Bathroom renovation

The bathroom renovation is not going so well. We knew it would be the toughest room in the house since it was the only one that had to be gutted to the studs but wow- I never expected it to take 6 weeks. We're at the four week mark now and there's at least 2 weeks to go, maybe more. We've gutted it, put insulation and vapor barrier on the floor and installed a new subfloor. It took three tries and 10 man hours (times 3 people) to get that floor level. One of the many joys of dealing w/ an old house and its odd angles. We finished the weekend by building a wall to provide the third wall of the bathtub alcove.

It was only once we got 40 minutes away, that my helpers (a.k.a. the parents) and I realized that we'd forgotten to insulate the alcove & top w/ vapor barrier. Which had to be done by today, in preparation for the plumber to install the fixtures, which are currently taking up residence in my living room. So, we get together this morning and drive through heavy fog, to install insulation at 6:00am. Naturally, by the time we finish we're late for work. Imagine then, how irritating it would be to get a call from the plumber at 4pm that he just didn't have time to get to my house today because he had another, more important job to do first.

What I wouldn't give for the money to just hire out all the renovation and someone to oversee it so all I had to do was come back in three months to a finished house!

Neighbors, the flip side

Sometimes, it's the ones you'd never dream of who cause you the most trouble. My house has a business behind, a house on one side and on the other, a church. I figured that would mean I only had one chance for ending up with neighbor trouble. Imagine my surprise to find myself in a property dispute...with the church! No one from the church has even come over to welcome me to the neighborhood but they made sure to wait until I was at work to come chop down a walnut tree in my yard. Luckily my sister happened to see it happening and ran over to stop them. Unfortunately, she could only convince them to "trim" the tree since they're claiming it belongs to them. If by trim you mean whacking off the entire left half of the tree, leaving a bizarre looking, mutilated corpse, then yes, they sure did trim the tree.

I don't have the money to pay for an official survey and haven't had the time to go to the court house to view the lot maps so I haven't bothered to confront them about it. While I don't attend church, I have strong morals and values that center around generally being a good person and being kind to others, so it's mind-boggling to me that the members of this church would ignore a new neighbor and then try to cut down my tree without even talking to me about it. Their reason for cutting it down is so silly- they don't like the messy walnuts. It's a healthy, living thing and you want to cut it down because it's getting your shoes dirty one day a week? Really? Is that what we're calling a Christian attitude these days? I've only owned the place for a few days and before they started this, I'd been sweeping their parking lot figuring that it was the nice thing to do. I wanted to get off on the right foot in my new town, guess that's not meant to be!

We get ice storms almost every single year. Wonder if they'll still claim ownership when that out of balance tree falls and hits my house.

Neighbors

The point of this blog is to be a journal for me so I can remember this time in my life later, so an entry once every few weeks isn't going to cut it. I need to start documenting the little things when they happen. I always say that life is 99% little moments and only 1% big events.

Last night I finally met my neighbor. I only have one since there's a church on one side and a business behind. I was in the back yard cutting down an ancient rose bush when the husband (it's an older couple) came out in his back yard. I introduced myself and he did the same. I asked about their dogs' names (they have two hounds) and told him about my own black lab, I'll call Lulu in this blog (her middle name is Louise). They were so excited to find a fellow dog lover had moved in, particularly since they moved to this town to get away from a neighbor who had been mean to their dogs. We chatted for several minutes and discovered a lot in common. In fact, all three of us work in the same professional field.

One of the reasons I moved here was to find a safe place to raise a family and after talking to him, I feel like I've made a good choice. Though it's a town with little crime, we agreed to watch out for each other. I was looking for that small town neighborly atmosphere and it seems like I found it!

So little time

I've owned my home for 23 days and it's been a challenge trying to spend every moment that I can working on the house. I get irritated at work for interfering with my personal life. I mean, how can they have the audacity to expect me to concentrate on the job they're paying me for- don't they know I have a ancient house to rehab? Try as I might, however, I've yet to find an employer who will pay me to do nothing so I'm afraid spending every waking second working on the house is not an option.

