back to the old house, to sleep on borrowed air beds for more than a week, you ask? (and thanks again, Randy & Janette!)
We are finally getting all* of the drywall work completed in the new house. That means, working in both bathrooms, the hallway ceiling and several walls, two walls in the SE bedroom, one wall in the SW bedroom (my office aka Rugen's room), the den ceiling, two walls in the entryway (the only two walls), all of the living/dining room (aka the Music Hall) walls and ceiling, and the breakfast room walls.
Notice what that leaves out? Only the master bedroom, kitchen, and utility room*.
We evaluated living in wet sheetrock mud, lots of sheetrock dust on days they sand, with two cats and we decided that we are simply not that crazy. So we packed everybody up and moved back up the street instead. Of course, we had to move the cats' tower to the old house, so Roy rolled it down the street on the furniture dolly at 7am. Our neighbors are used to our crazy behavior. Or they certainly should be by now!
Once this current round of work is finished, we'll be able to finish painting the office and hall bathroom (one wall each), paint the hallway (color is selected), breakfast room (color is selected), and master bathroom (colors might be selected - we'll see what we think when that dark red/brown is gone and not affecting impressions), then prime the entryway, Music Hall, and SE room (colors are not yet selected). We currently plan to do a lot of painting the week between Christmas and New Years.
*The utility room is still gutted. Our carpenter's schedule and our schedule have failed to mesh for more than a month, so the joists are still not repaired, so there is still no insulation or sheetrock in there. And yes, it is wickedly cold in that room, so we keep the door closed (not that it helps a lot) when the weather is like this (cold and colder, for those of you not in Houston). We are hoping to get him in there Very Soon Now, like maybe this weekend.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Painting and packing
Well, Big Move Number One is almost upon us. The new house is not exactly ready to be moved into yet, still quite a bit of painting to go, and all, and its utility room is still gutted from the mold remediation, but move on 8/11 we will.
Why? you ask...well...
Because we are hosting dinner for a dozen or more on 8/17 for Rice's Orientation Week. We used to do it all the time, then we moved the hosting to a restaurant for a few years, then we just dropped out altogether as we got lazy/overcome with other things. We decided this year that we wanted to get back in the groove as Sid associates.
We had waited til mid-July to make the call as to whether we'd participate so we'd be able to better gauge whether we'd be moved in, and we simply thought we'd be farther along than we are (it didn't help matters that our best worker's family decided to take some last minute summer vacation trips the past two weekends and then this week/end he is on a track field trip - apparently private schools travel for a week to some meet before school even starts, I'm not really clear on the whys and wherefores).
So I hired some MORE new workers who had recently responded to my ad. Are they Rice students? Why, Virginia, why would you ever think such a thing, just because I ran an ad in the Rice student newspaper classified section back in April and May...no, one is a UHD grad who has applied to Rice for post-bacc study and then her boyfriend, who is a current UHD student. They seem to be nice people and have worked with us painting for a couple of weekends now. We also still have Will, who may have escaped mention thus far--he's our token Rice student.
Today was spent prepping bedrooms for a painting day tomorrow, and packing up things from our old house for the move to the new house. For the remaining crystal stemware, we just walked them in our hands down the street. Didn't have appropriate boxes, didn't see the point in acquiring any, either.
That's about all the news that's fit to print; oh, we've gotten the den all painted. It came out a bit lighter than we expected, but it's so much better than the Army olive drab green that it was, we're fine with it. And we hosted the Westbury Community Garden's fall seed packaging event at the house this past Sunday, so we've now hosted 2 events (both seed packaging for the WCG) at the new house. Not exactly social events, but events nonetheless!
Why? you ask...well...
Because we are hosting dinner for a dozen or more on 8/17 for Rice's Orientation Week. We used to do it all the time, then we moved the hosting to a restaurant for a few years, then we just dropped out altogether as we got lazy/overcome with other things. We decided this year that we wanted to get back in the groove as Sid associates.
We had waited til mid-July to make the call as to whether we'd participate so we'd be able to better gauge whether we'd be moved in, and we simply thought we'd be farther along than we are (it didn't help matters that our best worker's family decided to take some last minute summer vacation trips the past two weekends and then this week/end he is on a track field trip - apparently private schools travel for a week to some meet before school even starts, I'm not really clear on the whys and wherefores).
So I hired some MORE new workers who had recently responded to my ad. Are they Rice students? Why, Virginia, why would you ever think such a thing, just because I ran an ad in the Rice student newspaper classified section back in April and May...no, one is a UHD grad who has applied to Rice for post-bacc study and then her boyfriend, who is a current UHD student. They seem to be nice people and have worked with us painting for a couple of weekends now. We also still have Will, who may have escaped mention thus far--he's our token Rice student.
Today was spent prepping bedrooms for a painting day tomorrow, and packing up things from our old house for the move to the new house. For the remaining crystal stemware, we just walked them in our hands down the street. Didn't have appropriate boxes, didn't see the point in acquiring any, either.
That's about all the news that's fit to print; oh, we've gotten the den all painted. It came out a bit lighter than we expected, but it's so much better than the Army olive drab green that it was, we're fine with it. And we hosted the Westbury Community Garden's fall seed packaging event at the house this past Sunday, so we've now hosted 2 events (both seed packaging for the WCG) at the new house. Not exactly social events, but events nonetheless!
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
On the brighter side
Lest ye think it's all "doom and gloom" at the new house, here are a few developments we're happy with at the new place. (By the way, the new house is also referred to as 5127, the East Farm, Purpalicious, "the other house", and probably a few more things. It is where we plan to actually live — and soon, we hope.)
First, new landscaping. We've been hard at work on this since just about Day 2. While there are many, many more months (nay, years!) of work to do, we're pleased that it's looking cheerier and more like us. (Although with this continued drought and relentless sun, some things are not so happy any longer.)
Second, new windows (Jeld-Wen and Simonton). Big, big panes of glass allow unobstructed views of the outdoors from pretty much every room in the house. We've had big, clear Simonton windows for years in the old house, and very much enjoy looking out of them.
Third, Ed re-purposed the old electric dryer circuit for a whole-house surge protector. Now all of our electronic controls on our microwave, gas range, French-door refrigerator, etc., are protected from power surges coming into the house. Dirty power from Hurricanes Rita and Ike did a number on the last microwave we had.
Fourth, one of the few worthwhile items in the original landscape was this poor, much-neglected fig tree out back behind the garage. We have been faithfully watering it, and it has been faithfully putting on figs. Well, the first figs are finally ripe! We had a few figs over the 4th of July weekend. They are pretty tasty.
Fifth, and this is probably our favorite change of all, Ed hung our Meyda Tiffany pendant light in the breakfast room recently. Roy & I both absolutely love it. It was well worth the hours spent Googling and perusing lighting online, after we had a vague idea of what we wanted (a Tiffany-style up-light pendant in certain colorways). Serendipity? The blue in the pendant goes very nicely with the blue we chose for the kitchen.
There is a sixth major project, however, it is still in progress, so no pictures yet. Hopefully, it will be finished to usability in the next two weeks (there will be additional work later), and we'll post pictures of its time line and talk all about it then.
