It's not what...

...it's who!!  That statement has been proven true on our house project yet again.  About six weeks ago, somebody from our church who had heard about our project called to tell me about a friend of hers who has connections to really nice, slightly used appliances at bargain prices.  I called him and waited...and waited...and waited.  I wasn't actually sure this would work out, but I was hoping it would as we need to make up some room in the budget to accomodate the overage in the kitchen cabinet department.  (In kitchen news, I did find the same kitchen for $2k less...still about $2k over what I planned for, but an improvement!) 
Finally, he called this week and said he was driving down to SW Michigan to get them today, but needed the money up front.  In a super trusting mood, I agreed.  Yesterday, I handed over a wad of cash to a guy I didn't know for appliances I've never seen....and..it worked!!  The appliances are awesome.  Phew.

(The dryer in the above picture came with the house...no new laundry appliances today.)

They are way higher-end than we were expecting to buy.  And we were kind of worried that they were hot.  Not hot as in warm, nor hott as in awesome, but hot as in stolen.  How else does one sell a full kitchen set at a fraction of retail?!?!  
Turns out that these appliances were used by a KitchenAid executive for 6 months.  Apparently a benefit of working at KitchenAid is getting new appliances from your mansion every six months.  This guy buys them (barely) used and resells them for a small upcharge.  Bingo for us, our kitchen and our budget!!

Ironically, when I was telling him where the house was so he could deliver the goods, he knew it exactly.  Turns out he had looked at this house and was interested in buying it, too, but didn't get an offer together in time.  So he was super pumped for us and our deal and went on the mini-tour from Pete when he dropped off the appliances.  Small world.

Walls!

Here they are...walls! Yippee!
They aren't finished yet, but will be soon. And then will begin "Paint-a-Thon 2011".

Good Timing

We are so ahead of schedule it's scary!! And until today we were ahead on budget, too. However, today I got a quote for the kitchen cabinets that was literally three times what we have in the budget. Yikes! I think that we may have underbudgeted a bit, but I'm going to shop around and see if I can do better.
But, let's put that little worry out of mind for now and focus on happier thoughts...like drywall! Drywall should start going up on Wednesday. It is scheduled to take two weeks, which is perfect! Since we can't really do much else at the house while the drywall is happening, we're free to enjoy the Christmas season without the pressure of wanting to work at the house every waking moment.

I took a few pictures to hold you over for the next couple of weeks.

Here is the fireplace in it's new place...lower and further into the room, allowing us to put built-in shelving on the left side of it.

Here is the reworked master bathroom. Notice the new window on the left and the walk-in shower (to be) on the right.


Here is our warehouse (aka garage) full of goodies like tile, cabinets & doors that I've been snagging up lately.

This is our construction toilet...Pete rigged up the water heater box since none of the bathrooms have walls!



And here's a little tour of the finishes I've started to buy and collect in our secondary warehouse (sunroom at the rental house):


This pendant light will be in the half bath. It is super awesome, but sadly is too big for the kitchen bar. It will be perfect in the half bath, though!

I found this light on clearance at Home Depot. This will be in the dining room.

This light will be in the foyer. This was probably the most difficult light fixture to choose, but we're quite happy with this one.






Sorry about the flash glare on these next pics... : (

This tile will be in the 2nd bathroom...it's a cream colored limestone.





This is the master bathroom flooring tile...it's a teal(ish) & brown procelain.








And last but not least, we don't technically own this yet but I'm super pumped about it! This is a sample of the flooring that will be on almost the entire main floor...it's a five-inch plank engineered hardwood from Shaw called "Barnwood".

Fun Stuff

Progress...gotta love it! Not that I'm actually helping much these days. Right now, the technical people are doing their thing and my unskilled self is not needed. Pete's dad is putting in tons of hours reworking the electrical. Pete is busy installing speakers and cable and wires. My dad has finished all the framing that needed to happen before drywall. Plumbing is done, furnace is done.
So, I've been doing fun things like shopping!
Last night we braved the icy roads to pick up flooring samples in Rockford. We have it narrowed down to two options...an engineered hardwood and a solid hardwood. The engineered wood will be easier to install and have more resistance to the expansion and contraction that hardwoods experience, so we're leaning in that direction. Also, it is in the wider plank style that we want. But, there's just that special something about solid hardwood floors. We'll see...
Today, I went to a cabinet dealer to work on a kitchen layout...fun times!! I'll hopefully get the layout back from the designer tomorrow. Turns out that this place also has a cabinet outlet area, and I scored a huge wall cabinet for the laundry room for $50!! I also found a linen cabinet and vanity for the master bathroom, and averted disaster tonight by making sure both would fit. (We only have to move two light switches...not a biggie.)
Tonight, my dad helped me pick up the rest of the interior doors, so now I can get to painting those.
I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of a pendant light that I ordered online. If it's awesome, it will feature prominently in the kitchen design. If it's only somewhat cool, it will go in the half bath. I'm hoping for awesome!
A couple of weeks ago, we pulled the trigger on some flooring tile for the two upstairs bathrooms that we found in the closeout aisle at a tile shop in Holland.
I'm hoping to get pictures of all these goodies up soon!!

