This Week's Meals

Meatloaf/Mashed Potato Casserole

Pork chops and potatoes and beans on the grill

Chicken and rice

Chicken nuggets with macaroni and cheese

Moved

We moved... again. This is the 4th place we have lived in less than a year. I am happy to finally say that we are here for the long term rather than a temporary place. However, we ended up moving during the hottest week of the year so far which wasn't exactly ideal. We do still have a few pieces of furniture that need moved to our new basement but I need to clean the carpets down there first. Other than that, everything is pretty much put away and in its space besides the garage. We also have some odds and ends things to finish up - put blinds up in the bedrooms, put the bedrooms doors back on, change out the outlets, install ceiling fan fixtures in the bedrooms, paint the bathroom, and get a refrigerator.

Right now we have a mini fridge in our kitchen and an old refrigerator from the '60s in the basement. It's not really convenient and we are planning to order a really nice refrigerator that we will keep when we eventually remodel the kitchen a few years or so down the road. Oh, and did I mention that we don't have a dishwasher? We are going to wait a while and probably cut a place out to install one but in the meantime we will be washing in the sink daily (that's the plan anyway).

So far I am really liking the ranch style house. We have never had everything on the same floor before. Kyler's toys are actually staying in his room for the most part since it's not that far away from the rest of the house. And getting laundry put away happens much more quickly. The downfall is that Kyler has been waking up around the time Brett is getting ready since he's not used to the noise. I hope that comes to an end once we get his door put back on his room.

Finally a Closing Date

We are finally scheduled to close on our new house. It will be Monday afternoon and I'm pretty excited although sort of dreading all the work to be done in the next month. I really need to start figuring out what we need to do but it will be easier to pick paint colors and carpeting when I can get back in there and really look at the place again.

The living room needs to be painted but at this point I have no idea what color I want. It will most likely end up getting repainted in a few years anyway when we renovate our kitchen and open up the wall between the kitchen and living room. I thought about painting the trim and windows white but I think we'll just wait on that until we do the other renovations. It's a very time-consuming task. We are hoping to salvage the existing carpet in the living room and hallway. It's just a plain off-white color but is pretty dirty so hopefully after we do the carpet cleaning it will be good enough. We will have two kids under 3 here pretty soon so I don't think we would be doing ourselves any favors by getting brand new carpet in there.

The bedrooms are the other rooms that will need immediate attention. All the ceilings have the popcorn texture on them so we decided to do away with that in the bedrooms now since we will have to get new carpeting in those rooms anyway. (It is old 70s style shag carpet and has to go.) We will put a more modern texture on the ceilings and have them painted white. Brett is in the process of getting in touch with someone to do that. I think I will go ahead and paint the trim white in those rooms since they are being completely redone anyway. Then each room will be painted. I think I'll use the same paint color in our bedroom as I used in our current house. For Kyler's room we will have a little darker shade of gray. And for the nursery I am going to use a tan/brown color in hopes that it will be neutral enough for either gender. I have no idea what we will be getting for carpet. I need to go look around and price some out soon.

The bathroom and kitchen will need to be painted and have some cheap and minor updates done but that isn't as urgent since we won't be putting a bunch of heavy furniture in those rooms. We intend to remodel both in the next few years so there are no plans to do a lot of work right now as we prepare to move. I have no idea what paint colors I want to use in those rooms or anything at this point. As for the basement, we will probably just give it a good cleaning for now prior to moving stuff in. It will eventually be completely refinished as well but not in the next month or so.

More Before and After

We are *almost* done with the house we're in now. We Brett has some trim to put up, drywall to patch (we moved some light fixtures and electrical outlets), and shelves to build in the bathroom. But that should all be done in the next month. So here are the before and afters. Notice any difference?

This first pair of pictures is a view of the living room. We repainted the ceiling and walls and painted the trim white. We also replaced the curtains with something a little more bright and modern. The carpet was pulled up and we had the floors refinished.

Below is a view from the living room to the rest of the house. As you can see, we opened it up a LOT. We basically tore out a wall that was the hallway and turned a bedroom into a dining room. This was a great decision and really brightens up the house. Again, you can see that we repainted the walls, refinished the floor, and painted the trim white.

