Our House Journey

When we moved our camper out to the farm house, I was prepared for the quiet.  I have trouble sleeping when it is too quiet and I worried about not being able to get to sleep.  Luckily, I have a husband who snores….loudly, so that helps.  Most of the time, however, I noticed the quiet in a good way.  Every once in a while I could hear an owl hooting in the early morning.  I did NOT hear the cars, sirens, and helicopters that I use to hear in town at all hours.  Ahhhh….peace and quiet…just what we wanted.

Then, the beet harvest started.  I was prepared for this, too.  I knew we had a beet dump across the street and was ready for the hundreds of trucks at all hours pulling in across the way to dump beets.  When the harvest started, we worried about the thunder of beets hitting empty trucks keeping us up all night, but it really wasn’t that bad.  The trucks were slowing down by the time they drove by, the “thunder” wasn’t really all that loud, and we knew it was only for a limited time.

A few days before we closed on the house, a bunch of construction equipment showed up in the corn field across the street and started moving dirt around.  A lot of dirt.  It was obvious they were preparing for something big.  About 5 days ago, this is what showed up:

Uh…ya, so there’s that across the street now.

Ugh.

So, I guess these monstrosities only stick around for a couple weeks and move on.  The equipment that sticks around after isn’t too horrible to look at.  Could be worse.

My positive attitude about it only lasts during the day.

At night, the drill is loud, but it is bearable.  What is not bearable is the incessant beeping from backing up trucks.  You wake up to it, then it stops for a while so you fall back asleep, then it starts up again.  Like a snooze button nightmare.  Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep…  Still, we have fought through it thinking that it’s just for a short time.

Until last night.

Last night, the fu*kers had music going through the loud speaker at 3 in the morning.  Uh, ya, not okay.  Some Kanye West crap.  It was like some sort of torture procedure.  I actually was not woken up by the music, but by the hubby getting out of bed, getting dressed, and storming down the stairs and out the front door at 3:30.

Needless to say, the music was off before he got back to the house.  Apparently they will be there 10 more days.  They better keep the music off.

When working on old houses, you find lots of things you don’t expect.  Sometimes, it’s a good thing, other times not so much.  In the first house we restored, we discovered that the ceilings had been lowered.  One day, after a few beers, hubby discovered that there was an additional 1 foot of wall between the existing ceiling and the original ceiling.  Good surprise!

In this house, I thought we were going to have to re-skim the walls in one of the rooms in order to get rid of the texture, but I discovered that the texture was actually over wall paper and the wall paper was very easy to remove.  Behind the wall paper??  The original beautiful plaster walls!

This wallpaper had texture and paint over it. It removed easily with a scraper revealing the original plaster underneath.

Lower section of the wallpaper removed.

We’ve had some bad surprises in this house, too.  Most recently it was what we found in the attic.

We had an inspection done early on in this house process.  The inspector thought that the electric had been mostly updated and was safe.  This was not so.  We discovered when we restored the kitchen and laundry room that the back part of the house was all knob and tube electric.  This was an early form of electric where electric wires were connected to joists and studs with ceramic knobs and would travel through studs fitted with ceramic tubes.  These systems were extremely safe at the time, but with changes in how houses use electric, deterioration of the system over time, and changes that previous homeowners may have made, they pose quite a hazard now.  Once we discovered that, we cut off the electric to the house except for the areas we had rewired and knew were safe.  We lived in the dark (both figuratively and literally) for two weeks until we had time to dig into the electric in the front of the house.  We hoped that we would have a good surprise in store.  Nope!  This is what we found under the floorboards in the attic:

Knob and tube wires in the attic

Scary, huh?

And just in time for Halloween!

After hours of working on it, running wires up and down walls, crawling around in the attic and basement, cussing, and a couple cross words with each other (only a couple!), we have lights in the upstairs.  Only lights, no outlets yet, and only upstairs.  We are still in the dark in most of the down stairs.

Hey, progress is progress!

For the new kitchen, I purchased a super fancy 36 inch dual fuel, double oven range.  I got the range a few weeks ago, but it has sat in the kitchen un-tethered since it was delivered.  Hubby ran the electric no problem, but when it came to the gas hook up, he got a little sceered.  He’d never run gas before and was running into conflicting information as to how to do it properly.  So, we actually moved into the house with no working range.  Yesterday, hubby surprised me by telling me that he’d hired someone to run the gas line so I could have my range.  YAY!

This morning, the guy came and hooked everything up for us.  He was super fast (just over two hours), and it was nice to feel confident that it was done correctly.  My first reaction was HORRAY!  My awesome range is installed and I can cook tonight!  That turned to immediate stress over WHAT to cook.  I blanked out immediately.  I wanted to use both the cook top and the oven and I wanted to cook some sort of “comfort food”.  I settled on chicken pot pie because I had some chicken to use up and I could make my yummy handmade dough for the crust.