We are inches away from being ready for drywall...Pete will be meeting with the drywaller tomorrow, and I'm hoping he'll be able to start next week. Then this place will really start to feel like a house!

Progress

So, I've been delinquent in updating in the past week. We are spending the Thanksgiving Weekend in Georgia with Sara & Josh, but the work continues! We've been making significant progress on the mechanicals & other inside stuff, and are quickly approaching drywall.

Here are the bullet points (since I have been accused by some readers of being too verbose:)
- Furnace is installed and working
- Water is turned on & a construction toilet is installed : )
- Master bathroom reframing is complete & the new window is ready to go in
- Master bathroom re-plumbing is finished
- New insulation is installed
- Electrical work is continuing
- Plumbing work is continuing
- Reframing of the living room fireplace is almost complete
- New water heater is purchased
- Speaker wire is run
- Drywaller is hired - hoping to start in 2(ish) weeks

That's all I can think of for now...thoughts of pumpkin pie are occupying most of my head...Happy Thanksgiving!!

My Bargain Safari

I have been shopping!!
Here are a few of the bargains I've hunted down in the past week or so:

Decisions, Decisions!

My much anticipated delivery of back splash tile samples arrived today, and let's just say I was not disappointed. From the moment I walked into this house at our "showing", I had a picture in my mind of what the kitchen & great room would look like finished. (Blame that on too much HGTV.) The key to the design puzzle was the kitchen back splash tile. The look I had in my mind was a combination of glass tile and natural stone in a non-traditional size and pattern (a "greatest hits of the tile world"). I spent countless hours scouring the Internet and visiting tile stores, but had begun to think that what I had in my head didn't exist in reality (a fairly common occurrence). But finally on Sunday night, I discovered an online vendor with not one, but four possibilities and I have been waiting with bated breath for them to arrive. And now that they're here, I have to decide which will work best (they are all the same price, so that's not a factor in the decision). I like them all for different reasons and they could all work very well in the space, but in order to move forward with other material and color decisions, I need to pick one soon. So if you have an opinion on these choices, shoot me a comment...maybe you'll pick the winner!

Here they are in no particular order:
(Some of the pics are vertical, but the tile will be installed horizontally. Additionally, they are photographed on a stainless surface & our appliances will be stainless... : )

Number One

Number Two
Number Three

Number Four

Mold Day

Foam, scrub, repeat. That was the essence of our day today. Pete and I, along with my dad and Lisa, provided the labor to assist the mold removal specialist for about 8 hours today. He foamed. We scrubbed. We bleached. He fogged. Mold died. Here are the pictures for your enjoyment:

And here is a little video if you're really curious:

Pictures

Here are the last of the "before" pictures. From here on out it's all "after" pictures! Move your mouse over the picture to see my descriptions.

Work, Work, Work

We're progressing nicely on the demolition. Since last Friday, another 80 hours of volunteer labor (us , plus family & friends) have been logged, and we have made tremendous progress! Thanks so much to everyone who has come out to help!
We have a hard deadline now that we are working toward. We need to have all of the demo completed by next Saturday, November 13. That's the day the mold guy is coming to disinfect the house. This company is allowing us to provide the labor (saving mucho dinero!!) and they are providing a mold expert, all the mold killing gear and space suits for us to wear. (Never fear, there will be pictures.) From what I understand, we will cover every exposed surface in the house with a mold killing foam, then we'll hand scrub every surface (volunteers?...anyone?), followed by a fogging of the house. Lastly, the mold guy will hepa-vac the fogged air out of the house, and viola!! Mold free guarantee!!

I haven't had much opportunity (or need) to make any fun purchases yet, which is a bummer, but I did do a little scouting today. (I believe the pros, like my she-ro, Sarah Richardson, call this "sourcing" : ) So many ideas; so little house! I'm anticipate that my life (and this blog) will become much more exciting once we start putting the house together instead of taking it apart. I can't wait!!

Pictures

Here's a link to our photos from our work day on Saturday:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55341872@N02/show/

Progress

We made some significant progress today...much more than I anticipated! We almost filled a 30 yard dumpster with drywall, cabinets, appliances, fixtures, etc. Lisa spent 3 hours or so mowing the knee-length lawn. Kelli & Pete (and a couple of Kelli's college friends) put the hurt on the drywall. I was director of optimism, vision, and clean-up. (Basically, I followed everyone around and cleaned up the messes they made.)
Today's Good News: The plumbing is repaired, the fireplace works, we didn't find mold in places we thought we would, and a lot of the drywall & insulation is salvageable.
Today's Bad News: Some of the insulation is not salvageable, none of the cabinetry is salvageable (particle board really soaks up the moisture...ayayay!), furnace functionality is still up in the air, and we found mold in place we were hoping to not find it.