It's funny how much time it takes to get even small tasks completed. And considering how many projects the house involves, it's going to be years before I can even move in at this rate! My parents are helping me and in the past three weeks we've managed to:

• Fix a hole in a roof shingle
• Seal a hole in the soffit
• Fix the cracks in the chimney flashing
• Cut down four bushes that had grown about 10 feet tall
• Attack the weeds on 1/4 of the back yard
• Tear down the paneling in the kitchen
• Tear out two cabinets from the kitchen
  
• Get the furnaces working
• Clear out the junk from the previous owners
  
• Gut the bathroom down to the studs
• Tear out a rotten bathroom window, board up and cover w/ vinyl siding
• Clean the cobwebs & dust out of the entire house
• Clean out the storage building/garage
  
• Find a plumber and an electrician

There are hundreds of items on my 'to do' list and without the money to pay for professionals to do them, this house is going to be a lifetime project for me. I'll just be happy to have a working bathroom!

Can I give it back?

Amazingly, after all these weeks and all the drama, I finally closed on the house on Friday the 16th. I went to the house directly after close and that's when it hit me. I started shaking and I haven't stopped...buyer's remorse has set in. This house has tons of potential and when going through the incredibly long purchase process, that was all I could see. Now, however, the rose-colored glasses have been ripped off and I see it for what it is right now- an old, musty house with termites, holes in the walls, a heating system that's only half working, floors that need to be jacked up, squirrels in the attic, mold...the list goes on.

It's cold, dreary and depressing. What happened to the sunny, warm place that I thought would be a good home for me and a future child? Maybe my feelings are being influenced by the fact that the weather has changed from summer to fall since I last saw it. Or that it appears the costs to repair are going to be much more than I anticipated. Or perhaps I'm just scared and intimidated by all the work involved. Whatever the cause, I've got to get over it and get down to work. Because the rational side of me recognizes that the potential is still there. It's just buried very deep under all the dirt!

Sneaky insurance salesman

Because I'm buying an old house with really old knob and tube wiring, I figured the easiest way to get my initial insurance policy and get through close would be to stick with the company the current owner's are using. Definitely not cheap but the advantage was they didn't require an inspection beforehand and considering all the time I've had to spend running down there for inspections, that was enough to make me say 'I'll take it!' Of course, I have full intentions of shopping around for another provider just as soon as I take possession and update the electrical system.

Yesterday the mailman added another scene to my ongoing house drama. He brought me the statement from the insurance company, which revealed that the policy was written for $30,000 more coverage on the house than we had agreed upon. If I correct it, that dang GFE will have to be re-written, causing yet another delay. Needless to say I told the agent to leave the policy alone and we would work it out later. Good grief!! Is there one SINGLE element to this home purchase that isn't a cluster ****?!

I'm in shock

You'd think I'd be immune at this point but somehow, I'm still sitting here stunned. My appointment to close on the house was today at 4pm. By noon I still hadn't received the closing statement so the bank had to give me an estimate of what the final closing costs would be in order for me to get a cashier's check. That should have been my first clue that it was all going to hell. I disagreed with the approximate amount they gave me but they assured me it would be correct on the closing statement that I'd receive at close and the difference would be refunded to me at that time. The appointment time kept getting closer during which time I exchanged multiple calls with my banker checking in for status updates. At 3:45pm I was sitting in the lawyer's office with the owner and his lawyer waiting to start...4pm...4:30...4:45pm... 5pm...5:15p...and finally at 5:30pm the lawyer's assistant comes in to inform me that close will not be possible today due to a "compliance issue" with the bank. WTF?!!!

With hands shaking from anger, I frantically dialed my local bank rep. He said that the coordinator in Chicago was the responsible party. I should have known that woman would screw this up. I phoned her immediately and she tried to get me off the phone quickly saying it wasn't her fault, that it's out of her hands and we cannot close before Friday. I made her go pull her manager out of a meeting and that's when I couldn't control my anger any longer. They would get this loan closed out, they would most certainly compensate me for the afternoon of work that I've missed and I would NOT be paying for the extra legal fees involved. Turns out the problem is due to a secondary good faith estimate the Chicago rep, a.k.a. the ditzy witch, issued on Friday to give me updated picture of the details since receiving the hazard insurance policy. By law I was required to sign that form and return it no later than three days before close. She not only didn't ask me to sign the dang form, it wasn't even completed correctly!

The only resolution we could reach today was to have all parties agree to meet again on Friday morning at 9am. The part that galls me the most is that the ditzy witch KNEW that there was a problem and she didn't say anything! She let us all go to the lawyer's office and sit there for an hour and a half while she sat up there in her office saying nothing. I know this because her supervisor was being very defensive about how this wasn't her fault, that *** (ditzy witch) had just informed her this morning. What the hell did they think was going to happen- we would just decide spontaneously to leave and come back in 3 days?!!

