Bye Bye Stair Case Wall

So my stair case does not have spindles rather it is a wall. My mom did not like it that way and said it looked stupid. She said we should tear it down and put spindles in it's place which would open up the area. Sounded like a good idea, but i thought we would do that project later. Well if anyone knows my mom she gets a little ambitious. In any event she decided she wanted to do demo and there it went...

House work is never done

I am learning you are never done with fixing up your house. I thought i would be in my house in 1 month. That is so not the case. My cabinets are going to take 8 weeks to get in stock. So much for being in for Christmas! Dang it! But here are a few more pictures of the work we are doing!

And that piece of molding is to show you how great the previous owners were at painting...needless to say I am replacing all the molding thru-out the house.

It's Coming Along...slowly

It's been approximately 2 weeks since I became a home owner and I am starting to come to realization with what that means. I can no longer afford anything. I had a good chunk of money saved up, so I thought, for renovations. Turns out it was not enough, would have been enough if it was just the kitchen though, but I need a variety of things. I need water softner, iron extractor, water heater, paint, new moldings, new floor, new cabinets, counter top, fireplace mantel, and possibly a bathtub. It would be really nice to remodel the bathrooms too, but I am still working on the first list...sheesh! But here are some pictures of what we have been up to.

What do you think of my purple door?

Fix Up

Fixing up the house has begun and I am now rethinking my whole "be in a month" plan. I don't think that is going to happen with everything we have to do. The ceilings have to be repaired with the dry wall because because the previous occupants did a horrific patch job. We are also now replacing the floor too. I guess we are really good at adding work to our already packed to do list.

My mother being totally disgusted with the paint on the moldings

My mom and dad tearing apart the ceiling with the terrible patch job.

Work Begins

We are passed our first weekend of having/working on the house. Although I am currently off on Thursday & Friday so i was not very helpful. We cleaned a little and scrapped the walls. My mom and dad also weeded my yard. But here is the starting point:

New Homeowner

I closed on the house 0ctober 28th, 2009. Everything in this family seems to happen on the 28th! Shortly after signing the million papers, or 20 pages, we went to the house because mom wanted a picture of me in front of it. I was annoyed with the idea, but you can plainly see that in the picture. So it is offical, I am a homeowner. One huge step towards responsibility and growing up. Now onto the remodeling/cleaning the house. I am hoping to move in in 1 month.

PS. anyone else think I look like Aunt Barbie here?

Now what?

Day before closing I am getting a little excited but mostly anxious and scared. My mortgage broker called and said "We have a problem." My reply "Of course we do." Since that has been the theme of this real estate transaction is problems. Apparently the mortgage holder said they never received the paperwork for my down payment assistance program. So there are two options...go ahead with the closing tomorrow or have everything resubmitted which will take another 3 weeks. Well come to find out I was getting an extra large check from work I was not expecting and that would've blow the deal so I had to close the next day which meant pay more tomorrow and each month. Damn the man!! He wins again!!

That is broke too, huh?

After learning that my hot water heater was broken due to the flooded basement at one time. My realtor decided to write an addendum to the bank asking for them to fix the broken items at the home which included hot water heater, pump under the laundry basin and the sump pump. It took I think 3 weeks, tons of emails, and phone calls later, but finally got an answer on the addendum. It was no, since I had had an appraisal done and it came back less than the house price I offered they reduced it to the appraised price and felt that was good enough. What a nice little bank!

A few weeks later my mortgage was being sent to rural development for approval and I found out I needed a water sample, which was after the bank decided to winterize the house; awesome! So after talking with the bank AGAIN we got one and dropped it off at the lab. 3 days later it came back with bacteria...so we had to retest...another 3 days later it was clean. During the the chloranation of the water is when we discovered a problem with my well pump. Only the well guy said he wouldn't know the exact problem or how much the fix was until they took the actual pump out. The price could be 200-900$ fix. Guess who did not care....the bank!

