Our House Journey

We got news yesterday on the house!  The bank replied with a number that, while higher than our appraisal, was good enough for us to accept.  Our plan is to do a little bit of work to the house over the next month, have the house re-appraised and hope that the next appraisal comes in a bit higher to compensate.  We are pretty confident that it will because the first appraisal was shockingly low.  So…..we will be closing in 60 days or so!

Horray!

Now, the work begins!  I’ll start posting before/during/after pics as we go along.  I’m sure there will be and endless supply of crazy stories along the way!

**Update**

I posted this originally on Sept 5.  Today is Sept 8.  All the joy experienced on the 5th was short lived.  Later that day, the bank informed us that the BPO we had been waiting for forever still needed to be done in order to complete the acceptance of the short sale.  The bank will not postpone the sale date until we have the short sale numbers agreed upon.  So, they put a rush on the BPO and it was done on the 6th.  Yesterday, the bank didn’t answer or return our realtor’s calls and the sale date is still set for next Wednesday.

So, our state of limbo returns for a few more days.

I feel badly that I haven’t posted anything for an entire week!  I guess when there is no news on the house yet and we can’t actually DO anything, there isn’t much to post.  Just the same day to day grind.

We did do something exciting this weekend, though.  We dumped the waste storage tanks in the camper.  Oooooh….I know you are so jealous.  We’ve actually not had to do this since we moved the camper to the house.  With the bathroom in the house working, we use the plumbing in the house and not in the camper.  But, with middle of the night bathroom emergencies and the occasional hand washing/teeth brushing in the camper….it was time.  We hooked up our home and drove to our nearest dump station.

Sean and I have developed a bit of a system when it comes to this disgusting task.  We have definitely learned the hard way with this and I’ll spare you that story.  Sean puts on his disposable gloves and hooks the dump hose up while I go inside and pull a fresh water hose in to rinse everything out once the tanks are empty.  While hooking everything up to get started, I had the NKOTB (New Kids on the Block – don’t judge) song “Funky Christmas” in my head.  I have no idea why….I probably haven’t heard the song in over 15 years.  Weird what your brain does to help you deal with situations you are in.

As Sean hooks up the dump hose my brain is singing “Danny D are you ready?  Ready as I’ll ever be.  Steady – you know Joey Joe is ready.  Jordan and John, yeah come on, we got a funky funky Christmas going on.”

Then I start to giggle.  I mean seriously what the fu*k?  Why in the hell is this going through my head on a hot August day while we are dumping the shit out of the camper?

“It’s Christmas, can you swing this?  Funky, dope jam top on your Christmas list, do you dig this?”

And why, after 15-20 years do I still know the goddamned lyrics?

I’ve noticed that through this experience, there are certain mile stones that track time in our lives.  The first time I noticed this was when I had to re-fill the cat’s automatic feeder.  The cat has an automatic feeder for his hard food that has five day’s worth of food in it divided up into individual servings.  After five days, I have to re-fill it.  I know when it’s been five days because the cat becomes a meowing, pacing, annoying, velcro-kitty.  I first filled the feeder on the first day in the camper.  When I had to re-fill it, I realized it had been 5 days. It felt like a landmark.  Since moving to the camper, I have had to re-fill the cat’s feeder 9 times.

The next landmark was laundry day.  I have gotten into the habit of doing laundry every Tuesday, so laundry day is every seven days.  Today is the seventh visit to the laundromat.  As a side note, I have tried 4 different laundromats in that time and have found one that is clean, has washers that smell clean, and has wireless internet.  This is where I am writing this from today.

Another 7 day landmark is the litter box.  I completely clean out the litter box every 7 days, so I have completely cleaned the litter box 7 times.  I scoop it every day (sometimes twice), but I don’t count that as a landmark.  Counting that would be like counting days in prison.

The next landmark I noticed was how often I had to buy the animal’s food.  I buy three different types of food (puppy food, adult dog food, and cat food) and try to buy it once a month.  We were low when we moved into the camper so I have bought pet food twice.