I'm 15 shades of p*ssed off and at a complete loss as to what to do about it.

Party of 5?

No one who has been involved in this process with me, either directly or indirectly, has ever heard of a more complicated home purchase than mine. The latest house drama is that the owner's lawyer was not notified of the appointment to close on Tuesday and therefore, if he can't arrange to be there, it can't happen. I personally gave this lawyer's contact information to the bank and I gave the bank's information to the lawyer so at that point, I didn't feel I needed to hand hold all parties through this process any longer. Alas, that was an inaccurate assumption on my part. Apparently, it's not enough that I'm having to deal with preparing my own paperwork and finances, I should also have been the organizer of this little soiree.

Closing on Thursday...not

After last week's delay in close I was eagerly anticipating closing yesterday afternoon. Silly me. I should have known better than to think that would happen. When I hadn't heard back from the bank about the specific appointment time, I called them on Wednesday. The loan coordinator was very cavalier saying she was sure everyone would be able to meet 'sometime' on Thursday. That's all well and good for them to be able to show up on a moment's notice but there are other parties involved who need advanced notice. Needless to say the title company's lawyer couldn't meet so it's been delayed again until next week.

In the meantime, I'm using the extra time to prepare for my first project- gut that moldy, rotten bathroom to the studs. Fun times!

Unexpected surprise

Had a phone call from the bank yesterday afternoon and they wanted to close either the 2nd or the 5th. Completely unexpected since I thought it would still be another week or two. Then, naturally, they called today to say that there was a glitch. The title company never received the email ordering the title search that the bank sent three weeks ago. The loan agent was shocked that I didn't react with anger but really, what can you do at this point but laugh?

Finally!

The appraisal finally came back today. Surprise, surprise- it appraised for the exact asking price. They spent two weeks to come back with that amount. I mean, really, if you're going to cop out and give exactly enough for the purchase, then don't drag it out and torture everyone.

Next step- find insurance and wait for the underwriter to finish the review.

NINE days!

What in the world can be taking so long to get this latest appraisal back? Nine days!! The first appraisal was back in 2 days and I thought that was bad! I keep asking and every day the bank says "maybe tomorrow", over and over. I feel like my entire future is hanging on this stupid loan.

I didn't come into this situation looking for an old house to renovate. About a year ago I realized that if I wanted to be a parent, time was running out to take action. Having a decent home in a safe location was my first step. By a fluke, I learned of this house at the same time I reached this decision. Logically, the house drew me to it by dint of its location, on the same street as my sister, in a small Southern town with very little crime and being positioned as it was, 3 minutes from a fire/police station. There's also a deeper, emotional draw and it feels like home, like a warm, safe haven for my future family.

That being said, I'm still equally split between my desire to be a mother and my desire to travel the world. It's not that these are mutually exclusive paths, however given that I would be a single parent, it would be best if I remained here where I have a strong support system in place. This is my third effort to obtain financing to purchase this house and at this point, it's in fate's hands. Either I get the house and pursue motherhood, or I don't get the house and I save for a few months then ease my travel lust with a month long jaunt to Australia. Yep, sounds like a solid Plan B.

Crazy squirrel

"We called Animal Control to come get it because that squirrel just looked crazy. I mean it was just walking around with this weird look it its eyes, who knows what it could do." Yeah, not really sure how to comment on that recent statement by an acquaintance. All I could say was that I hadn't spent a lot of time paying attention to the squirrels in my yard, while thinking to myself how the Animal Control officer must have laughed his @ss off to have received that phone call! I particularly had trouble containing my mirth when the follow up was "Our neighbor just walked right out and got in her car with it standing right there staring at her." Huh, she didn't notice that crazy squirrel? Imagine that!

It did make me think of other squirrel behavior. I drive a curvy country road to work and lately I've noticed something rather odd. Coming around the curve, in admittedly, a rather race car driver manner, there's what appears to be a squirrel corpse lying across the road. My options are to swerve into the other lane not knowing what may be coming around the curve in the other direction or experience the crunch of animal bones beneath my tires. Without thinking, I swerve into the other lane but to my surprise, the "corpse" jumps up and runs across the road. The first time this happened I thought I was seeing things but after the 15th time, I'm fairly sure the local squirrel population has invented a new game called "possum", in which they test the reaction times of unsuspecting drivers.