But...I would say that after today, we generally feel encouraged. With all the workers in and out today, we logged over 40 (wo)man hours, and we accomplished a ton. We may meet our unofficial "deadline" (Pete's birthday) yet!

Day One (by the numbers)

Number of:
- (wo)man hours: 4
- carpet staples/tack strips removed: bazillion
- blisters on my thumb: 1 (but it's big)
- functioning toilets: 0
- trees in the backyard that the bank did not clean up: 1
- excited homeowners, yet undaunted: 2
- bowls of pumpkin ice cream currently being consumed: 1 (but it's big)

Good(ish) News

Tonight we went to the house with our electrician and plumber, who happen to be Pete's dad and a friend from church, respectively. (It's not what you know, it's who!) We really wanted to know what we were dealing with in the mechanical department. We knew there were some plumbing issues, as evidenced by the massive flooding in the house, and we knew there are some electrical issues related to the flooding. However, everything is in fairly good working order. We'll need some new toilets (which we wanted anyway since we found a sweet model at Home Depot with separate flush settings for "liquids" and solids"...that's right, people, be jealous!) and a new water heater. We'll likely also redo the master shower, for cosmetic reasons as much as for plumbing reasons.
When we fired up the electrical, we were able to turn most of the lights on...until we smelled burning! Then we turned everything off real quick-like and isolated an outlet that had shorted out. Dad K. took care of that and we were back in business. There will be some repair work with the electrical, but nothing major.
We were very thankful that there were no budget busting-surprises tonight!
There were, however, a couple of other surprises. We have been infested by some sort of tiny black bugs....eeeeww, gross. I'm lobbying for extermination or a bug bomb since we didn't know (a) what they are, (b) where they came from, or (c) where they're hiding out. Super yucky!!
Also, a big pine tree fell down in the backyard. Major bummer!! The house is shielded from the street by several large pine trees, and this was the only one in the backyard. Shucks! Hopefully, his front yard brothers don't come down in the next 24 hours of gale-force winds. Those have the potential to do more damage. The backyard tree fell nicely into a wide-open space. We were really hoping to keep all of those trees, but we'll have to see.
We are set of close on the sale this Friday at 4:00 pm and are hoping to begin "official" work on Saturday! We're planning on this house being more treat than trick!!

The Scoop

Our first Saturday at Summerbreeze proved to be quite valuable. We accomplished quite a bit of planning/budgeting, and we learned about the history of this house. While we were doing a walk-through with our contractor (aka Dad), a neighbor from across the street strolled over to introduce himself. He was able to give us more information on what actually happened to cause the damage. Here's the Reader's Digest version:
The original owner moved to Florida and rented the house. The renter moved out in December 2009, meaning it was vacant pretty much as long as we've been married...it was just sitting there waiting for us...awww. She was told by the landlord/owner to turn off the electricty and gas (meaning no more heat and no more sump pump). As to water, he said, "I don't care, I'm filing for bankrupcy anyway."
So, at some point in the winter, either the toilet broke or a pipe burst or a combination of the two occured, and the water literally ran free through the house for two months. The neighbor heard the smoke alarm going off, snooped in the windows and could see what was happening. He contacted parties who should've been interested in handling this problem (i.e. the bank and the township) and nothing happened. Finally, he contacted the Sheriff's Department and they broke in through a window to turn off the alarm. At it's worst, there were visible rivers of water running out of the doors and into the street. Ironically, the water was shut off by the township after the property was flagged for "excessive usage". Duh.
All that to say that it seems we'll need to up our drywall budget!

Speaking of budget, we have our working budget in place. We're been to a couple of big box stores and done some online browsing to bracket prices. Dad is on board with the projects we'd like him to help with and we're ready to sub out some of the yucky and unfun stuff. Pete and I are excited to learn some new skills such as laying tile and wood flooring. We have seen a lot of materials we like and have a vision for what this house can and will be! We knew that this house was the model home for the development and the neighbor, said that this house was a beautiful home once and was actually on the Parade of Homes back in it's day. We are hoping to restore it to it's former glory.

Sneak Peak

Here are a few sneak peak pictures from the real estate listing.

From top to bottom, you're seeing the main floor living area, a taste of the damage (kitchen ceiling), the backyard, and the front of the house.

I'll try to get some more specific pictures after our big planning walk-through with "the team" tomorrow.