On my way in the house from running to the store and to get the kids, I dropped the bag with the eggs in it.  All but four of the eggs busted.  The egg carton was one of those polystyrene types, so the eggs that broke were salvageable.  I instantly thought…quiche!  Yay!  I am making homemade crust anyway and it’s another excuse to use the new oven!  So, it’s 5pm, the kids both have major projects due tomorrow that they need my help with, and I’m tackling chicken pot pie and quiche…  Maybe I’m not the sharpest Crayon in the box.

The evening turned out to be a comedy of errors.  It only started with the broken eggs.  I didn’t have enough butter to make the amount of crust I needed, so the pot pie turned into chicken with cream sauce and mixed veggies.  I thought the French Loaf dough I got (yes it was from a can) would take 10 minutes to cook, but the damned thing took 30! minutes.  I had already braved the POP! of the can and put it on a cookie sheet before I realized this.  Shoulda read the instructions, I guess.  So, I had to cover it and hope that I can cook it tomorrow.  I made probably 8 trips to the camper for things that I needed to cook.  Oh, I need the oil!…go get the oil.  Dang it!  I need that small pan…go get the pan.  Now I need the salt and pepper!…go get the salt and pepper.  Crap!  Now I need a mixing bowl….go get the mixing bowl.  Where is the dish soap?….go get the dish soap.  Sh*t!  I need the measuring cups….go get the measuring cups.  Who needs a work out with that routine?  About half way through cooking, I got a huge blister on my hand from grabbing the pan that had been in the oven without an oven mitt.  All of this is going on while I am running between each kid and their project and trying to help them while I am dealing with the debacle of dinner preparations in the kitchen.

The worst part??  The worst part wasn’t the ridiculous work out I was getting running between the house and the camper.  Nor was it the burn on my hand.  The worst part….I….spilled…..my….beer.  The whole goddamned thing.

SMH…

Anyway, dinner turned out great, the quiche is probably one of the prettiest things I’ve ever cooked (can’t wait for breakfast tomorrow!), the kids got their projects done, AND I even had the motivation to make cookies after dinner.  Ok, they were the break and bake kind, BUT who the hell cares.

Here’s my new range, isn’t it purdy?

My new range! Verona 36 inch dual fuel. With cookies inside!

The above pic is a teaser for the “after” of the kitchen.  Still need to get doors and drawers on the cabinets before I do a full reveal.  The before pics are here.

I guess I’m a little out of practice on cooking a meal that includes more than one step.  We ate lots (and lots) of hamburger helper, sloppy joes, and easy one pan meals in the camper. Maybe tomorrow’s dinner will go smoother.  Cold weather is moving in, so I’m thinking corn chowder…and hopefully the french bread loaf will cook fine and not turn into a weird bread experiment.

UPDATE:

I did a mini-review of the range in the comments, below, but did have a request for interior pics of the range.  Here they are:

Large side of the range

Small range

Double range – inside

We spent the first night in the house on Friday night.  I had mixed emotions.  On Thursday, the kids really wanted to sleep in the house and I just wasn’t ready.  I made up some excuse about having all the breakfast food and lunch food in the camper and wouldn’t it be easier if we just slept in the camper one more night??  The reality was that I was sort of scared to leave the comfort of the camper.  It’s been our home for over three months.  We’ve bonded, formed memories, become closer in the camper.  Crazy pants, huh?

I enjoyed it in the house Friday, though, and was happy to sleep on my memory foam mattress again.  Hips and shoulders didn’t hurt in the morning…celebrate!  We don’t *quite* have the electric updated in the whole house yet, so there are only two lights upstairs.  One in the eldest’s room and one in the bathroom.  Ok…we did have two lights upstairs, now we have no lights upstairs.  Today, we set out to replace all the electric to the lights upstairs and didn’t quite have time to get it all done.  So, now we have a light plugged into a loooong extension chord that goes to a known safe plug in for light upstairs.  When I got home after dark and needed to take a shower, I had to string the light into the bathroom and shower in a very “Psycho”-like environment.

Like this:

Me showering tonight

Creepy…

It was good that we took this on, though.  All the electric upstairs was the old knob and tube style and was very dangerous.  The last thing we need is to go through all this to get this house and it burn down because of faulty wiring.

It’s funny how living in the camper forced us to make more with less, but tonight I miss the things that made life easy like being able to charge my phone by the bed so I can play games in bed.  Or the slight rock of the entire camper caused by any little movement of any thing living…weather be human or animal or insect…rocking me to sleep at night.

Or lights…

If you want to see some before pics, I’ve finally posted some.  More to come in the next few days as well as some afters!

When my husband and I were married, friends of ours had performed a “chivaree” at our house.  All the labels were removed from all the canned goods, all the contents in the cabinets and drawers had been moved to different places, wall hangings had been turned upside down, furniture had been moved to different rooms and placed upside down.  Neither of us had heard of the tradition before and when we opened the door to the house, we thought we had been robbed because everything was disrupted.  In our surprise and haste to figure out what had happened, we neglected the far more well-known tradition of the new husband carrying his new wife over the threshold.

It is something we’ve joked about since, but I think both of us always regretted that we missed that little detail.