Here is the kitchen which I think is one of the most drastic improvements. While removing the wall, we also took out the built in hutch. All of the cabinets were painted white and we replaced the knobs and pulls. We actually painted over the wallpaper in this room which I was a little worried about but it turned out really well. It has a new light fixture, dryer, over the range microwave, and dishwasher. We pulled up the two layers of linoleum and refinished the existing hardwoods.

Here is another view of the kitchen from a different angle. You can't tell but the wall we took out made a huge difference in making the space feel a lot bigger and letting in a lot more light from the patio door we put in the dining room.

This is the area that most people think is the cutest part of the house. I had wanted to turn this bedroom into a dining room and put a patio door out to the back yard. Again, we painted the walls and trim and redid the floor. We also put some nice carpet on the steps which really finished things off.

By far the grossest part of the house when we got it was the bathroom. It was really outdated and just icky. So we gutted it and replaced everything. We took out the half-wall between the vanity and toilet which opened things up. We also reversed the door as it original opened against the vanity (so you would have to go in and shut the door to wash your hands).

The shower was originally just a shower kit with sliding doors. We put in some nice, modern tile (also used one the floor) and put a curved double shower rod in. The double rod is nice because we hang our towels on the interior rod since there isn't a good spot for a towel rack in the small bathroom.

Next is one of the upstairs bedrooms. The picture I took isn't from the same angle but you can see the difference painting the trim and paneling made. We did the same to the other bedroom (Kyler's room) and I will post picture of that as soon as I get it straightened up to take pictures.

Looking at these pictures, they really don't do justice to the shape the house was in when we moved in. You just can't see how dirty things were and how dark it seemed. We love all the updates we've done but unfortunately this house is just a little too small for our liking.

Getting Close to Closing

The appraisal went through without exception which is nice because we have a little more time to get the roof replaced (an extra pay period will do wonders). All of our information got sent into the underwriters to get approval for the loan and they had a few questions. We got the remaining paperwork together and sent it to the bank, so now we are just waiting to see if they approve now. It's looking like we will probably close around the first week of June. Now I need to get bedroom carpet and paint colors picked out and we need to line someone up to take off the popcorn ceilings in the bedrooms and replace it with a more modern-looking texture. Lots of work to do again, but we are excited to have more room!

We are hoping to get our current house rented out soon as well. We should be able to be out of it by July 1st so it would be great if we could find a renter by then. With all the updates we have done and the location, we are hoping to get around $700 per month and have the renter pay utilities. If we can get the right person in that we trust and know would stay a while, we might consider decreasing the rent some. We aren't in a huge hurry at this point so we'll just have to see what we can find.

Moving On

We have finally reached an agreement and are moving on in the home buying process. The seller has agreed to pay for half of the cost of the roof. Now we just need to wait on the appraisal to see if they put an exception on or not. That will determine the path we take (repairing before or after closing). We will hope that it goes without exception but are okay either way at this point. We're just glad we got it ironed out and will have enough cash to proceed.

A Pain in the Roof

Who knew a roof could be such a pain when it comes to purchasing a house?! Unfortunately, both the home inspector and the roofing contractor said that it was almost an immediate need. We hope the bank's appraiser disagrees, but that is highly unlikely. We have basically narrowed our options down to two scenarios and are hoping that the seller agrees to them.

The best-case scenario is that we get the bank's appraisal done by the end of the month and it comes back without any exceptions for the roof. Then we will get approved for our loan which will probably take right up until closing. Once that's done, we can close. If we're lucky, that could still be done by Memorial weekend. If this happens, we will request that the seller pay for our settlement charges (closing costs and prepaid items) to free up some cash for our immediate roof repair.

The much more likely scenario is that again we get the bank's appraisal back by the end of the month but this time it comes back subject to a roof repair. We would ask the seller to pay for half of the repair and the repair would be done prior to closing. We would have to wait until the bank approved our loan (which again would be close to Memorial Day) prior to starting on the roof work. So here we would be looking at closing hopefully sometime in June depending on how quickly we can get the roof done.

Once we get that all straightened out, we will have to make sure our insurance company will insure the house. Our agent has told us that most likely we will have 60 days after closing to get the roof repaired (assuming we don't have it done prior to closing).