What do you know...she was right, those squirrels are definitely crazy.

Cliffhanger

I can't stand the suspense of unresolved issues. The 2nd appraisal was Tuesday and I should have heard back today. All I got was a mysterious phone call that I missed by seconds and the voice mail said "please call us back about your loan conditions" but gave no further information. Needless to say I immediately called back but only got their voice mail. Now it's the weekend so I'm left w/ this dangling over my head. Argh!!

Doubt

I recently discovered a web site full of advice and blogs about renovating old homes- www.oldhouseweb.com. One blog in particular captured my attention and against my will I was compelled to read their story from the purchase of their property several years ago to the very recent sale of their home. It was entertaining, educational and scary as hell. I won't lie, it's given me second thoughts about tackling the purchase of an old house. If I'm able to proceed w/ the purchase, there will not be additional funds immediately available for repairs. I'll be forced to repair things over time as I'm able. Given some of the things that could be hidden, even after it's been inspected several times, I could end up w/ problems that I'm unprepared to handle financially.

I think I'm still willing to gamble but during this waiting period of probably another week before I have an answer from the bank, it's given me something to think about.

If you're considering purchasing an older home and want to find out information from someone who's been there, done that, check out this blog:

http://thedevilqueen.blogspot.com/

Hope or delusion?

I'm at a crossroads. I've been unable to find an alternative contractor but in the meantime, someone has come forward with an unbelievably generous offer of assistance. It's a long shot and I don't even want to think about it too much for fear of getting my hopes up. With any luck I'll know if it's viable by next week. On the one hand self-sufficiency is important, but if I let my pride get in the way I'll lose out on a fantastic opportunity that may not come along again.

I have got to find something to distract me for the next several days!

How many signs do you need?

A friend of mine recently said to me something along the lines of 'Exactly how many signs do you need to smack you in the face telling you to run away from this house?' Good point. I do wonder if perhaps some larger force is at work (fate, destiny, what have you) putting all these obstacles in my way to warn me off of this house before it's too late. How foolish do I have to be to continue to push past the obstacles that keep popping up? After all, they say the definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same action expecting a different result.

On the other hand, there's always the belief that nothing worth having comes easily. Maybe the obstacles are a way of testing my determination. Renovating an old house is not for the faint of heart- you're dealing with uneven walls & floors, unexpected problems, repairing anything can be twice as hard and they can turn into a black hole for your wallet and your free time. So, if a little trouble now is too much to handle, get thee to a new build with haste.

I have an appointment for a phone conference with my lender this afternoon. They'll be expecting me to tell them I have all my ducks in a row. Instead, I get to explain to them how my general contractor took a powder at the last minute and that, barring some miracle or lottery jackpot, another $3,000 cash is not possible. Can you call in sick for a conference call?

A parade of men

I've probably been in this house more times than any perspective buyer has ever been in their future home. After meeting with the home inspector and half a dozen contractors, my new lender decided to throw out the original inspection and schedule an FHA/HUD inspection. The upside of this being that the only repairs required would be the ones this inspector reported. Our repair list went from 61 down to just 2 pages!

Some of the requirements made sense- the ground around the foundation needs to be graded to direct water away from the house, the wiring needs to be updated, etc. However, some of the requirements were jaw dropping ridiculous. For example, the current heating system is a whole house furnace with vents in the living room and hallway floors. There is a vent in the floor of the 2nd story allowing heat to flow upstairs. Not that it needs it because a person could have a heat stroke just standing upstairs for too long. The FHA has decided this is insufficient heating and baseboard heaters need to be installed in each room on the 2nd floor. Baseboard heaters are electric heaters which can be purchased at Lowe's for as little as $38 but I'm not allowed to buy them myself. No, I have to pay a contractor $400, yes, $400, to "install" the heaters. Here's another example- there's a leak under the kitchen sink. To fix it will require tightening the connections or at most, replacing a section of the pipe, and yet I'm am being forced to pay a contractor $200 to do this for me. Seriously?!!

I have a family full of hearty men just itching to get their hands on this house to put their home repair skills to good use. Thanks to the geniuses in charge, I get to pay contractor rates for work we could do ourselves. The inspector's repairs add up to $14,000+, whereas I could do the same for about $7,000 including materials, beer & pizza (& electrician's fee). The powers that be at HUD have turned a program meant to help those with more initiative than money into a red tape ordeal that drags the borrower further in debt.