I was able to walk through the house again today and thankfully I loved it just as much as I did two days ago. A good friend with house-sense was with me and appoved as well. She and I were able to bounce some ideas off each other and I've got some new great thoughts!

Pete and I spent some time at Menard's tonight planning, dreaming and pricing out ideas. We are still hopeful that we can do everything we want to do within our budget, but we are definitely on the lookout for bargains, so if you come across a great clearance section, let us know!!

Both Feet

"We're crazy!" That's all we could say yesterday, and when we look over where we've been and what we've done in the past 36 hours, that's pretty much all we can say. We bought a house. That's always been in "the plan", but we were planning to spend 6 months on the process, not 6 hours! But, as the saying goes, if you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.
So here we are...from zero to house in 36 hours. Welcome to our crazy adventure!

First off, let me say that I know this type of blog has been done before, much more successfully, and by way cooler people. We hate to be copycats, but why reinvent the wheel?!? We thought this would be a fun way for family and friends to follow our progress (and pitfalls), as well as a great way for us to keep a record of this exciting time in our lives. I suspect that I (Amy) will be the main blogger, so most of these posts will be from my perspective. However, I'm hoping that Pete will guest-post occasionally.

So how did we get here? Short answer: by the grace of God. Looking back, events that were frustrating and unexpected have put us in a place where we are able to design our dream house.

For those of you with more patience, here's the longer version:
When we got married in December of 2009, we both owned houses. Trying to sell those in a down market was frustrating to say the least, but eventually we did. We broke even on one house and wrote a big check to sell the other. By May of 2010, we were renters once again, vowing that we would not buy without a large down payment the next time around. The house we were renting sold after two months, so we moved to another rental - the house we are currently living in. "The plan" was that we would start looking for a house in late winter/spring, with the hope of buying by summer 2011. My dream was to buy an undervalued foreclosure and renovate it to our tastes. Optimistically, we'd be moving into a new place in about a year.

Here's the part where God laughs:
On Tuesday, Pete sent me an MLS listing. Now, I know you're asking, "why are you looking at houses on MLS if you're not buying for six more months?" Because it's what we do.
On this particular MLS search engine, you enter a price range. When Pete searches, he uses the same price range every time, but on Tuesday, he lowered the bottom end of the range by $50,000. Bingo. The house he sent me on Tuesday was $30,000 less than what would normally be the bottom of our search, but has previously sold for what would be above the top of our search. I was intrigued, but because of some very specific financing restrictions in the listing, I knew we couldn't buy it. However, I sent it to my dad because he's often talked about wanting to "flip" a house and I thought this would be a good candidate. End of story, right?
Nope. On Tuesday night, my dad called and provided us with some financing options we hadn't thought of. I got off the phone with him, looked at the listing again, and asked Pete what he thought. We agreed that there was no harm in looking, so why not?
I e-mailed the agent on Tuesday night, went to bed, and forgot all about it...almost.
On Wednesday morning, the e-mail from the agent said that there were already three offers on the property and if we were serious, we'd need to put in our highest & best offer by 6:00 pm THAT DAY!
I called my logical, cautious better half...he was less than excited about the idea of having to pull the trigger that day. I somehow convinced him that it didn't hurt to look, and we set up an appointment to view the house at 1:00 pm. In the meantime, I contacted a contractor friend who had a lot of flipping experience and asked him to come with us to give us an idea of what we'd be getting into.
The house was a mess. At some point in it's abandonment, a toilet on the second story broke and water flooded the house. There was damage to walls, ceilings, floors, and doors. There is mold everywhere. But it was beautiful. It was our perfect size and layout. It was in the location we were shooting for. The price was unbelievable. The damage provided me with my dream of a completely renovated home. And it's walking distance to Target.
We made a few calls to secure our financing, freaked out for a bit, and sent in an offer at 4:00 pm. Today, we learned that our offer was accepted! Because of the simplicity of this transaction, there is very little chance that we will not close this deal in less than three weeks.

So here we are. We are jumping in with both feet. In less than 36 hours, our priorities and goals have changed. One of Pete's first comments to me was, "Well, that Netflix subscription was a waste." I guess there's no more time for movies.
We are staring down a boatload of work. We are preparing to open a financial vein that won't close up for at least 6 months. And we are thrilled.
I've done a full-home renovation before. My super-handy dad and I, along with dozens of others, renovated the house I bought 3 years ago. I loved that project. I loved the design, the construction, the decisions...everything. I had a lot of help on that project and am forever grateful to the family and friends who gave of their time and skills, especially my dad. But that house was my baby. There were many hours when it was just me and her and some noxious fumes. This time, however, it's our baby. It's going to be me and my best friend sharing the noxious fumes. I'm sure we will have lots of family and friends who will help, too (daddy...?), but this is our home. This is where we will be a family, hopefully for many years to come. And we can't wait to get started. Let the adventure begin!