House Inspection

We had the house inspection done today. My main concern was a valid one - the roof. It already has two layers of shingles on and is in really bad shape. It needs replaced immediately. We have already got an estimate and just need to negotiate to try to get at least part of it paid for. It's just a lot of money up front in addition to closing costs and a down payment so we have to go back for some additional money. Hopefully we can get it resolved tomorrow and move on.

Nothing else in the house was immediate or overly concerning. The garage ceiling is sagging a little so he recommended some things to reinforce it, but not something we need to do right away. There are also a few electrical things that need to be taken care of or at least looked at by an electrician at some point. Other than that it was lots of little things here and there that we were planning on updating or replacing eventually anyway.

Moving on Up

When we moved to Seneca, we didn't have a house. We lived with my parents until we found and purchased our current home. It was a great deal and something we planned on being at least somewhat temporary. We wanted to live in it and fix it up, and then turn it into a rental property eventually. It's a little smaller than we wanted, only a one car garage, and doesn't have a basement. We have been keeping our eye on the housing market and in yesterday's paper I noticed a house for sale that seemed to meet almost all of our wants. I called about it this morning and we planned to look at it the first of next week. As Brett thought about it, he decided that we probably better jump on this house since they don't seem to stick around too long. So we looked at it early this afternoon.

The house is pretty nice from the outside. It could use an updated pair of garage doors, and probably some new exterior doors at some point as well. There is an older shed in the backyard that needs some new shingles and a new paint job. I was anxious to see what the inside was like. When we walked in, the living room was pretty spacious. It needed a good cleaning and fresh paint but it was nice. Next was the kitchen. It was pretty large with quite a bit of counter space but the arrangement just made it seem really crowded. It's livable for now, but something we would definitely want to open up to the living room at some point. There were three good sized bedrooms on the main floor, all needing new carpet and fresh paint. The bathroom also needs a facelift but it's roomy enough and not in too bad of shape.

The basement was the next part of the house we saw. It was HUGE although it did need some work. All the walls were paneling and the ceiling wasn't in very good shape. The carpet was pretty old as well. But there was a very big family room, two other rooms blocked off to be used as bedrooms (one had a closet but the other did not and neither had fire safety windows). There was also a small kitchenette in another room that housed the water heater and furnace, and there was a bathroom with a concrete shower. In addition to all that, there was an unfinished storage area. The garage was spacious as well. It was a two car garage but had a lot of space toward the back for all kinds of boy toys. There is a patio out back that was in good shape, as was the yard and landscaping for the most part.

We found out that the house had already had a couple of other offers but that the seller was ready to get rid of it, and would accept a reasonable offer. Brett and I both really liked this house and the potential it had. Nothing needs to be done right now (except paint and bedroom carpeting) but we could definitely make it into something we love over time. The location is nice, and only about 1/2 block or so from my parents. So we decided to proceed with what we felt was a very reasonable offer that she would hopefully accept. As it turned out, she accepted it and we are hoping to close at the end of May. We are scheduling an inspection for next week and had already spoken to the bank a few weeks back about a different house that we put a higher offer in on. So it looks like things are going to move along nicely and we should be moving (again) in June. I am very excited about this house!

Landscaping Before and After

Since the interior of our house is pretty much complete (with the exception of the baseboards and some light fixtures) and the weather has warmed up, we have started working on the exterior. So far, we have planted some grass in the front yard where there were lots of bare spots due to the previous caretaker using Round Up rather than weed eating. We also pulled out the old "landscaping" in the front of our house and replaced it with new.

When we first looked at the house, the front bushes were ridiculously overgrown. In fact, it wasn't even possible to get in the front door at that time. Pretty much as soon as we took possession, my dad came over and helped pull them out with chains and his truck. Then we were left with a gravel bed (I know, who uses gravel for landscaping?) with some plastic weed mat sticking out that looked like trash bags blowing around. Bricks were used as edging.

Once the weather warmed up, we scooped out all the old rock and removed the weed mat. Brett tilled the area and we put down new weed mat and planted some boxwood bushes (which will grow to 2-3 feet) and asiatic lilies. We covered it with dark brown mulch and added some solar lights that we had gotten for Christmas. Brett later added edging that is made out of some type of composite material that isn't supposed to rot.

We had also taken off the old shutters and repainted the mailbox a while back. After the landscaping, we removed the old iron porch railing. Eventually, we want to add some traditional white slatted shutters and a white vinyl porch railing. But for now, this facelift is pretty refreshing.