Inspection

Inspection day was August 25th. Had a company called Regal come out. They said my roof was a 30yr roof and had only been used for 4yr and that my siding was above code. Although my garage is not insulated and the fuse box is in it, so I will freeze when I have to go reset that guy. They also found my water heater to be broken along with a pump underneath my laundry basin. They told me that was probably due to the basement being flooded at one point. Yea, flooded....awesome! Other than that the house was in fine condition, and I would hope so too being built in 94.

Below would be my awesome kitchen that my mother and grandfather adore...those cabinets are partical board and the knobs are little apples...Needless to say I have plenty of people telling me to ripe those babies out!

What happens now?

After finding out I was the winner so to speak of the house I found out the bank wanted $3,000 EMD rather than the normal $1,000 and since I really liked this house I willingly gave it up. My mortgage broker was worried we may be in for a long hall and frustrating ride because of the power network behind the house. She thought maybe the insurance company would not cover me. Fortunitaly there were no problems there.

Upon acceptance of the offer my realtor felt we needed more time to get my mortgage underwritten because it had been taking 30 days or more. We wrote an addendum to the bank asking for an extension because it ate up 1.5 weeks just trying to hear back if I got the house. Closing was scheduled for Oct. 9th.

A few weeks into the process my mortgage broker suggested I sign up for a class through Lighthouse Community Development. They had a new program for first time home buyers, they were helping with down payments giving $5,000 to those who qualified and had $1667 of their own money to put down on the house. As it were I qualified and had the money, only catch was you need to attend 3 money saving/budgeting classes and a one on one budget session. And so I embarked on my home-buying journey.

The Find

After loosing several houses that I liked, most of which my Dad hated, I stumbled upon one in Springfield twp that was everything I wanted. Well, except it was located by railroad tracks and by the consumers energy land. Being a new home buyer I guessed I had to compromise one something for my price range.

My mom and I looked at the house 2 hours after I received an email notification of the listing. It was on 1 acre, 1600square feet, basement, 2 car attached garage, fireplace,built in 1994, 3 bed rooms and 1.5 baths...Everything I wanted, but it was very dirty and needed a few updates. Even needing these things made it better than most of the other houses I'd looked at for the last 8-9 months.

I placed an offer on the house. 5 days later got word back that the bank wanted last best offers because there was many offers on the house. I consulted with both mortgage broker and Realtor and sent in the last offer. Another 4 days later got the news that the house was mine.

The Hunt

I have been looking for 8-9 months now. Lost about 6 houses to either another bidder or I was unable to bid due to a major problem with the home. I lost a few houses I liked and didn't want to compromise on what I wanted in a home. Was 1300+ square feet, basement, 3 bed rooms, 1.5 baths, 2 car garage, and a large yard so out of reach in Clarkston? Guess so.

I learned through this process that if you don't have a ton of money you are probably going to have to compromise on something so when I bid on this current house I went all in. I bid over the asking at the highest and best call. The house was everything I wanted, except next to train tracks and a power plant area owned by consumers energy. Turns out I got the place. Some days I am very excited, some days I have scared. Today is a scared day. I have yet to get my mortgage to under writing and the closing date keeps changing.

The Beginning...

Was not even thinking about getting a home, let alone moving out, until I convinced my mom to drive down to Jackson County Animal Control. There she was cuddle into the corner on her mat. Such a sad face surrounded by her own feces. We had the attendant open the door and out she came putting both paws on my moms legs as she knelt to the ground to peer into her glowing eyes. This was followed by many licks to the face. From then on my mother couldn't bear the thought of her being put to sleep any day.

Upon arrival at home we shortly discovered my dog, Phoenix, hated the new girl. This led the the statement about getting a house. I brushed off the topic. Awhile later I found myself looking online at houses for sale in the area. I found some for $34,000. This is when I decided maybe I should check into this a little more seriously. This is where it started...