Yesterday, after closing on the house I was outside painting tin ceiling tiles and hubby was holding the front door open for me.  After carrying in the last one, he swept my off my feet and walked me through the front door!  Aww!  I got all choked up!  So, after nearly 14 years of marriage, we fulfilled the tradition.

Oh, and performing a chivaree to your friends while they are on their honeymoon is just plain mean!  😉

Well, the day finally arrived!  We closed on the house today!  Hooray, you think!  Good for you, you think!  So happy for you all, you think!

Not so fast….

First off, let me explain why I haven’t blogged in, like….forever…  We received word that the seller’s bank accepted our offer and that we were closing on September 10th.  We **hoped** that we could put off closing until mid-November so we could work on the house to get the appraisal up to what we offered.  No such luck.  The bank said they would not postpone the next auction sale date.  The next auction sale date was October 17th.  So, we have spent the past 4 weeks putting in a kitchen, a bathroom, repairing the foundation, replacing all the plumbing and electric, painting, refinishing floors, repairing plaster…..exhausted yet?  Understand why I haven’t blogged in a while?  Last weekend, the appraiser came and, in no uncertain terms, told us we had nothing to worry about.  The rest of the week was a waiting game for today.

Today, we showed up at the title company early, signed our life away, and left happy.  We felt that the journey to buying the house was finally over.  Big sigh of relief.  Today, as we installed the tin ceiling in the kitchen, we had a different aura around us.  We felt calm, confident…we were no longer house-less, we finally OWNED the house we worked so hard for.  The house we moved mountains for, the house we took insane risks for.  We could breathe and just have every day, normal stress.  No longer did we have to stress about owning this home!

HA!  Nothing comes easy when it comes to this journey!  One more test is ahead of us!

Tonight, when we looked at the County Trustee’s web site, the house was listed for auction on the 17th.  This wasn’t a huge surprise, it’s a lot to ask to close on the day the list comes out and expect all the money transfers/paperwork to be posted by 4pm.  What did surprise us was:  The price – the bank was asking $15,000 less than what they told us was their BOTTOM line to buy the house.  How is that even legal?  How can Greentree financial be a legitimate company and pull crap like that?  The bottom price to us as a short sale buyer is MORE than the price at auction?  So, Greentree financial would rather have another foreclosure on its books than sell the house as a short sale?  Bullsh*t…  The second surprise???  When a house goes on the auction sale list, people drive by and leer at it.  They are quite pushy about their leering, too.  Even though WE know it won’t go to auction, the general public doesn’t.  So, those who frequent these county auctions and buy houses at a low price to turn around and sell them for profit go look at the houses set to sell.  They drive by slowly, I hear they even break in to houses that are vacant to look at them.  Needless to say, I will be at the house all day tomorrow and won’t be shy about telling anyone who drives by slowly or tries to break in to buzz the hell off!!!

Don’t drop in unexpectedly tomorrow…you may be in for a surprise yourself!

We found out last night that we are closing on the house on October 15th!  Finally!

Now, to put in a complete kitchen and bathroom so it will appraise!  If you don’t see me for the next month, I hope you understand!

Well, the past week has brought the most dramatic roller coaster of this entire process.  One day, we thought we had come to an agreement with the bank.  The next, we thought we didn’t have an agreement.  Then we were in limbo for a few days with no clue what was going to happen.  Yesterday, we thought there was a good chance we were facing buying the house at auction.  Today, we find out the auction has been postponed.  The bank told us that they could not postpone the auction unless there was an agreed upon price, so they must have agreed to our pricing from yesterday.  This is fantastic news, but I am still having trouble rejoicing.

I have experienced the stages of stress, sometimes within the same day…hour…minute.

Stage 1-Alarm -What do you mean they need ANOTHER BPO?  What the hell?  Don’t they realize the auction is a week away?  Apparently at this moment, my body is releasing hormones to give me energy to deal with the stress.  I usually experience this stress on a phone call.  To deal with this stress and hormone dump, I pace.  I really wish I’d worn a pedometer because I bet I’ve walked 10 miles in the past two months pacing while on the phone hearing stressful news.  I think there is a wear mark on the floor of the shop from my incessant pacing.  Then I get out of breath and huff and puff and it gets really embarrassing.

Stage 2-Resistance-It’s ok, this broker will see how much there is to do here.  They’ll give an appropriate price.  Everything will be fine.  At this moment, the hormones are receding, my body is returning to normal.  I start to convince myself everything will be ok.  I talk myself off the ledge so-to-speak.

Stage 3-Exhaustion-How in the hell did the broker say it was worth more now?  They want HOW much now?  You’re kidding me!  By now, my body is losing its energy reserves and I’m simply exhausted.  Apparently this stage has a serious effect on my hippocampus.  I guess that’s part of your brain.  I didn’t even know I had a hippocampus.  Sounds like a college for hippos.  Can you tell I’m in this stage now?

I think we are finally coming to a close on this stress, however.  We should receive our short sale approval letter today and a closing date will follow shortly.  In the mean time, we have lots of work to do in order to get the house to appraise.  I’m actually really excited about getting to work.  It’s something that’s actually in our control!