Starting Over

Well, here I am again. After 2 renovations with Matt, I'm starting out on my own with a new house. I swear the last renovation had nothing to do with our break-up. (Ok, maybe a little). 

I recently purchased this vintage little gem in the historic Murray Hill neighborhood in Jacksonville, FL. Built in 1950, it's a classic example of a vintage mid-century ranch with french cottage accents. I think it has a lot of potential to really play it up. The bones are solid. It just needs a little love.

This is long term project, so stay tuned. It's gonna be fun. 

Before Pics: These are from the MLS listing before I moved in. Cute, right?

                                                                     

       

  

Burning Down The House

Lucky for us, burning some debris is permitted in our neighborhood. Some of the termite infested wood from the bathroom made it's way into our burn pile, along with tons of yard debris I have been cleaning out of the yard. Some lessons learned about burning debris the hard way:

Check with local fire department on burning restrictions and rules. Make sure there are no burn bans in the area.

Place your burn pile as far away from home and other structures as possible.

Look UP! Don't place your fire under phone, cable, or electrical wires.

Do Not use a 5 gallon container of gasoline to start your fire. When it starts, it will flash and pop. You could lose your eyebrows really fast and the neighbors may think there was a terrorist attack in your yard.

Have a water source handy!!!!

Don't burn on a windy day. Santa Ana wind conditions is not the best time to burn your wood.

Be prepared to console your neighbor when you burn down his favorite tree. (Sorry, Mr. Jones.)

Have your cell phone in your hand or close by to call 911.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

While Matt was in the attic, he discovered a couple of broken support beams. He says one that is supposed to be holding up the roof is split in two. He suspects it was hurricane damage. It could have been either from Ike or Rita. I think when they replaced the roof after Rita, they just did a patch job and ignored the bigger damage. But this was before I owned the home. I seriously doubt my insurance will cover it now. And it is something we can't fix or afford to have fixed. Luckily, there is no immediate danger of the roof collapsing in on us. So I defer to the great wisdom of Sergeant Schultz, "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know  nothing"


Lesson 11: Get a home inspection before purchasing house and after every hurricane! Just because it looks ok, doesn't mean it is. Insurance adjusters, previous owners, and contractors will miss damage they can't easily see.

Weekends are for Working

Working a full time job through the week is no excuse for resting on the weekends. It's Saturday, and I was  up at 6:30 this morning setting up the yard sale. Getting rid of mostly Matt's old tools that he swore he had to replace with shiny new ones. Also selling the lights, switches, ceiling fans we just replaced in the house. Hoping to make back some of the money we just spent on the new stuff.


So I sit here in my garage pricing, haggling, tagging, organizing, praying for customers to come buy our extra stuff. 

Lesson 10: Garage sales are great if you live in the city, not so great if you live in a remote location out in the country.

On the upside, Matt got the new exhaust fan and shower light installed this weekend and is almost done sheet rocking and green boarding the shower walls.

Room for Renovation

Can someone tell me why a man with a 15x25 foot recently organized work shed complete with tools has to cut sheet rock in the living room using a box cutter against my beautiful antique buffet? 
Because he is a man. That's why.



Lesson #9-Use your space wisely. All spaces are up for grabs during renovations.








Tip: Each person living in home should select one small area to keep free of all renovation debris, tools, clutter, supplies, etc. 

In The Beginning

Three and a half years ago, I bought a 60s ranch style home in Beaumont Tx for $102,000 sight unseen. Mistake number 1.

I needed a house fast and trusted a realtor that came highly recommended to me to ensure the home was in good working order, all the repairs and concessions were complete. She assured me there was no need for an inspection as she knew the sellers most of her life and inspections were not required for a mortgage in Texas. So I trusted her. Mistake number 2.

She assured me this was a great deal. She said the house appraised at $105,000. I'm thinking, "yippee! I already have 3000 in equity". Mistake number 3.

In 2008, Hurricane Ike came through and ripped up my sunroom. Eek. Every penny I had in savings and what little the insurance gave me went to cover a sunroom renovation. New ceiling, roof, skirt, floor stain, doors, ceiling fan, light fixture, 3 windows. To a wonderful total of $7000. So in my head, that means with renovations and equity, house is worth $112,000. at least, right? sooo wrong!

 In 2009, Matt moved in with me. He is always in need of a project and does all the cooking. So I gave him permission to renovate the kitchen. We got a new stove, microwave/hood combination, dishwasher, disposal, countertops, sink, faucet, backsplash, lights, switches. We painted the cabinets, walls, doors, and trim work. The only thing we left untouched were the tile floors and the fridge.

The granite countertops we got from Lowes. grrr. The final product looked nothing like the sample they showed us. When we bought the granite, they suggested we drive all the way to Houston to the manufacturer on a workday to make sure it was the slab we wanted. I figured why bother, if the sample is a true sample.

Well, it wasn't. Even after the manufacturer sent us photos of another sample of the slab, which looked completely different from the sample at lowes. It still looked ok. When the slab arrived, it looked nothing like either sample we saw and was awful. To say the least we were really pissed. We based our entire kitchen design around the colors in the granite, which was the last to arrive. lowes offered some discounts on future purchases to make up for our displeasure, but wouldn't give us new granite. So our kitchen was doomed to be mismatched. Lesson #1-Don't trust granite samples, go to the manufacturer and choose the slab you want. Luckily, overall, it came out ok. I'm still not a fan of the granite, but I've learned to live with it.

Overall, I think we spent close to $6000 on the kitchen renovation. Which isn't bad. It's a good thing Matt did most of the work himself. That saved us a fortune in labor cost.

With the updated kitchen, I figured the house was now worth about $118,000. With the cost of renovations, the earlier appraisal, and the time invested in the home it seemed like a fair estimate. So, you can imagine my surprise when a realtor said he would list the home for 99,000 two weeks ago! How is that possible? It appraised for 105,000 three years ago, we did renovations, landscaping in the back yard, the school district changed to a better school. Have the home values in this area dropped that much? I can't even afford to leave it for that amount!

I'm trapped in my own home. arrgggggg.

After crunching some numbers, figuring what we have invested so far, closing cost, earlier appraisals, concessions, and mortgage payoff, 10,000 down payment for new home, I figured I would have to sell for 138,000 to walk away. We are a really long way from that. A really really long way. So the renovations continue....