First, new landscaping. We've been hard at work on this since just about Day 2. While there are many, many more months (nay, years!) of work to do, we're pleased that it's looking cheerier and more like us. (Although with this continued drought and relentless sun, some things are not so happy any longer.)
Second, new windows (Jeld-Wen and Simonton). Big, big panes of glass allow unobstructed views of the outdoors from pretty much every room in the house. We've had big, clear Simonton windows for years in the old house, and very much enjoy looking out of them. 
Third, Ed re-purposed the old electric dryer circuit for a whole-house surge protector. Now all of our electronic controls on our microwave, gas range, French-door refrigerator, etc., are protected from power surges coming into the house. Dirty power from Hurricanes Rita and Ike did a number on the last microwave we had.
Fourth, one of the few worthwhile items in the original landscape was this poor, much-neglected fig tree out back behind the garage. We have been faithfully watering it, and it has been faithfully putting on figs. Well, the first figs are finally ripe! We had a few figs over the 4th of July weekend. They are pretty tasty.Fifth, and this is probably our favorite change of all, Ed hung our Meyda Tiffany pendant light in the breakfast room recently. Roy & I both absolutely love it. It was well worth the hours spent Googling and perusing lighting online, after we had a vague idea of what we wanted (a Tiffany-style up-light pendant in certain colorways). Serendipity? The blue in the pendant goes very nicely with the blue we chose for the kitchen.
There is a sixth major project, however, it is still in progress, so no pictures yet. Hopefully, it will be finished to usability in the next two weeks (there will be additional work later), and we'll post pictures of its time line and talk all about it then.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Breaker 1-9, what's your 10-20?
Ever had something that just didn't make sense and that you couldn't let alone? We have two of those things, both electrical in nature.
Ed, our electrician, has worked his way through most of our electrical panel. He reclaimed the old 30A electric wall oven circuit, the old 30A electric cooktop circuit, and the old 40A A/C circuits and re-purposed them so that we'd have new circuits for the kitchen. He mapped the other circuits to what they controlled, but there was one circuit that he was not able to trace. Circuit 19.
Since the utility room is gutted, Ed tagged the wire for us yesterday after tracing it from the panel, so that we can see where it begins heading north in the attic. We work a lot cheaper than he does, especially on wild goose chases.
We traced that wire this morning into a wall in the kitchen (where we know it services nothing). There was a wire coming back up that wall cavity, so we guessed it was the same wire, continuing its mysterious journey. We found that it led to the formal dining room. We left the attic and headed for that area. Sure enough, 3 lone receptacles in the dining room were without power. That's bizarre, an entire 20A circuit to service 3 seldom-used receptacles...in a seldom-used room!
But, that may mean that we have a circuit available to tap into for exterior receptacles. We need one on the west side of the house (or northwest eave) and that's exactly where that line runs.
Now, to the second puzzle. There is an existing, seemingly original, exterior outlet on the north side of the master bedroom (northeast side of the house). It has wire coming into the receptacle and leaving the receptacle...but no power. Digging around in the attic yielded no clues - no wire seems to be going to it from the attic, which would lead you to believe that it would be connected via the two indoor receptacles on either side of that window, with the wires running through the wall. I've never wanted to cut into a perfectly good wall so much in my life. Not knowing why that receptacle doesn't have power is infuriating!
We have contemplated that maybe it should be wired from the exterior light, so I want to turn off that breaker and pull that lamp off the wall and see whether there is wire leading away from it that is no longer connected. Yes, I'm grasping at straws. The deal is, if we can't find where it should be powered from, we're going to have to install new receptacles someplace else where we can get wire to them without cutting into the interior walls (and keeping it under the window would necessitate cutting into the interior wall).
One mystery down, one yet to go....
Friday, July 1, 2011
Failing score
This week was window week. We were supposed to have all new windows throughout the house today (save for one window that will be replaced when we expand). That was the theory. How'd that work out in reality?
Total windows to be installed this week: 9
Window #1 was mistakenly ordered in tan. TAN. That one didn't even make it into the house.
Window #2 (double-hung aka DH) has its lower lift rail deformed in two places, and had had red coloration (on the white) that the installer had removed before we ever saw it...not sure why he went to the trouble of removing the red, because we sure are not keeping that sash. Also, it has obscured glass in both sashes, only the orientation of the "pebbling" results in the sashes rubbing against the locks when operated, which results in an irritating grinding sound. That ain't right and isn't acceptable. The proposed resolution is to re-make the upper sash in clear glass, which should, in theory, fix the problem.
Window #3 (DH) has no observed defects (yet?).
Windows #4 & #6 are awning windows in the (mostly) gutted utility room and (mostly) remodeled kitchen. Both are nice windows, although the wood sill they installed in the utility room isn't level.
Windows #5 & #7 are big sliders in the breakfast room and a bedroom. They were ordered without the "air latch", a small latch that allows you to open the window for ventilation, but keep it secured against forced entry. We have them in the old house and use them quite often during open-window season (yes, Houston does have a bit of that).
Window #8 (DH) has a similar deformed lift rail issue in the lower sash as #2. The installer conjectured that the damage occurred on a moving truck, being tied to a post, or something. I don't know, but it is not only deformed, but has a roughed up edge, and the lift rail still has some red still on it, as he didn't even notice the damage and attempt to remove the red.
Window #9 (DH) takes the cake, though. It's the hall bath's window and there is a foot-long scratch INSIDE the glass unit (between the two panes of glass). You can see it clear as day as you walk towards it with light shining through it. That window never should have left the factory. Quality control utterly failed there. The scratch is on the inner side of the interior pane. It also has the same "obscured glass rubbing against the hinge" problem as #2.
So, let's see. A total of 16 sashes.
- Two were screw-ups by the order-maker (tan)
- Two more were screw-ups by the order-maker (missing air latches - isn't having a signed contract by both parties wonderful? I'm waiting for him to realize this is HIS problem and not mine - because when I noticed it, I hadn't re-read my contract - yeah, I'm covered, air latches are specified! Woo-hoo!)
- Two are bad manufacturing design, requiring the home-owner to change what they want to get smoothly operable windows
- Two more were damage in transit (from someplace to someplace) most likely
- One had non-existent QC at the factory.
That's 9 problems in 16 sashes. That's not a good score, is it?
But, all of the problems are in the process of getting addressed, and we like our new windows very much.
Oh, and since I was on the phone with them half of the day, I finally remembered to locate our order number for the windows at the old house and get a replacement framed screen ordered. These windows are 13 years old, with a lifetime warranty on certain things, the screens being one of those things. It had gotten broken years ago and we threw it away. Since we're moving out now, we thought we should probably replace that full-size screen finally. And it's completely free, we just have to find a way to go pick it up when it arrives at the distributor. (David, truck, please?)
Total windows to be installed this week: 9
Window #1 was mistakenly ordered in tan. TAN. That one didn't even make it into the house.
Window #2 (double-hung aka DH) has its lower lift rail deformed in two places, and had had red coloration (on the white) that the installer had removed before we ever saw it...not sure why he went to the trouble of removing the red, because we sure are not keeping that sash. Also, it has obscured glass in both sashes, only the orientation of the "pebbling" results in the sashes rubbing against the locks when operated, which results in an irritating grinding sound. That ain't right and isn't acceptable. The proposed resolution is to re-make the upper sash in clear glass, which should, in theory, fix the problem.