The next monthly landmark I noticed was one of the feminine type.  I won’t go into details, but I’ve had to buy the pink boxes in the feminine aisle twice since moving to the camper.

We’ve also lived there long enough that I’ve had to buy shampoo and soap for the shower, gone through two huge toilet paper packages, gone through one huge paper towel package, had to buy paper plates three times, and plastic utensils three times.  I figure we’ve gone through roughly 210 cans of Diet Mountain Dew and roughly 126 bottles of beer.  Not enough beer, I know.  I plan to get to work on increasing that number this weekend.  Especially after realizing I’ve filled that goddamned automatic feeder 9 times since moving to the camper.

Got some news on Friday that is making us think we may not get this house the “easy” way.  If living in our camper for six (nearly seven) weeks is the “easy” way, I don’t know if I’m up for the hard way.  It put me in quite a tail spin Friday.  I was what one would call “fragile” all day…

Knowing we have no “Plan B“, we decided to look around at other options.  I thought that maybe we needed to find a brand new house somewhere that we could just move into and fuggedabout all this old house restoration crap.  We drove around 6 or 7 neighborhoods in 2 different cities trying to convince ourselves we could live in a neighborhood in a nice new house.  We found out that we just couldn’t do it.  We decided we would fight for this house until someone else was moving into it and it was really off the table.  Then, we would find another old house on acreage and fight for that house until we found the right house.

Why, I wonder, do we love old houses so much?  Are we glutton for punishment?  Masochistic?  Perhaps.  Certainly feels like it lately.  We should have some news on this house by the end of the week.  Fingers crossed that it is good news and that I’ll be revealing a closing date instead of the date we are moving our camper to the camp ground!

Last night marked 6 full weeks itn the camper.  I thought we would at least by now have a closing date on the house, but no such luck.  I am a “Type A” personality, so living like this is very difficult for me.  Last night, I sat the hubby down…here’s how the conversation went…

Me:  “What if?  What if we don’t get this house?  Where will we live?  Will we rent?  What will we be looking for?”

Hubby:  “Did you hear the interview with John Elway when he was talking about Peyton Manning as the Broncos new quarterback?”

Me:  “No.”

Him:  “When a reporter asked John Elway what “Plan B” was if Peyton Manning didn’t work out as a Quarterback for the Broncos, he said ‘Plan B?  I don’t have a Plan B…“”

Me:  “Uh Huh…”

Him:  “We don’t have a Plan B.”

Well shit.  That’s not very helpful, is it?  No Plan B…It worked for the A Team, who knows if it will for the Broncos and who knows if it will work for us.  Maybe I should have T shirts made up…

Yesterday, I suffered through one of the most horrible experiences of this experience.  I think I may suffer from PTSD when we are through this because of things like what happened yesterday.  I don’t know if I can get through the story without shaking, but I’ll try…

Hubby decided he needed to start putting his wood shop together.  He figured it would help his efficiency when we worked on projects if the wood shop was organized and ready.  I think he’s just feeling a little out of control with this house situation and needed to take control of something.  So…bright and early yesterday he got to work.  I got the kids situated for the morning, put on my overalls and went out to help.  I figured my help would be mostly a supportive role…that I’d be sitting there chatting with him, looking cute in my overalls…  You know, supportive in an emotional way rather than a literal way.  It was early in the morning, I was naive.

Wedged up across the ceiling rafters was a huge piece of cardboard.  It was weathered and warped from years of moisture and exposure to the elements.  Who knew how long it had been there….worse, who knew what was on TOP of the seemingly innocent piece of cardboard…  How to get the cardboard down without dumping everything that was on top of it down on us?  How to get it out in the quickest, cleanest way?  Hubby pondered these questions while I questioned why the hell it had to come down at all?!  He tried to cut the cardboard into smaller sections, tried to fold the cardboard, tried to gently slide it from its perch.  All of his efforts failed.  Finally, he settled on having me push the back end of the cardboard up with a rake while he pulled down.  Innocently, I followed his direction, got under the cardboard, and pushed up with the rake.  As he pulled, a pile of dust fell down from the cardboard and straight into my face!  He pulled again and more dust rained down on me.  Dust filled with mouse turds and Hantavirus and Leptosporosis and Plague and Rabies and…..ok, maybe I’m overreacting.

