The Perils of DIY Handiwork

Chris and I are DIY people. We like to get in there and get dirty. Well, in everything except cleaning and plumbing. The former because we hate it and the latter because that's just something that should be left to the professionals.

Last night we had our first disaster. And I'm down to nine toenails.

The moral of the story... pick up boxes MUCH higher than you think you need to. A box housing new kitchen cabinets slid across my right foot last night and took my nail with it.

The good - my nail polish was a nice red anyway, so sans bandaid, you can't even really tell that the nail is missing.

The bad - the internet tells me it could take a year to grow back... if it even does grow back. WTF!?

Do they make fake toenails?

House: More Demo

Super crazy busy busy weekend at the new house!

There are three parts to our house. The original house, the kitchen/living addition and then a later Mother-in-Law Addition. The last part completely closes off to the rest of the house, has its own entrance and is about 600 square feet. So, we decided to tear it apart, build it back up and rent it to some friendly/quiet/nice folks. One problem... it's ugly as hell.

So, I learned how to break up and tear out tile this weekend!


Lots and lots of angry aggression came out of my body, through the hammer and into the ugly floor. It's now out in the back yard! WOOO!


Chris took on some heavier things... the closet! We ripped out the closet and are putting in a kitchen/living area.


The backyard is currently a disgusting disaster area. We've cut some trees and ripped out carpets and torn down walls... and it's all on the ground in the backyard. We figured that if we're going to hire someone to come haul it all away, we were going to make it worth their while :-)


Please note another stupid previous owner move. See that wire behind Chris' shoulder? It's strung throughout the backyard just like that. From a post. To the corner of the house. To the ground. Yeah, it's the water feed for the sprinkler system. Apparently burying it like normal people was a bit too tough. Nice, eh?

House: Ahhh the Joys of Homeownership

Chris just sent this to me from his iPhone.





The subject - "First House Boo Boo"

I think there is no electricity at the current moment. F.

House: The Demo

A portion of my house looks like this...


It's amazing to see how incredibly stupid some people are. A lot of the tile in the house is rickity. I just figured it was old. Nope! It's because the previous owners just put it down over linoleum. Just threw it down there on top. Smart.

House: The Fridge!

I think it could be inappropriate how incredibly much I love this refrigerator.

The french doors are amazing. Everything fits so nicely without pulling, giggling, moving, pushing, etc. There is a potential for a lack of drawer storage space, but I'm sure I'll find a work around. If the doors aren't closed exactly right, it beeps at me. Fantastic.


The pull out freezer drawer is GENIUS!


OK, this part is a bit weird... I hate when something is fashioned exactly for one thing. What if I want to use this space for something else? Can't... perfectly formed for cans. Nothing else.

Chris moved over the important stuff :-) Seriously, we have no condiments, and no staple items, but we have Prosecco and Champagne.

An All WOOOOOOOOOOOO day!

Some days are woo/boo days. Some more woo than boo, some more boo than woo. Yesterday was all woooooooooooooooooooooo!


Woo - we closed! Freakin' finally. But since I had been breaking and entering for the past week or so, it didn't feel quite as awesome as I had expected. More like the same ole same ole, except this time I took the keys home with me instead of leaving them in the lock box. And I didn't get the guilty panic that I was doing something wrong and bad by breaking/entering/cleaning/painting. (All in all, I thought, what are they going to do!? Sue me for making the place more awesome? I was paying to own it, thought I should use it.) I was going to guerilla move on Saturday anyway. (Anne came up with the fantastic term, not me. I like it. So I stole it.) But now it can be totally official.

Woo - We have hardwood! Most of the house is hardwood. The formal living room, dining room and office are original. The living room is some crazy ass mountain shit that they renovated. the bedrooms are carpet. But the upstairs was icky gross carpet. The stairs and the whole open top floor (the master bedroom). Disgusting, icky, stained, gross, disgustingness. But I thought the stairs MIGHT be hardwood because of the curve under the carpet. Didn't know if they were original or not though. Didn't think that the upstairs was, and really, I kind of like carpet in the bedroom... cozier. But it's ALL original hardwood! Well, original, with stain, under the paint, poked with tons of staples, and padding, and carpet. But Chris' new job is to bring them back :-)

Woo - we got a renter for the condo! His office is two blocks away and wants to be able to walk to work. He loves the space. No animals. Super nice older guy. No raging parties. He seems competent with basic household repairs. Super awesome. Adore him.

Woo - our office is nearly painted! But I ran out of paint (ok, a boo.) It's a purpley-grey and it's soft and beautiful and awesome.