After the HUD inspection and the contractor bids, I was back to the house last Tuesday afternoon for the final (HA!) review- the appraisal. The owner had claimed he'd been told to list the house at $15,000 more than the asking price. Clearly someone was deluding themselves because the appraisal came back $3,000 shy of the asking price plus required repairs. The lender very generously offered to continue with the loan provided I came to the table with the difference in cash. Well, golly gee- I'd love to do that but where exactly am I going to find an extra $3,000? I knew I shouldn't have cut down that damn money tree.

And the hits keep coming

So for today's house drama...at 7:30am I got a phone call from the General Contractor. I didn't answer the phone because I was sleeping, which is what any normal person does on a Saturday morning. I called him back later, anticipating he would tell me he had completed the FHA paperwork. I could not have been more shocked to hear the following..."Uh, yeah- I'm lookin' at that list of things you needed and uh, this job is only for $2,000, and uh...I just don't think it's worth it." NICE! I'm freaking two weeks away from close and he chooses NOW to bail on me?! It's not that I don't understand the irritation involved in working w/ this loan. Believe me, I get it. If he thinks what they're requiring him to do is difficult, he should see what they're asking from me.

Just 8 weeks ago I lived in blissful ignorance of the reality of buying a house. I had just secured financing and put in an offer on "my" house so surely we could take care of the formalities and wrap this up in about 10 days, right? My mortgage lady, M, immediately started giving off a negative vibe. She herself had bought a house in need of repairs and her experiences were coloring her opinions. She warned me off but given my absolute determination, we proceeded to the home inspection. The inspector was very thorough, looking in every nook & cranny. Who knew this would turn out to be a bad thing? His report was 61 pages! The house needed to be re-wired but the other items were trivial. That didn't matter to the bank. They were out and I was left to find another lender. Which is how I ended up in this special kind of hell called the FHA 203k rehab loan, by all accounts the most difficult loan product out there.

The 203k loan allows you to purchase a house and obtain the funds to renovate right away, all in one mortgage. Sounds great! Until you get to the details, that is. The way this works is the purchaser must obtain bids for each item to be repaired, then a second set of bids for the same work, one set as the primary bids, the others will be supporting bids. The two sets of bids need to be in the same ballpark or they won't be approved. Fine, bids obtained, let's move on to the next step. The bids are reviewed for acceptability and now they want the contractors to adjust the bids to give the length of time to completion and the statement "includes all labor & materials." Fine, bids rewritten. Oh, wait- one of the bids needs to be typed because we just can't read his handwriting. Okay, I'll play along and go back to the contractor. Glad we're done w/ that and can move on. The next step? Go back to the contractors for a third time to request just a few items- liability insurance, license, references, worker's comp insurance and let's have them sign a contract as well. And remember the one w/ poor penmanship? Let's have him tell us exactly what kind of water heater he's going to install. I mean, really? As long as I know what's going in who the hell cares? His response was classic "Do they want to know what color underwear I'll be wearing when I work on your house?!"

And at this point is when the General Contractor (one of my three contractors- electrician, plumber, general) decides he's out. Yes, I get it, this has been one giant pain in the ass for all of us but here I am, two weeks away from close and back to square one.

Beginnings

I decided to start a blog to document my pursuit into home ownership so that later, I can look back on this time in my life and, hopefully, think it was all worth it. Right now I'm just trying to find the humor in it all. What else can you do but laugh when faced with roadblock after roadblock....two steps forward, four back. The light at the end of the tunnel beckons but with my luck it will turn out to be a train coming!

So let me start at the beginning....

Two months ago I found the perfect house for me. Not the perfect house, mind you, just the perfect house for me. It's located in a small Southern town, has tall ceilings, fireplaces and hardwood floors. However, it's 100 years old and like any century old building, it needs work. The owners are asking a reasonable price but trying to get a bank to finance an affordable. albeit old, house is unbelievably difficult. They'd rather I spent 4 times as much on a new house that I can only afford on paper, not when it comes to actually making payments.

Because the home inspection revealed that the house needs a few things fixed, the largest being the wiring, the only mortgage option available is the FHA 203k rehab loan, a product designed to test the nerves and send sane people over the edge. Every day the level of ridiculousness reaches a new high and just when I think I'm nearing the end, I get sent back several steps.

I'm determined to persevere and with any luck, there will be a house waiting for me at the end of this journey. Feel free to join me for the ride!