At least we got the horrid thing down and thrown away, but I wasn’t quite the same the rest of the day.  I think that this whole process has me on an emotional edge most of the time.  I do a pretty good job of keeping an even keel, but there are moments I just have to cry.  Shortly after the cardboard incident was one of those moments.  I just had to get out some tears.  I hope that the therapy we’ll all need once this is done doesn’t cost too much….

This is our third house restoration and I’ve discovered that there are many odors that go along with old house projects.  Some identifiable, some not so much.  All old homes have a very similar odor when they are vacant.  It’s a mix of dust and old wood and old plaster.  It’s nostalgic and not unpleasant.  When you start ripping into things, you can start to identify the odors that make up the old house.  The old plaster and lath smells of century old lime and wood.  When you refinish old hardwood floors, the sawdust doesn’t smell the same as sawdust from new wood, it is more woodsy and organic.  Stripping wall paper fills the house with steam and a clean vinegar smell.  Once the preparation of surfaces is done, you are immersed in odors of fresh paint and fresh varnish on the floors.  All relatively pleasant smells that are associated with the process.

Then, there are the unpleasant odors.  The smell of any old basement is almost always disgusting.  There are always dead mice to discover and it seems that every old basement I go into smells of cat urine weather the home ever had a cat or not.  Working on plumbing always releases the sewage smell, no matter how careful you are.  If there is linoleum to rip up, it always smells like rotted food and forgotten crumbs.  Not to mention the smell of your own sweat from grinding away the hours in the dust and dirt and grime.

Yesterday, Sean disconnected the old dishwasher in the kitchen.  He made the mistake of moving it out to try to see what the flooring was like underneath and spilled some of the water that had been trapped inside for over a year.  A year of varying temperatures combined with whatever food particles had been trapped inside.  Holy hell it smelled like the walking dead.  The last time I smelled something so horrid was after a trip to Mexico 10 years ago when Montezuma’s revenge hit our house.  He tried to cover the smell by cleaning it up with vinegar and water, but then it just smelled like death bathed in vinegar. We left all the windows open overnight and there was a stiff breeze moving through the house, but it merely wafted the stench up the stairs and through the rest of the house.

At least it made me thankful that we are still sleeping in the camper!

We still haven’t heard anything on the house.  It is an extremely frustrating experience.  We are living at the house in our camper and looking longingly at it, but not able to do anything to it yet.  Tomorrow will be the beginning of the 6th week in the camper.   35 nights of camping.  I honestly can’t believe it…maybe I should stop counting…  I guess I thought by now we’d have at least a closing date, but we are no closer than we were 6 weeks ago.

Sigh

We did take the weekend to clean the house out.  We ordered a huge roll-away dumpster and got down and dirty.  First off, we cleaned all the paint out of the basement.  61 gallons in one gallon buckets plus 5, 5 gallon buckets and 27 half gallon buckets.  Wow!  We took it all to our local household toxic waste recycling center.  They take 200 lbs a day, so we ended up having to make two trips.  Some of the paint dated back to the 1960’s!

Lots and lots of paint!

We also removed two water heaters from the basement…after moving them we realized why they were still down there.  Holy crap they were heavy.  I made hubby use his “Call a friend” lifeline for that one.  From the house, we removed not only the dust and trash, but also the carpet.  We’ve done this before in other houses and every time we do, we re-affirm why we will never have carpet in a house.  If you’ve ever pulled up carpet and seen all the stains on the back of it, you’ve probably reconsidered having it in your home, too.  I don’t care how clean you are, carpet is fu*king disgusting.  I cleaned up years of dust, mouse poop, dead mice, and thousands of miller moths over this past weekend and the carpet is the only thing that made me gag.  Shudder.

