Kitchen Lights

Day 10-ish on electrical. We have kitchen lights and Ben still has all his fingers, toes, and no singed eyebrows. So far so good.

Canning it up

Now that Ben has redone all the plumbing, he's moved on to do the electrical in the whole house. We went to Moon Lake for the weekend so he could work, and as a result, we got some new lights and outlets. Baby steps. . .

Looks like Ben has taken my dad's advice: measure once, cut three times

The Demo

Master Bathroom: we were going to hold off on demoing this one. . . as you can see we didn't. That's because the toilet was moved to the left a foot or two, as Ben was doing ALL the plumbing.

No longer a wall in the middle of the kitchen space and the old cabinet space will be a wall with built-in cabinets and breakfast nook.

Another kitchen shot - if you couldn't tell. Can you imagine the double ovens and giant island?

Shot into the bathroom, through the newly created hallway coat closet.

New toilet placement. It used to be on the other side of the bathroom. To the left will be a linen closet.

Bathtub frame

No more Orange Shag Carpet!

Old kitchen door will be walled up, and new one is put way left

Front Room

To Tree or Not to Tree

So for some reason I always end up with a tree on the wall. I've done two in C's rooms and one in Em's current room. Should I keep it up and do another, or call it a day and go with something new?

Future Entry Way

Here is a picture I found that I love. I am working on convincing my 'contractor' that this will be a good addition to the front door entrance.

The Before Shots

Front of the house

Master Bedroom and Bath

Kitchen and random extra space I haven't figured out yet. Through the door is going to be C's bedroom.

Front room with shaggilicious carpet and broken planter box

Dining area with faux gold and crystal chandelier

Master bathroom - loving the carpet 

Guest Bathroom

Guest bathroom doorway - random space

Backyard

What the REO?

This is a excerpt of a post I left on my personal blog that kind of summarizes what I felt when we put in our offer:

What the REO?

I had never heard the term REO before I started house hunting this time. In fact, I still don't really know what the initials stand for. I do know it means a house that has been foreclosed on and now is owned by a bank. The house that we're currently under contract on is an REO, owned by Fannie Mae. Adding to my show of ignorance, I didn't know that Fannie Mae outright owned houses either. But they do, and here we are, in a legally binding business deal with them.

The house is being sold as-is. This is both good and bad. The good is that it is in our meager price range, but located in Olympus Cove. 'The Cove' as I call it, was always, to me, a place for those people that took vacations to Disneyland that included a personal tour guide for $200 an hour and got plastic surgery for sport and out of boredom. I went to a party once up in the Cove as a freshman in college. It was at the dean's house and I figured this was a place reserved only for people older, richer, and snobbier than me. The other association with 'The Cove' was the fact that it rests on THE fault line. Now, whether or not this is actually scientifically true has yet to be been confirmed for me, but that has always been the assumption. I'd always imagined its residents, having recently returned from their glutton-ridden CA or FL vacation, sitting at their high-end granite counter top kitchen island, planning out their next unnecessary surgical procedure. All of a sudden their pure-bred prize winning Yorkshire or Pekingese starts running in circles whining incessantly. Suddenly the floor starts vibrating, and the house begins to rock. Before they know it, they find themselves next to Crown Pawn Shop on State Street. Their house has slid all the way down the mountain-side and although their house is in shambles they find their address has change to - heaven forbid - something on the West-side! If the earthquake didn't kill them, they'll die of shame for certain!

Now - given the realization that we may potentially and very realistically find ourselves living in 'The Cove', my attitude has change for all that. Are these people really so shallow, I mean really, wouldn't I get some nip and a little tuck here and there if I had cash at my disposal? Who wouldn't love to receive a history of the teacups found in Alice's Wonderland, while others watched me jump in line in front of them as I ooze with importance?

But, there is a bad part of our change of address in this particular case of home-ownership (uh, minus the potential for being swallowed up into the earth at some point, or running out of body parts to have stretched, augmented, or 're-done'). Logically, to get in the neighborhood, in our price range, the house would have to be in pretty shabby conditions. When normally the inspectors report is clean, with small notations of 'could use a better shade of blue in the bathroom' or 'the grass is too green and the garden could use some weeding', our inspection received yesterday for The Cove house was slightly more daunting. To summarize from the handy-man husband, "Well, all the plumbing and electrical needs to be redone." My reply was, "So he didn't find major issues with the water seeping into the foundation to the basement? That's good I suppose."

But, there I lay in bed all last night, fantasizing about which color blue I will in fact put on the walls of the newly plumbed bathroom, how I can get that grass a good green, and just how gorgeous my counter tops will look shimmering in the sun as my house slides west. 

The Beginning

For my first post, I thought it'd be a good idea to give a little background. My husband and I have been married for 10 years in December. Over the past decade, we've lived in two states, 2 apartments, a duplex, the parents, and owned 3 houses (not necessarily in that order). That equates to living 7 places in under 10 years, which ha s left us REALLY tired of moving and ready to find our '20 year' house. 

When interest rates started going up a little bit and other market indices began giving actual positive news, as opposed to their typical dooms-day versions, both of us got a little worried that the housing market had hit bottom and was heading it's way back up. So we started the hunt with my brother as our agent - one rockin' agent BTW- www.TierOneRE.com - holla! 

We started out wanting to spend $210k - $225k, in the Sugar House area, with approx 2,000 sq ft, and a small yard was expected. 48 houses later resulted in us spending $250k on a home owned by Fannie Mae, in Olympus Cove, 3,000 sq feet, with almost 1/3rd of an acre. The house was stuck in the 70's with shag orange carpet, gold lights, original cabinets, horrible use of space, and a basement that seeps water when it rains.

We feel there is so much potential with the space, the location can't be better, and I am married to the best man for the job!

So, we purchased the house officially April 27th. This blog will chronicle the work. I am doing it for a couple reasons, but the most important reason is that this will be a lot of work and a tedious process, and I think documenting the process here will help us feel like we've accomplished something, bit by bit, like rain drops in a bucket, making it eventually spill over.