Window #3 (DH) has no observed defects (yet?).
Windows #4 & #6 are awning windows in the (mostly) gutted utility room and (mostly) remodeled kitchen. Both are nice windows, although the wood sill they installed in the utility room isn't level.
Windows #5 & #7 are big sliders in the breakfast room and a bedroom. They were ordered without the "air latch", a small latch that allows you to open the window for ventilation, but keep it secured against forced entry. We have them in the old house and use them quite often during open-window season (yes, Houston does have a bit of that).
Window #8 (DH) has a similar deformed lift rail issue in the lower sash as #2. The installer conjectured that the damage occurred on a moving truck, being tied to a post, or something. I don't know, but it is not only deformed, but has a roughed up edge, and the lift rail still has some red still on it, as he didn't even notice the damage and attempt to remove the red.
Window #9 (DH) takes the cake, though. It's the hall bath's window and there is a foot-long scratch INSIDE the glass unit (between the two panes of glass). You can see it clear as day as you walk towards it with light shining through it. That window never should have left the factory. Quality control utterly failed there. The scratch is on the inner side of the interior pane. It also has the same "obscured glass rubbing against the hinge" problem as #2.
So, let's see. A total of 16 sashes.
- Two were screw-ups by the order-maker (tan)
- Two more were screw-ups by the order-maker (missing air latches - isn't having a signed contract by both parties wonderful? I'm waiting for him to realize this is HIS problem and not mine - because when I noticed it, I hadn't re-read my contract - yeah, I'm covered, air latches are specified! Woo-hoo!)
- Two are bad manufacturing design, requiring the home-owner to change what they want to get smoothly operable windows
- Two more were damage in transit (from someplace to someplace) most likely
- One had non-existent QC at the factory.
That's 9 problems in 16 sashes. That's not a good score, is it?
But, all of the problems are in the process of getting addressed, and we like our new windows very much.
Oh, and since I was on the phone with them half of the day, I finally remembered to locate our order number for the windows at the old house and get a replacement framed screen ordered. These windows are 13 years old, with a lifetime warranty on certain things, the screens being one of those things. It had gotten broken years ago and we threw it away. Since we're moving out now, we thought we should probably replace that full-size screen finally. And it's completely free, we just have to find a way to go pick it up when it arrives at the distributor. (David, truck, please?)
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Going with the flow
You may be wondering what we've been up to. "A lot of different, exhausting things" would be the answer.
But the title of the post pretty much sums up my life (and the new house) lately: going with the flow.
The Jeld-Wen push-out casement windows across the front porch were installed pretty much without incident. We like them very much. So does the cat, who prefers to enter through windows rather than doors, a trick Roy taught her.
To bring you up to date, we've been working every weekend with our "hired hands": Douglas, Andrew, and Will (not all at once, usually 1-2 workers in 2 or 3 sessions). We've tackled yard work and more yard work, and more and more and more digging out of tree roots to expose them for whacking on. Ever tried to kill an elm tree by cutting it down and grinding out its stump below the surface of the soil so you can't even tell there was a tree there? Well, that just makes it that much more determined to live, so it sends up scads of suckers all over the place, and in a ring around the buried deep stump remains. Same with crape myrtles. And we had lots of both. And we've been painting stuff inside.
But, back to the subject matter. We were rolling merrily along on Memorial Day when Roy & Andrew started to take down the cabinets in the utility room (the ones covering up the window and routing the dryer vent out said window)...and there was nasty mold on the wall and ceiling behind two of the cabinets. Yeah, I said MOLD. Andrew went home at the end of his shift, Roy & I went home and had lunch, stunned, then we returned and cut out a stud cavity so we'd have a better idea of what we were looking at. Turns out it would be more mold of many hues, on the front and back of the interior sheetrock, exterior sheetrock, studs, insulation, etc. That was beyond our abilities to clean up properly, so we called in a mold assessment consultant for a remediation plan.
Why did we have a room full of mold you ask? Well, as it turns out, the vent stack for the washing machine was installed completely bass-ackwards, with the flange of the vent above the shingles in the valley, so that when it rained, the water just poured into the wall cavity. Oh, and the stack had no "leading" either, but that was a secondary issue.
The good news is, the mold situation has just been cleaned up and we received our remediation certificate last night.
That one roof issue led to us calling in a roofer to inspect the entire roof. We'll suffice it to say that $875 later, all of the leading on the vent stacks has been replaced (the squirrels had chewed through all of them!), the central heater has a correct vent that won't be pumping noxious CO into our attic all winter, and I forget what else.
The good news is, our shingles are in good shape.
So, what else...oh, yes, on June 14, we were supposed to get our new countertops. On June 13 at 3pm, I called to confirm they were coming and they were. At 5pm, I received a frantic phone call from the company...there had been an accident. The forklift operator had backed into the rack containing our countertops. I just started laughing, which confused the poor lady. What else was I going to do? I was still in shock from the mold and trying to deal with that.
Then, last Friday, when I was meeting with the mold consultant for the follow-up air sample testing, our Simonton windows were delivered to the house, with the owner of the company we bought them from on site to receive them...and he asks, "so, would you like a tan window for your front bedroom?"...yes, 8 of the 9 windows were appropriately white, like we'd ordered, but the last one we'd changed the design of, had defaulted to tan, and he hadn't caught it. So, no new front bedroom window for now.
And that brings us up to June 29, when the first of the Simonton windows will be installed. We can't wait!
But the title of the post pretty much sums up my life (and the new house) lately: going with the flow.
The Jeld-Wen push-out casement windows across the front porch were installed pretty much without incident. We like them very much. So does the cat, who prefers to enter through windows rather than doors, a trick Roy taught her.
To bring you up to date, we've been working every weekend with our "hired hands": Douglas, Andrew, and Will (not all at once, usually 1-2 workers in 2 or 3 sessions). We've tackled yard work and more yard work, and more and more and more digging out of tree roots to expose them for whacking on. Ever tried to kill an elm tree by cutting it down and grinding out its stump below the surface of the soil so you can't even tell there was a tree there? Well, that just makes it that much more determined to live, so it sends up scads of suckers all over the place, and in a ring around the buried deep stump remains. Same with crape myrtles. And we had lots of both. And we've been painting stuff inside.
But, back to the subject matter. We were rolling merrily along on Memorial Day when Roy & Andrew started to take down the cabinets in the utility room (the ones covering up the window and routing the dryer vent out said window)...and there was nasty mold on the wall and ceiling behind two of the cabinets. Yeah, I said MOLD. Andrew went home at the end of his shift, Roy & I went home and had lunch, stunned, then we returned and cut out a stud cavity so we'd have a better idea of what we were looking at. Turns out it would be more mold of many hues, on the front and back of the interior sheetrock, exterior sheetrock, studs, insulation, etc. That was beyond our abilities to clean up properly, so we called in a mold assessment consultant for a remediation plan.
Why did we have a room full of mold you ask? Well, as it turns out, the vent stack for the washing machine was installed completely bass-ackwards, with the flange of the vent above the shingles in the valley, so that when it rained, the water just poured into the wall cavity. Oh, and the stack had no "leading" either, but that was a secondary issue.