Woo - Apparently the closet upstairs backs up to the attic. Which is dead space. The totally super ghetto plywood is going to get ripped out and the ENTIRE ATTIC will be my new CLOSET!!! Seriously, A.W.E.S.O.M.E. I get teary eyed just thinking about the fantasticness that will occur when Chris and his Dad start the demolition up there. I'm imagining something L shaped, with hardwood shelving units. And drawers. And built in shoe racks. And more hanging space then I will ever need. We may never move out of this house. Chills & Tears of Joy.

Woo - Chris came home at 8:45 last night and today is his last day! Tonight is the wrap party and he planned on getting super drunk at the end of his miserable August. But, I told him he can't because...

WOOO - we move tomorrow! We're picking up a truck at 8 am and moving all our crap from the condo to the house. I moved the first set of boxes last night before the painting shenanigans began and the rest will be heading over tomorrow. Not sure when to bring the kitties. They would LOVE to go playing in my purpley-grey paint and then traipse through the house with sticky little paws.

House: Refrigerator

Refrigerator shopping is AWFUL. Disgusting. And Awful.

Last week we tried a scratch-and-dent place in Chatsworth. Some pretty decent stuff, but the pricing wasn't as low as you expect for a giant warehouse with no air condition full of stuff that's been dinged. Or fell off a truck.

Then there was Lowe's. Mostly, I was just tired of shopping already and didn't care and didn't think that we would need one so quickly. My oh my how time flies when you're having fun.

Yesterday we started the shopping again as I realized that we're moving on Saturday and we don't have anything to chill the multiple beers that Chris will need to consume as I put him into manual slave labor mode.

Sears was the first stop. I.Hate.Them. Firstly, there are 6 sales folk in the TV section standing around picking their noses. They don't know about/can't sell/don't want to sell refrigerators. There is one guy in the refrigerator section who is stuck with a couple asking a bajillion questions. So, we looked. And we waited. And we looked. And finally one of the stove guys came over to help us. He picked one that we liked. Here's where I get REALLY angry. All of the fridges have prices on them. There are black and white and stainless fridges and they all have prices. Put not until you actually put your nose onto the tag and get really really close to read the itty bitty teeny tiny print do you realize that all of the prices are for the white version of that fridge. The stainless version is obviously $400 more. Bastards. AND all this "Next Day Delivery" stuff is crap. They can't deliver it for almost two weeks! What's with this pay and wait crap!? That's when I stormed out. I was tired, and cranky, and angry.

But we had to push through. We need a beer chiller. So, to Home Depot we went. Big selection, helpful folk, lower prices. And a chair that I could sit in. The chair was important I think. Oh, and cell reception. Why don't warehouse stores have cell recpetion? We were able to pull up reviews and comparisons on our iPhones and decide on our giant purchase with somewhat of an education. Well, really, I mostly decided that I liked rounded handles, pull out freezers, french door fridge, a top drawer in the freezer that pops out when the whole drawer is opened, lots of little drawers in the fridge, doors that close without being physically pushed shut and water in the door. Chris liked that one of them had a long shallow drawer... he called it the beer drawer. Perfect for lots of bottles laying down. But, then the sales lady called it a cake drawer. Perfect for giant sheet cakes. And then I knew we had to have it.

And it was the last day of their 10% off, free delivery sales promotion from labor day! Still a week on the delivery, but I guess we can get by with an old school cooler for a bit.

YAAAH for checks of the list!

An Open Letter

Dearest Escrow Company,

I hate your stinking guts. You make me sick.

Your job is to make my life easy. You're supposed to gather and organize. You're supposed to know your shit. This does not include calling me 20 minutes before I'm scheduled to arrive at your office and suggest that maybe we sign on another day. This does not include calling me at 12:30 in a mad panic to get paperwork signed (that you forgot to include in the original signing, so it's your fault really) by 4:00 and then never emailing it or returning my multiple phone calls. This does not include forgetting to get the deed from the seller until the day before we close, thusly pushing closing back to the next business day which is essentially four days due to a holiday weekend.

I hate you.

Jordana

We Signed!

(holy crap)

Yesterday was the loan doc signing day! Chris got a Power of Attorney notarized so that I could sign for him. Apparently leaving the set for an hour to buy a house is looked down upon (kidding Chris. I love you.) He's working absolutely crazy hours. Coming home at 3 am, leaving by 8 am. And that's if he even comes home! I leave at 6:45 for work these days... so we're kind of just sharing a bed for a few hours a night. sad.

