#house prep

I replaced the entire innards of a toilet that had been leaking once upon a time, until I turned off the water to it.

Ten months ago. 

(It’s in the basement next to the family room and K’s bedroom, but the two of us survived on just one toilet for all that time! But since we are prepping the house to sell, we thought we should have two entire working bathrooms.)

We put in a contract on a beautiful house (not my gorge dream tudor, but thats ok) and it has been accepted! SO EXCITED!

So here are a couple pics!

Already thinkin of paint colors and updates. First thing, gonna lightly whitewash the brick fireplace

Inspiration picture:

Then paint…but what color…

I wanna do a reclaimed barnwood mantel and valance on the windows.

Then the kitchen…thinking…

Our Realtor put our house up on MLS last night and with in a couple hours already had 2 requests for showing the house! The broker show is tomorrow and we totally didn’t expect to have the house 100% before that so we were up all honkin’ night trying to finish all the lil odds and ends!

We had a cleaning crew come and make the place really sparkle and WOW, it has never EVER looked this clean. So…

Since I had started this blog a little later than I probably should have, It doesn't have the flow that I would like.  In reality, I should be posting when something happens not after it happens (well, as close to the happening as possible anyhow.)  I didn't build an informational foundation in time and it's slowing me down.  

I have a few posts that were written before but haven't published that I want to get out there so I can start posting in real time.  I'm going to try to dump the important foundation bits that I've missed out here so I can get the flow going (consider me Mr. Flomax!)

Employment

My wife and I were semi confident that we would be able to keep the jobs we have now and work out of our house.  I'm a software developer so all I need is a computer and an internet connection to do my job.  Not to mention the fact that the majority of people in my department are scattered across the US (also working from their homes.)  Syracuse isn't Silicon Valley, so there isn't necessarily a large population of local LAMP developers. 

My wife is a paralegal embedded with the recruitment department for her company.  95% of her job entails interfacing with a lawyer in another state or handing immigrant doctor things (visa paperwork, issues etc.) via email or phone.  The other 5% (and I could be overestimating) goes to filing, making copies, or managing snail mail.  Everything (except for the filing) can be done from home.  And filing is such a small part of her job, they could easily figure out how to do that w/o her.

Fast forward:  we've both been given the official OK to work remotely.

We're Building

I mentioned in the last post that we were definitely planning to build.  Not only is it way cheaper than buying, but you don't (necessarily) have to settle.  Both of our last two home purchases left us having to compromise on some aspect of the house we didn't want to just so we could afford it. I'm happy that we don't have to do that this time.  It took me a bit to get used to that fact (not having to compromise and all), but at some point in your life it's gotta happen right?

We're going with a Highland Homes build; the first of two models we walked through.  The other was by Southern Homes which was much smaller (3 bedrooms and a den compared to 5 bedrooms) and the layout was too compartmentalized.  We did look at other Southern Homes floor plans, but they all seemed to be that way.  SH did have a lot more neighborhoods to choose from (Highland only had one), but they were more pricey and we didn't love their houses.  They also had a higher HOA fees ($95/month compared to $200/year), but you got a community pool and club house with that price.

Signing the Contract

Handing long distance contract negotiation is tough.  There is a lot of back and fourth that would be a lot easier if we could sit with the builder agent face to face.  I'm not sure if there was an advantaged gained by either party, but it seems our agent was allowed to drag her feet a bit.  I'm sure that wouldn't happen if we were in town (and could just stop by her office.)  Nevertheless, they were very willing to change some language in the contract that we weren't comfortable with.  My only complaint was the timeliness of everything.

Mortgage

Before we decided to go with Highland Homes, we spoke to the finance person at Southern Homes.  Since we have a mortgage in NY, and we were trying to secure one in Florida, they are considering the new home vacation property (or something like that.)  This meant that we would have to do a traditional loan with 10% down instead of an FHA (where only 3% was needed.) 

Since we only decided to move recently, our money-for-downpayment-saving-strategy wouldn't get us to where we needed to be in time to build by January (or even to buy in 8 months).  We were concerned but not enough to throw in the towel.  We were going to Florida one way or another (I would have rented an apartment if I had to.)

After talking to Highland Homes about this, their lender said that we did qualify for an FHA; and that's what we're going with.  Insert happy dance here.

Preparing to Sell

The next thing to do was to get our house ready to sell.  The main things are:

Paint the bathroom.

Replace the front door.

Fix the doorbell.

Fix a broken step on the deck.

Fix the front door outside light.

Power wash the house.

Replace the interior doors (with nicer solid doors).

Purge - get rid of the stuff we don't need or don't want to bring with us.

I've been motivated the last month, so the first four things are done!  I've also replaced the kitchen and main bathroom faucets along with some other (unplanned) odds and ends.  I was never a home repair/remodel sort of guy, but I'll have to say I'm having fun with it.

Purging will continue until we actually go.  We've been getting rid of stuff over the years anyhow, and have stepped it up a bit over the last month or two, but that's one of those things that is probably never done until the last second.

Conclusion