The good news is, the mold situation has just been cleaned up and we received our remediation certificate last night.
That one roof issue led to us calling in a roofer to inspect the entire roof. We'll suffice it to say that $875 later, all of the leading on the vent stacks has been replaced (the squirrels had chewed through all of them!), the central heater has a correct vent that won't be pumping noxious CO into our attic all winter, and I forget what else.
The good news is, our shingles are in good shape.
So, what else...oh, yes, on June 14, we were supposed to get our new countertops. On June 13 at 3pm, I called to confirm they were coming and they were. At 5pm, I received a frantic phone call from the company...there had been an accident. The forklift operator had backed into the rack containing our countertops. I just started laughing, which confused the poor lady. What else was I going to do? I was still in shock from the mold and trying to deal with that.
Then, last Friday, when I was meeting with the mold consultant for the follow-up air sample testing, our Simonton windows were delivered to the house, with the owner of the company we bought them from on site to receive them...and he asks, "so, would you like a tan window for your front bedroom?"...yes, 8 of the 9 windows were appropriately white, like we'd ordered, but the last one we'd changed the design of, had defaulted to tan, and he hadn't caught it. So, no new front bedroom window for now.
And that brings us up to June 29, when the first of the Simonton windows will be installed. We can't wait!
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Windows and opportunities
It took a little over a month, but we managed to get all of the locks changed on the house - finally, we have a single key to open all 7 locks. We went with Schlage locks and handlesets because that is what was installed already. One of the newest (and coolest) inventions in the world of locks is the ability to re-key a lock yourself in about 30 seconds. For Schlage, this technology is called SecureKey. Baldwin and KwikSet offer similar technology under different names.
We finally have solutions for replacing all of the windows. We started with Allied Siding & Windows for the replacement window project (all the windows in the house except for the one that will be going away with the addition will be replaced this summer). Allied sells and installs a lot of Simonton windows, which is the brand we have on 5206 and absolutely love. Rob, our salesguy, was a little harried with all of the myriad home show sales calls (we weren't a home show call).
I was able to work with Simonton to figure out a window type for above the sink (awning, it turns out), but we failed to be able to spec any suitable window for the 3 full-height windows across the front porch (or from the inside, the "Music Hall"). All of the rough openings are just a little too wide to do casements, and other types couldn't be configured to give us the combination of view and ventilation we wanted - I'd brainstormed idea after idea with Simonton (the actual company, not just our salesguy) and we ultimately determined that the look and operability that we desired in those openings simply could not be achieved with Simonton, which was really too bad.
We had, when walking around the neighborhood, noticed some unique windows that we thought were very cool, so we asked the owner about them. It turned out they were Magic Windows she'd had installed a decade ago. A little hunting around found the only vendor in the area selling them these days. We set up an appointment with the sales guy.
Jonathan was the epitome of why people hate sales people. He was a fast-talking, competition-bashing, lying-out-the-you-know-what, waste of our time. It turns out that Magic Windows are very pricey, and we're not even sure that they could really build the size we need!
Even if the windows had been reasonably priced, we would not have wanted to use him. He recently moved to Houston, about 4 months ago, from California. In California (unlike in Texas), contractors must be licensed and state who holds what position in the companies, so a little online research yielded some interesting (and not favorable) things. We wish that Texas would institute something similar.
A week after the disastrous meeting with Jonathan, we met with a very nice gentleman, Michael, owner of Meyerland Windows. He worked with us for several days over the phone and via e-mail to spec Jeld-Wen custom wood windows for those 3 windows. However, we wanted technical information that Michael couldn't provide, so he suggested I call Jeld-Wen.
When I asked those technical questions of Jeld-Wen's 800 number and they couldn't answer them, Jeld-Wen directed me to their manufacturing plant for that window line, where I spoke with Bridget. I explained our problems and what we were trying to achieve and asked what would she suggest. Turns out they have a push-out casement window that should work beautifully in those spaces!!
Meanwhile, our Allied rep was frustrating us, failing to answer questions about the differences between two lines of Simonton windows, and then he never got back to me with the bid with the options we desired and simply "disappeared". So we went to Michael on Friday and asked him to bid the Simonton windows. As promised, Michael was out at noon on Saturday to measure the windows and make sure he understood what we wanted where. Michael has been very attentive and is an all-around pleasant guy to deal with.
That brings the blog up-to-date on the window situation.
As to Douglas working with us on Saturday - wow. That boy is going to keep us hopping! His main reference was not joking when she said he does not like to do nothing. He was always asking "what's next?" He's a very good, hard worker. We should be churning through some of the back-log of yard projects as well as the house projects when it gets too hot to work outside.
We may hire a rising junior at Rice as well, who is primarily interested in the gardening portion of the work. There's a lot of that to be done, too, and we can teach her quite a bit about organic gardening (which is her main interest in our job) along the way.
We also had a call from one of Douglas' classmates (unbeknownst to him), though that candidate failed to leave a call-back number (and we don't have callerID). We asked Douglas to let the guy know we can't contact him. So we might hire another high school-aged boy to help us on some weekends.
We finally have solutions for replacing all of the windows. We started with Allied Siding & Windows for the replacement window project (all the windows in the house except for the one that will be going away with the addition will be replaced this summer). Allied sells and installs a lot of Simonton windows, which is the brand we have on 5206 and absolutely love. Rob, our salesguy, was a little harried with all of the myriad home show sales calls (we weren't a home show call).
I was able to work with Simonton to figure out a window type for above the sink (awning, it turns out), but we failed to be able to spec any suitable window for the 3 full-height windows across the front porch (or from the inside, the "Music Hall"). All of the rough openings are just a little too wide to do casements, and other types couldn't be configured to give us the combination of view and ventilation we wanted - I'd brainstormed idea after idea with Simonton (the actual company, not just our salesguy) and we ultimately determined that the look and operability that we desired in those openings simply could not be achieved with Simonton, which was really too bad.
We had, when walking around the neighborhood, noticed some unique windows that we thought were very cool, so we asked the owner about them. It turned out they were Magic Windows she'd had installed a decade ago. A little hunting around found the only vendor in the area selling them these days. We set up an appointment with the sales guy.
Jonathan was the epitome of why people hate sales people. He was a fast-talking, competition-bashing, lying-out-the-you-know-what, waste of our time. It turns out that Magic Windows are very pricey, and we're not even sure that they could really build the size we need!
Even if the windows had been reasonably priced, we would not have wanted to use him. He recently moved to Houston, about 4 months ago, from California. In California (unlike in Texas), contractors must be licensed and state who holds what position in the companies, so a little online research yielded some interesting (and not favorable) things. We wish that Texas would institute something similar.
A week after the disastrous meeting with Jonathan, we met with a very nice gentleman, Michael, owner of Meyerland Windows. He worked with us for several days over the phone and via e-mail to spec Jeld-Wen custom wood windows for those 3 windows. However, we wanted technical information that Michael couldn't provide, so he suggested I call Jeld-Wen.
When I asked those technical questions of Jeld-Wen's 800 number and they couldn't answer them, Jeld-Wen directed me to their manufacturing plant for that window line, where I spoke with Bridget. I explained our problems and what we were trying to achieve and asked what would she suggest. Turns out they have a push-out casement window that should work beautifully in those spaces!!