Anywho, by some miracle of God he had Friday off! His first day in almost three weeks! Which was awesome for me because apparently it's not as simple as signing my name and then signing his name. It's signing my name and then some ridiculously long sentence about who I am and who he is and why I'm signing for him. On every page.

Seems like there were fewer pages for these loan documents than the last time. But honestly, we are both such exhausted human beings at this point, we could have potentially bought the Empire State Building and not realized it.

Last time I took pictures, and this time I forgot. I had the camera and everything. And I forgot. I was somewhat stunned that the Notary was sharing all kinds of information with us about the births of her four children. And what birth control she was on when she got pregnant. And how she got her tubes tied. And what it's like when you're in labor. And that we should have four kids too. Why is that when you get married every person on the planet feels the need to give me a little punch in the arm and ask when the kids are coming with a big goofy smile?! My usually excuse is "We live in 667 square feet! Where the hell would I put it?!" But now we have 2,600 square feet... that's probably enough space for a kid. New excuse "I have two mortgages. If a kid costs more than $10 a month, I'm not going to be able to afford it."

So, closing on August 29 :-)

(holy crap)

House Update

I'm kind of amazed at how smoothly things are running with the house buying situation we have going on over here. The emotional side of it is a totally freakin' disaster. I work myself up into a tizzy at least every other day. Who do we think we are?! What are we doing?! What are we getting ourselves into!? We're going to lose all of our money and have to live on the street in a giant cardboard box. AHHHHHH! And on the days that I'm not working myself into a crazy hurricane, Chris is.

But the part that's supposed to be the hardest... the inspections and the loan and the paperwork crap has been surprisingly easy. The gathering of the stuff was difficult. But that's over.

We had a termite inspection. The place is nearly 80 years old. And there's lots of wood. Obviously it has termites. But there was a lot of work needed to make it perfect. Two days ago, my Realtor sent me an addendum that required them to pay for it. All of it. All $5,000 worth of wood work and spraying and shiza. And I kind of giggled. There was NO way they were going to pay for that. But, I figured she knows more about buying houses than I do, so I signed it.

And this morning, they signed it. WTF! Why would they do that! I'm psyched beyond belief. Dummies. :-) I'm pissed though... they're not going to paint. (Kidding)

And today, more totally unexpected news. I'm thinking... it's all going to well. The loan bank is going to come back and say "haha, you guys suck. We're not giving you money. That would be dumb!" And then they didn't. Today, we were approved! (Holy Shit)

It still doesn't feel real though. Even though I have our living room and bedroom and my office totally designed in my head. And it's stunningly gorgeous.

We take a lot of walks. And lately, we've planned our walks to the house and back to our condo. It's a good 3-4 mile walk and we have such amazing talks. Anywho, on our Sunday walk to the house, we stood in the driveway and stared at our house. Wow, our house. And Chris pointed to our tree. And a beautiful dove was sitting on one of our branches. Looking at us. Bringing us peace. Peace at our house.

(Holy Shit)

A New Facet of the Jordana Project

I'm a multitasker. I enjoy having lots and lots and lots of things going on. I've got two jobs... a job that pays the mortgage (My Mortgage Job) and a job that I LOOOVE (My Love Job). I've got a new husband. I've got my Jordana Project.

OBVIOUSLY, it's time for a new addition. And I am BEYOND thrilled to introduce our new bundle of joy...

(please note that my front door is located under a spire.)

She weighs in at 4 bedrooms & 2 bathrooms and 2,600 sq. ft. And we are beaming parents!

We happened upon her at the beginning of July, a little bike ride on July 5 on the way to Portos for a bit of breakfast. After a quick look around I KNEW we couldn't afford it, but thought we'd call just to get an idea of what things were going for in this particular hood. Lo and behold, it was bankowned. And on the market for two months. And dropped $200K on July 3. WHAT!?

So, we're in escrow and set to close next month. Banks take F-O-R-EVER. Inspection yesterday went fabulously well. She's got good bones and, while a project house, is in fabulous shape.

Chris knows that he's in charge of... well... pretty much all of it. This girl is busy trying to get a new business off the ground! But I look forward to editing on the floor while he is sanding. And painting. And tearing out walls. And maybe even working on some pipes.

{This is the place where I would normally post a million pictures. But the previous owners bought it, and then forgot that they had to clean it. For reals... it's icky gross. Did you know that dust could form bunnies, and then the dust bunnies could CLIMB the walls. They do. The place is disgusting. But I love her like only a mother could.}