Ugh, gross – this carpet is only 4 years old and revolting.

By the end of the weekend, we had filled the dumpster.  What a great feeling!  Just cleaning up the dust and moths made the house look so much better!

Oh, and the hubby used the lawn tractorto mow the lawn we are trying to revive.  Pretty funny to see him trying to mow an area that has more dirt than grass, but I have to say it does look better.  Kind of like polishing a turd… Had to snap a pic of him and our youngest cruising along.

Mowing the dirt with dad.

The farm house has another house on the property that burned down a while back.  The other night, I walked out by that house to show the youngest the hay bale picker-uper truck thingie (technical term) and heard a hissing sound coming from the burned out house.  I thought it may be gas or an aerosol can that decided to burst or something.  No such luck.  It was the water main.  It was late, so hubby turned all the water off (this shut the water to the main house off, too) and we went to bed.  The next morning, after two trips to the hardware store to get the right parts to fix it, he had it capped off and we were back in business.

While we were out fixing it, the crop duster was flying over.  It was dusting a crop South of the house and was turning right above us.  The kids were waving at the pilot and he was rocking his wings back and forth to wave back.  After 3 or 4 fly-overs, the pilot zoomed by and dropped a few cardboard weighted tissue paper stringers out of the plane.  We watched them flutter down and the kids squealed with excitement.  As I was retrieving one from the field, I noticed that the plane was coming back towards us at a very low altitude and heading straight towards where the kids were standing.  As we watched, he buzzed us no more than 50 feet from our heads and dropped more streamers.  It was utterly fantastic!  I’ve been to many air shows and never seen anything quite so awesome and the fact that he did it just for us was amazing.  The kids were thrilled and we relived the moment all day.

I thought of calling the company he was flying for and telling them to thank the pilot for us. I wanted him to know what an amazing experience it was for the kids, for all of us really.  I worried, though, that it may just be against company policy to buzz young children in your crop dusting plane and didn’t want him to get in trouble.  I hope he knows, somehow, how amazing it was for us and how it will be a memory the kids keep with them forever.

In town, we had a guy who came once a week and cleaned up the dog doo out of the yard.  For $5 per week (per dog), he would come clean up the yard and take the poo with him!  Best $5 a week I’ve ever spent.  He’s been cleaning our yard for around 10 years and now that we are house-less, I am having to clean up the poo myself.

The dogs each have their own way of poo-ing, I’ve discovered.  The golden dog (she who can do no wrong in the husband’s eyes) is a circle poo-er.  She walks in a circle as she goes.  I call it the fairy circle of sh*t.  Not fun to clean up outside and even less on the occasion she has an accident inside.  She doesn’t like to go in the dog run.  Even though it is large enough, she prefers the yard.  She’s pretty good about going in the bushes or far away from where we are or the kids play, but I still wish she would keep her circle-sh*tting ways localized.

The one-eyed wonder (yes, she had to have her eye removed a week ago) likes to poo in a direct walking/playing path.  Since I’m with her all the time and since she takes forever to go (I feel like I should get her a magazine to read), it’s easy to pick up after her right after she goes.

Then there is the puppy (9 months old).  He who doesn’t give a sh*t.  That dog will go anywhere, anytime. I swear he poos 5 or 6 times a day.  Each one is in a different place, each one a different consistency.  Oooh, and he is stealthy about it, too.  Little buggar.  I usually don’t find his until I’ve stepped in it.

The other day, the youngest called me the Turd Master as I was combing the lawn for land mines.  Not a title I’m overly fond of, but considering my analysis above, it’s probably fitting.  As soon as we’ve gotten a more permanent dog containment solution, I’m calling the dog poo guy.  I don’t need this sh*t.