Meanwhile, our Allied rep was frustrating us, failing to answer questions about the differences between two lines of Simonton windows, and then he never got back to me with the bid with the options we desired and simply "disappeared". So we went to Michael on Friday and asked him to bid the Simonton windows. As promised, Michael was out at noon on Saturday to measure the windows and make sure he understood what we wanted where. Michael has been very attentive and is an all-around pleasant guy to deal with.
That brings the blog up-to-date on the window situation.
As to Douglas working with us on Saturday - wow. That boy is going to keep us hopping! His main reference was not joking when she said he does not like to do nothing. He was always asking "what's next?" He's a very good, hard worker. We should be churning through some of the back-log of yard projects as well as the house projects when it gets too hot to work outside.
We may hire a rising junior at Rice as well, who is primarily interested in the gardening portion of the work. There's a lot of that to be done, too, and we can teach her quite a bit about organic gardening (which is her main interest in our job) along the way.
We also had a call from one of Douglas' classmates (unbeknownst to him), though that candidate failed to leave a call-back number (and we don't have callerID). We asked Douglas to let the guy know we can't contact him. So we might hire another high school-aged boy to help us on some weekends.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Converting Two Yards
Saturday promises to be a brave new day.
I have contracted with a landscaping company to come out and aerate the yards of both houses and apply gypsum and Turface to both. We've already applied Microlife fertilizer to 5206, but they will apply it to 5127 for us. I have spent days this week trying to get both yards watered enough that they can be aerated!
But the brave and new part comes in the form of a very enthusiastic young man by the name of Douglas. I finally got around to running a "Help Wanted" ad in the Rice Thresher, which ran last Friday. We got up Tuesday morning to an e-mail inquiry from Douglas, identifying himself as a "hard-working high school student". We were looking for college kids who needed a part-time summer job, and got a high schooler. Hmm. We were dubious.
We corresponded via e-mail this week and he sent me his references, both of whom spoke very highly of him, his skills, and his work ethic. His mom confirmed this evening via e-mail that they are aware of, and support him in, this endeavor and will be driving him back and forth. He's not yet 16.
To make matters more interesting (or complicated), we came home from the new house to the old house to find the "Westbury Yard of the Month" sign in our old house's front yard! To say that the garden is in need of tidying would be like asking if teenaged boys are hungry! So...it's possible we'll be working on the old house's yard before we work on the new house's yard (which is what had been planned)!
We have more exciting news on several fronts, but all of that will have to wait for another day. I see that I've been very derelict in my posting - it's not for lack of action, but lack of time! There are several posts that I started and never got finished, so they'll follow when I get a chance.
I have contracted with a landscaping company to come out and aerate the yards of both houses and apply gypsum and Turface to both. We've already applied Microlife fertilizer to 5206, but they will apply it to 5127 for us. I have spent days this week trying to get both yards watered enough that they can be aerated!
But the brave and new part comes in the form of a very enthusiastic young man by the name of Douglas. I finally got around to running a "Help Wanted" ad in the Rice Thresher, which ran last Friday. We got up Tuesday morning to an e-mail inquiry from Douglas, identifying himself as a "hard-working high school student". We were looking for college kids who needed a part-time summer job, and got a high schooler. Hmm. We were dubious.
We corresponded via e-mail this week and he sent me his references, both of whom spoke very highly of him, his skills, and his work ethic. His mom confirmed this evening via e-mail that they are aware of, and support him in, this endeavor and will be driving him back and forth. He's not yet 16.
To make matters more interesting (or complicated), we came home from the new house to the old house to find the "Westbury Yard of the Month" sign in our old house's front yard! To say that the garden is in need of tidying would be like asking if teenaged boys are hungry! So...it's possible we'll be working on the old house's yard before we work on the new house's yard (which is what had been planned)!
We have more exciting news on several fronts, but all of that will have to wait for another day. I see that I've been very derelict in my posting - it's not for lack of action, but lack of time! There are several posts that I started and never got finished, so they'll follow when I get a chance.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Rug rats
Ten Thousand Villages has a traveling rug (no, not flying carpets) event. This weekend is the yearly event for the Houston area. For those who might not know, Ten Thousand Villages supports fair trade crafts from around the world. The Houston store in The Rice Village (on Rice Blvd, west of the British Isles store) will have the rugs through Monday, March 28 (open 10-6). They are also open 12-6 on Sunday.
We had never been to the rug event before, but straggled by there on Saturday between community garden and errands when we realized it was this weekend (so, yes, we were very stylish with our hat hair; sweaty, dirty clothes; and starvation). The folks traveling from Pennsylvania with the rugs were very gracious and gave us a mini-lesson about rugs and proceeded to show us the stack of rugs in the 4.5 ft x 7 ft range, which they said is the most versatile size.
Roy liked one of the rugs, and I liked the last rug in the stack, so they removed those two from the stack so that we could see the entire rug. We were admiring them and discussing the relative merits of each, when one of the Houston TTV volunteers asked if we knew about the rug check-out program. No, we did not. It turns out that you can check out rugs and take them home to see how they look in your own home! (After leaving credit card on file, of course.)
We decided to take both of those rugs, each 800 knots per square inch, as well as a slightly smaller rug, 4 ft x 6 ft, with 500 knots per square inch, home to the new house to see how they looked.
As it turns out, both of the larger rugs go smashingly with both the oak floors in the Music Hall (formerly known as the combined living/dining room) and the tile floor in the Dining Room/Den (formerly known as the den). So we'd be able to use both rugs in the Music Hall if we wanted to, or move one or the other of them to the Dining Room.
The smaller rug is indeed a great size for a bedroom (at the foot of the bed), but we're not really in the market yet for such an accessory. Also, while I really liked the design of that rug, Roy was less enthused. It's interesting what grabs each of us and what repels each of us. :)
Later in the evening, after dark, we perused the online inventory of rugs. You can, too. We are looking pretty much only at the Pak-Persians, in either the 500-knot count (16/16) or the 800-knot count (20/20). Online, we found some of the square rugs and the circular rugs just incredible.
Our salesman, Will, explained how to care for these rugs - pretty much just vacuum them (not the fringe, of course) and then every 3 years or so if they are dirty, take them out to the driveway and hose them down! The rugs are primarily wool, though some have some silk threads in them (and those are more expensive, but gorgeous). The dyes are colorfast, and the rugs have already been washed and scrubbed in Pakistan, prior to being shipped to the US. Ernie, the manager of the PA store, was at the Houston store, and he shared how he has routinely taken a Hoover Steam Vac to his rugs as he has a 10-lb, 12-yr-old dog who either has accidents or expresses his displeasure on the rugs in his home on an on-going basis.
The rugs' life expectancy varies with the type of rug (which is defined by several factors, I believe the 3 notable ones are the rug's base material, the knot-count, and possibly whether the yarns are machine-woven or hand-spun). The Persians we are looking at should last about 120 years. In other words, we'll want to put them in our wills!
We had never been to the rug event before, but straggled by there on Saturday between community garden and errands when we realized it was this weekend (so, yes, we were very stylish with our hat hair; sweaty, dirty clothes; and starvation). The folks traveling from Pennsylvania with the rugs were very gracious and gave us a mini-lesson about rugs and proceeded to show us the stack of rugs in the 4.5 ft x 7 ft range, which they said is the most versatile size.
Roy liked one of the rugs, and I liked the last rug in the stack, so they removed those two from the stack so that we could see the entire rug. We were admiring them and discussing the relative merits of each, when one of the Houston TTV volunteers asked if we knew about the rug check-out program. No, we did not. It turns out that you can check out rugs and take them home to see how they look in your own home! (After leaving credit card on file, of course.)
We decided to take both of those rugs, each 800 knots per square inch, as well as a slightly smaller rug, 4 ft x 6 ft, with 500 knots per square inch, home to the new house to see how they looked.
As it turns out, both of the larger rugs go smashingly with both the oak floors in the Music Hall (formerly known as the combined living/dining room) and the tile floor in the Dining Room/Den (formerly known as the den). So we'd be able to use both rugs in the Music Hall if we wanted to, or move one or the other of them to the Dining Room.
The smaller rug is indeed a great size for a bedroom (at the foot of the bed), but we're not really in the market yet for such an accessory. Also, while I really liked the design of that rug, Roy was less enthused. It's interesting what grabs each of us and what repels each of us. :)
Later in the evening, after dark, we perused the online inventory of rugs. You can, too. We are looking pretty much only at the Pak-Persians, in either the 500-knot count (16/16) or the 800-knot count (20/20). Online, we found some of the square rugs and the circular rugs just incredible.
Our salesman, Will, explained how to care for these rugs - pretty much just vacuum them (not the fringe, of course) and then every 3 years or so if they are dirty, take them out to the driveway and hose them down! The rugs are primarily wool, though some have some silk threads in them (and those are more expensive, but gorgeous). The dyes are colorfast, and the rugs have already been washed and scrubbed in Pakistan, prior to being shipped to the US. Ernie, the manager of the PA store, was at the Houston store, and he shared how he has routinely taken a Hoover Steam Vac to his rugs as he has a 10-lb, 12-yr-old dog who either has accidents or expresses his displeasure on the rugs in his home on an on-going basis.
The rugs' life expectancy varies with the type of rug (which is defined by several factors, I believe the 3 notable ones are the rug's base material, the knot-count, and possibly whether the yarns are machine-woven or hand-spun). The Persians we are looking at should last about 120 years. In other words, we'll want to put them in our wills!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Getting started on home work
To those who don't live nearby (or who aren't on Facebook), we closed mostly without incident on Wednesday, as scheduled! Woo-hoo!
I say mostly because the closing documents were wrong in a few places that we caught - notably that title commitment policy that I'd already made them correct back in January (the error involved setbacks, kinda important information). When we were asked whether we had a correct copy of the title policy, I broke out the chocolate bar. You work for the title company, you go find the corrected copy and prove to me that the title company knows what it's doing (or can at least pretend long enough to get us out of there)!
Friday was a very busy day on property as our electrician spent 8am-2pm fixing the code and/or safety issues that had been identified in our inspection report, plus installing a replacement ceiling fan for the one where a blade had been broken off! We have had Joseph do work on 5206 and we really like him; we also appreciate his taking time to explain what he's doing and why and what we need to know. We're happy to pay to be educated!
It just so happened to work out that the maid service we'd hired to do a "move out" deep clean showed up shortly before Joseph left, so we weren't in their way too much. Everything got scrubbed, dusted, mopped, cleaned. Inside all of the cabinet and drawers, the insides of the windows, you name it! Very nicely done.
Today, we had a lot of work we needed to do at the community garden, so we didn't get over to the new house until about 5pm. We took a bunch of "before" pictures of the outside and set to work on the vast multitude of trees and shrubs that need removing (that are sized such that we can remove them ourselves with hand tools).
Roy had the honor of sawing down the first tree. It had the honor of drawing first blood, however! The saw slipped and cut his left thumb and left index finger knuckle. I took a picture of him victoriously hoisting the tree before he headed back to 5206 to get cleaned up and bandaged. We now have peroxide and bandages at the new house.
I got to remove the 2 trees that bugged me out front (for which I will surely pay in the morning). By the time it got dark, we had removed 8.5 trees (the other half requires a chain saw to finish cutting the trunk down). That means we only have about another 41.5 to go.... Really. The professionals will have something like 11 trees to remove when they come on Monday.
If you want to see the property and/or house before it changes too much more, swing by on Sunday, 2/20, 4:30-5:30, and take a look around. (Roy has a mid-afternoon church gig from 2-4:30.) You can see our new table and chairs that we bought at The Urban Market Houston this past Sunday-we think that the table might be from an English pub. (Just step over the piles of Elfa shelving that I bought Tuesday night, the last day of the Elfa sale until Christmas Eve.)
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
All Systems Go!
The plumbing checked out fine today once the house was de-winterized. I cannot say enough good things about the Fox Inspection Group. Excellent service for the original inspection - and they came out and re-inspected the plumbing for us free today. Now, that's what we call customer service! They have a very happy and very satisfied customer.
The funniest thing that happened today (and there were a whole lot of unfunny things that we are just not going to talk about!) was that we learned that the $240 repair to the irrigation system that the seller had to make due to freeze damage was COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE. It turns out that the backflow preventer which froze and blew its top and ruptured the two brass valves near it could have (SHOULD have) been drained. The morons who winterized the house apparently didn't know what they were looking at, and did not drain the system. (But, now we know how to drain it ourselves. Yea!)
We are set to close at 10am across town. We'll go to the bank in the morning, get a cashier's check for closing costs, then head to closing. Hopefully, we'll have keys by the afternoon.
Keep thinking good thoughts. We're almost through with insanity that we have no control over - underwriters, title agents, out-of-state sellers who are businesses rather than individuals, etc. Then in a few weeks (yes, I need some time off), we'll start in on the remodel insanity again, talking to architects...
The funniest thing that happened today (and there were a whole lot of unfunny things that we are just not going to talk about!) was that we learned that the $240 repair to the irrigation system that the seller had to make due to freeze damage was COMPLETELY AVOIDABLE. It turns out that the backflow preventer which froze and blew its top and ruptured the two brass valves near it could have (SHOULD have) been drained. The morons who winterized the house apparently didn't know what they were looking at, and did not drain the system. (But, now we know how to drain it ourselves. Yea!)
We are set to close at 10am across town. We'll go to the bank in the morning, get a cashier's check for closing costs, then head to closing. Hopefully, we'll have keys by the afternoon.
Keep thinking good thoughts. We're almost through with insanity that we have no control over - underwriters, title agents, out-of-state sellers who are businesses rather than individuals, etc. Then in a few weeks (yes, I need some time off), we'll start in on the remodel insanity again, talking to architects...
Friday, February 11, 2011
Whacked some moles today
Early afternoon, I realized that we hadn't set up any utilities yet, because we've been so tied up with everything else.
So, 2 1/2 hours, multiple website visits, and 2 phone calls to providers (and too many calls and e-mails to count to Roy) later, we have all basic utilities slated for changeover on 2/16-and just in the nick of time, too. Had we called on Monday, all of the utilities would be cut off by the seller on 2/16 and we'd have had to pay reconnection fees to get them hooked up on 2/17. Minor disaster averted!
About 5 minutes after that, around 4:45 PM, our loan originator called me to say that they'd just seen our loan clear underwriting. YEE-HAW! She and our processor had been talking about the insanity that underwriting our loan had devolved into when she saw (or heard) our processor jump up and say, "I saw it go! It's cleared!"
The lender will get our paperwork submitted to the title company so we can get the closing costs established.
When Roy got home, we moseyed on down to the new house to confirm what we already knew - that they haven't repaired the irrigation system. That's all right, I'm looking forward to suing an out-of-state company at this point. They made this process hellish, so we'll sue them in small claims court for the cost of the repair. Since they made us initial all of the pages of THEIR INSPECTION report that showed that the irrigation system was in working order, we have the evidence we need to prove that the house was not delivered in the same condition as it was when we signed the contract for it. Sounds like fun, right? Right!
However, if their craptacular "winterizing" of the house caused any damage to the interior water lines which results in damage to walls or floors, we'll be suing in real court. Because, by damn, we're going to close on this house on 2/16.
So, 2 1/2 hours, multiple website visits, and 2 phone calls to providers (and too many calls and e-mails to count to Roy) later, we have all basic utilities slated for changeover on 2/16-and just in the nick of time, too. Had we called on Monday, all of the utilities would be cut off by the seller on 2/16 and we'd have had to pay reconnection fees to get them hooked up on 2/17. Minor disaster averted!
About 5 minutes after that, around 4:45 PM, our loan originator called me to say that they'd just seen our loan clear underwriting. YEE-HAW! She and our processor had been talking about the insanity that underwriting our loan had devolved into when she saw (or heard) our processor jump up and say, "I saw it go! It's cleared!"
The lender will get our paperwork submitted to the title company so we can get the closing costs established.
When Roy got home, we moseyed on down to the new house to confirm what we already knew - that they haven't repaired the irrigation system. That's all right, I'm looking forward to suing an out-of-state company at this point. They made this process hellish, so we'll sue them in small claims court for the cost of the repair. Since they made us initial all of the pages of THEIR INSPECTION report that showed that the irrigation system was in working order, we have the evidence we need to prove that the house was not delivered in the same condition as it was when we signed the contract for it. Sounds like fun, right? Right!
However, if their craptacular "winterizing" of the house caused any damage to the interior water lines which results in damage to walls or floors, we'll be suing in real court. Because, by damn, we're going to close on this house on 2/16.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
We'll get there
The processor and I finally connected about 5:30 this evening. I will upload a scan of the terms of the HELOC in the morning so she can run figures as if we have maxed out that LOC at the maximum APR that it could ever have and then send that to the underwriter as a monthly recurring debt obligation. Even if we did that, our debt ratio would still be well within underwriting guidelines.
(It turns out the underwriter is new, which is apparently part of the problem. Our processor is about ready to complain to her supervisor about this particular underwriter.)
BTW, our processor thinks the underwriter is being stupid, too. For one, she said that they (none of them) can require us to pay off this debt or that debt or close this credit card, etc., so she doesn't even understand why the underwriter is insistent that this HELOC be closed or the lien released from this property. They cannot require any specific thing of us - if they wanted to us to improve our debt ratio, they could say, "you need to improve your debt ratio" - but they could not insist that it be improved in any particular way!
Quote from the processor: "I don't understand her reasoning as it will not have any bearing on this loan".
This may escalate to the CU to pick us up as an "unsaleable" if the underwriter won't approve our loan. All that means is that the CU will have our loan on their balance sheet for the life of the loan and we wouldn't be bundled up and sold on the street. Neither our processor nor I believe that the CU would decline to take our loan.
Our processor said we will make our close date of 2/16 one way or the other. Yay!
Of course, the plumbing repairs still need to be made at 5127 and the house still needs to be de-winterized so that we can get the plumbing (water lines only) re-inspected. Starting on Saturday, we should have decent weather through the day we close.
We're almost there. Almost. We can almost feel the bathroom that isn't 20-30 degrees colder than the rest of the house when it's freezing outside. :)
(It turns out the underwriter is new, which is apparently part of the problem. Our processor is about ready to complain to her supervisor about this particular underwriter.)
BTW, our processor thinks the underwriter is being stupid, too. For one, she said that they (none of them) can require us to pay off this debt or that debt or close this credit card, etc., so she doesn't even understand why the underwriter is insistent that this HELOC be closed or the lien released from this property. They cannot require any specific thing of us - if they wanted to us to improve our debt ratio, they could say, "you need to improve your debt ratio" - but they could not insist that it be improved in any particular way!
Quote from the processor: "I don't understand her reasoning as it will not have any bearing on this loan".
This may escalate to the CU to pick us up as an "unsaleable" if the underwriter won't approve our loan. All that means is that the CU will have our loan on their balance sheet for the life of the loan and we wouldn't be bundled up and sold on the street. Neither our processor nor I believe that the CU would decline to take our loan.
Our processor said we will make our close date of 2/16 one way or the other. Yay!
Of course, the plumbing repairs still need to be made at 5127 and the house still needs to be de-winterized so that we can get the plumbing (water lines only) re-inspected. Starting on Saturday, we should have decent weather through the day we close.
We're almost there. Almost. We can almost feel the bathroom that isn't 20-30 degrees colder than the rest of the house when it's freezing outside. :)
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Speechless
Literally. Let me just say, God works in mysterious ways.
Out of the blue Saturday night, I developed laryngitis (okay, so my throat had been bothering me slightly). We wondered what was up with that, and now I think I know. It was to keep me from screaming at people involved in this house-purchase-thing.
First, let me present photographic evidence of what greeted us at the new house (on which we have not closed yet) when we moseyed on by there on Saturday to see how it had fared after our really cold weather last week (it got down to 16 degrees here and there were many, many hours at or below freezing for a couple of days running):
Silly plumbers - don't you know that even if you've cut the water to the property and "winterized" the house, that a completely unprotected brass backflow preventer for the irrigation system will retain some water and freeze and explode with temperatures like we had last week - and the pressure will also burst the two completely unprotected brass valves nearby? Update on this situation: they are supposedly repairing it today. Just in time for more nights of 25 (although the days should be significantly warmer - aka above freezing - than last week!). Update of the update: they didn't do squat there today.
Next, we move to today's astounding demands from the underwriters, which we view to be unreasonable. I'll share just one of their "conditions" with my readers:
At this point, we've answered their questions and are holding our ground on maintaining our line of credit (on our current home), which was involved in their condition #1 (get rid of it). They have no cause to tell us how to run our financial lives. That line of credit is completely, 100%, collateralized by our current property, not an unsecured loan. Deduct our current property from our net assets if you like (and then deduct that line of credit from our liabilities), but you cannot order us to close that line of credit. End of discussion. [It was already figured into our credit score (which is excellent).]
We'll see what our processor says when she gets back to us.
T minus 6 days and counting, folks, til we lose our interest rate. Last day to close is 2/16.
Out of the blue Saturday night, I developed laryngitis (okay, so my throat had been bothering me slightly). We wondered what was up with that, and now I think I know. It was to keep me from screaming at people involved in this house-purchase-thing.
First, let me present photographic evidence of what greeted us at the new house (on which we have not closed yet) when we moseyed on by there on Saturday to see how it had fared after our really cold weather last week (it got down to 16 degrees here and there were many, many hours at or below freezing for a couple of days running):
Silly plumbers - don't you know that even if you've cut the water to the property and "winterized" the house, that a completely unprotected brass backflow preventer for the irrigation system will retain some water and freeze and explode with temperatures like we had last week - and the pressure will also burst the two completely unprotected brass valves nearby? Update on this situation: they are supposedly repairing it today. Just in time for more nights of 25 (although the days should be significantly warmer - aka above freezing - than last week!). Update of the update: they didn't do squat there today.
Next, we move to today's astounding demands from the underwriters, which we view to be unreasonable. I'll share just one of their "conditions" with my readers:
3. Borrowers to send a signed explanation letter for motivation for moving into another primary residence on the same street as the current primary. I know we already have a letter saying that you intend to move into it as your primary, but it doesn’t give the motivation… [emphasis theirs]Since when does someone in the United States of America have to give an underwriter for a mortgage loan any explanation for buying any piece of property and making that one's homestead? I'm sure if we were buying up in Bellaire or West University that we wouldn't be asked such an obnoxious question. But because the address is on the same street, they find it absolutely necessary - a condition of their approval - to know the motivation behind our move to a new property.
At this point, we've answered their questions and are holding our ground on maintaining our line of credit (on our current home), which was involved in their condition #1 (get rid of it). They have no cause to tell us how to run our financial lives. That line of credit is completely, 100%, collateralized by our current property, not an unsecured loan. Deduct our current property from our net assets if you like (and then deduct that line of credit from our liabilities), but you cannot order us to close that line of credit. End of discussion. [It was already figured into our credit score (which is excellent).]
We'll see what our processor says when she gets back to us.
T minus 6 days and counting, folks, til we lose our interest rate. Last day to close is 2/16.
Monday, January 10, 2011
And on the 12th Day of Christmas
we signed the contract for a new house!
I suppose it is nice to know that there are at least a couple of people who still get holidays and vacations off from work, namely, the listing agent of the house in question, and the people in charge of that house at the relocation company. It took from Dec 23 to Jan 4 to get any kind of a response on our offer. It might be noted that patience is not my strong suit.
On Tuesday afternoon, we finally had a few back and forth rounds of counter-offers, but the workday ended before we'd found a price. Wednesday came and went with our latest offer still on their table. Nada.
Finally, Thursday, Jan 6, around 2:30, our agent called us with the relocation company's final offer. It was a little higher than we'd wanted, but it was ultimately acceptable to us (we'll see how the appraiser feels about it).
Now, the challenge became getting an executed contract! On Friday, the listing agent contacted our agent - there were pages from the relocation company that we hadn't initialed. Fine. Roy met the two agents at a Starbucks and initialed all of the pages that had no indication they needed to be initialed, like all of the pictures that their inspector had taken in Oct.
Then...back to silence. And more silence. Our neighbor informed us that some real estate agent was still showing people the house after we'd agreed to price. Was the company negotiating with other potential buyers and stalling for time?
And more silence from the Seller. (I'm pretty sure that our agent is tired of hearing from me each and every day.) Finally, when I got home Monday night at 5:30, it was to a message on the answering machine that we had an executed contract!
The listing agent had (prematurely) had the house de-winterized for inspection last Friday, since the inspection has to take place in the 7 day "inspection period" (relocation companies get to write the rules in real estate contracts, isn't that interesting?) immediately following the execution of the contract, rather than the normal 10 day "option period" in Texas. Since we're buying the home "AS IS", the inspections are basically just a CYA for anything major , and we will have the Home Service Protection program to fall back on should we need it. Which is good, as we won't be able to test the A/C, since it won't get above 50 for the entire week! And I'm sure that the listing agent is sweating the de-winterization of the house with all of the nasty weather headed our way. She'll get to winterize it again tomorrow afternoon.
The HAR listing for the property shows the house and grounds as they are today pretty nicely. Although it doesn't feature a picture of the fan with the broken off blade, for some reason. :)
Our closing date in the contract was set for 2/7/11. Since the seller kept screwing around with delays, there is no way we can make that date-30 days came and went last Friday. Now we have to amend the contract to set the Closing Date for 2/16/11. We'll sign that paperwork tomorrow (Tue) and then the Seller has to sign it, too.
Our loan originator has been waiting for the contract...and waiting...and waiting. We did lock our rate on Friday, though. We and our lender have everything lined up and ready to head to the processor to start that process.
But, happy, happy! We have an executed contract, we'll have the house inspected tomorrow and sign the contract extension paperwork, then we should be on our merry way to CrazyLand.
I suppose it is nice to know that there are at least a couple of people who still get holidays and vacations off from work, namely, the listing agent of the house in question, and the people in charge of that house at the relocation company. It took from Dec 23 to Jan 4 to get any kind of a response on our offer. It might be noted that patience is not my strong suit.
On Tuesday afternoon, we finally had a few back and forth rounds of counter-offers, but the workday ended before we'd found a price. Wednesday came and went with our latest offer still on their table. Nada.
Finally, Thursday, Jan 6, around 2:30, our agent called us with the relocation company's final offer. It was a little higher than we'd wanted, but it was ultimately acceptable to us (we'll see how the appraiser feels about it).
Now, the challenge became getting an executed contract! On Friday, the listing agent contacted our agent - there were pages from the relocation company that we hadn't initialed. Fine. Roy met the two agents at a Starbucks and initialed all of the pages that had no indication they needed to be initialed, like all of the pictures that their inspector had taken in Oct.
Then...back to silence. And more silence. Our neighbor informed us that some real estate agent was still showing people the house after we'd agreed to price. Was the company negotiating with other potential buyers and stalling for time?
And more silence from the Seller. (I'm pretty sure that our agent is tired of hearing from me each and every day.) Finally, when I got home Monday night at 5:30, it was to a message on the answering machine that we had an executed contract!
The listing agent had (prematurely) had the house de-winterized for inspection last Friday, since the inspection has to take place in the 7 day "inspection period" (relocation companies get to write the rules in real estate contracts, isn't that interesting?) immediately following the execution of the contract, rather than the normal 10 day "option period" in Texas. Since we're buying the home "AS IS", the inspections are basically just a CYA for anything major , and we will have the Home Service Protection program to fall back on should we need it. Which is good, as we won't be able to test the A/C, since it won't get above 50 for the entire week! And I'm sure that the listing agent is sweating the de-winterization of the house with all of the nasty weather headed our way. She'll get to winterize it again tomorrow afternoon.
The HAR listing for the property shows the house and grounds as they are today pretty nicely. Although it doesn't feature a picture of the fan with the broken off blade, for some reason. :)
Our closing date in the contract was set for 2/7/11. Since the seller kept screwing around with delays, there is no way we can make that date-30 days came and went last Friday. Now we have to amend the contract to set the Closing Date for 2/16/11. We'll sign that paperwork tomorrow (Tue) and then the Seller has to sign it, too.
Our loan originator has been waiting for the contract...and waiting...and waiting. We did lock our rate on Friday, though. We and our lender have everything lined up and ready to head to the processor to start that process.
But, happy, happy! We have an executed contract, we'll have the house inspected tomorrow and sign the contract extension paperwork, then we should be on our merry way to CrazyLand.
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