Month: July 2013

house hunty part 2

I think I want to buy a home*. I don’t know if I can buy a home, so I’m finding out everything I can about it. I will be post my progress here from time to time. Part one is here.

Elderly Relative has moved to a lovely new home (more on that later), and here stand I, among the ruined carpeting and cabinetfuls of crap, wondering how it’s all gonna get done. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Recently I met with a financial guy, recommended to me by my realtor friend (who is now my realtor as well as still being my friend). I loved this financial guy, who loves his job. Numbers, math, calculations, rates, all of it is under his mighty control.

I felt fearful as I approached his office clutching my check stubs and tax records; feeling emotional reverberations of my years as a fiscally irresponsible anarchy junkie. But my hard work and good intentions of recent years have paid off — my credit score is good and my bad debt is pretty low. One incredibly lucky bit of luck is that I have very recently transitioned from being a contract worker to a W2-style employee, which made my borrowing power about twice what it would’ve been. Wow. The cards are sure stacked against freelancers and non-permanent employees. Just another outrage in a system of outrages.

So I walked away with pre-approval for loan that’s, well, doable. Even in this hot housing market and rising interest rates. My realtor has to spend a lot of her time quelling my periodic panic as I feel like I’m missing the affordable housing bus. I’m not! But no dilly-dallying nonetheless!

Now my realtor had the info she needed and could start pulling listings for homes in my price range. At this point, we’re just looky-looing. There’s no way I can bid on a house now on contingency (my down payment is coming from the sale of this family home), there are just too many ready-with-the-money buyers right now.

We’ve done a bit of house snooping and I love every minute of it. Yesterday I saw two on opposite ends of the spectrum. One was a foreclosure that was delightfully horrifying, from the piles of dog excrement ground into the carpeting to the moldy bathrooms! I could see past the yuck factor through to the potential of the place (and the price was great), but wow, it was way too fixer-upper-y that I could ever handle. We also saw the model home for some new developments going in in the general area I want to live. Funnily enough, I was horrified, but for much different reasons. It just was so pre-planned looking, bland and corporate and … ugh. The staging was so oppressive. Realtor was very amused by my reactions — that I’d gag less at a trashed foreclosure that I did at a squeaky clean master-plan development nightmare (which was out of my price range anyway).

We also stalked the four condominium developments that I like, right near the ocean, right near the weird beach park I am most fond of. Realtor pulled the recent listing/selling activity of the units, and cheerfully declared that she feels confident that she’ll find me one, the perfect one, right there on the water.

Here’s one that recently closed. In an unheard-of angle, all the furniture is included. It was a weekender pad, original owners. built in the mid-70s.

And, just as I was warned it would happen, my hopes got UP. Still, I am darkly, boringly realistic about this whole process, but there’s a tiny flame of hope and desire way down deep in there somewhere.

*I originally stated “I think I want to buy a house.” I realize that people around here assume “single family home, non-condo” when I say “house”, but that’s not what I meant. Not that I’d pooh-pooh buying a “house”, but I’m also amenable to a condo. I seem to be confusing everyone when I use “home” and “house” interchangeably, so I’ll stop. Such a learning experience, this experience.

On the house-selling side…

Realtor and I have also been looking at the houses for sale in this area that are similar to the house I’m selling. I love this, too. There is some vintage weirdness around here! Also I find I’m feeling weirdly competitive about this house. I’m gonna make her sparkle, I’m gonna make her shine, I want retirees to fall to their knees** when they they come look at this house!

** Please, please not literally. Please.

July 28, 2013
another bathroom redo, now w/ less excitement

There are three bathrooms in this house. One I already redid, one that’s almost good to go (needs wall paint), and this one that needed major freshening up, if it was going to be attractive to potential buyers.

It’s a big bathroom, grander than the other bathrooms even though it’s not the master bath (two medicine cabinets, oh lala). The only one with a bathtub, it just remained these past three years relatively unused and kind of puzzling.

I did install a ceiling-mounted shower curtain rod and curtains a couple years ago, so house guests could actually shower without having to use the master bath prison shower. Before that, there was just a naked tub. I suppose tub-lovers would find a tub-dedicated bathroom to be a wonderful thing, but to me it was just … puzzling.

Especially in light of the lovely, lovely carpeting.

Since we’re motivated to sell, the directive is “neutralize your space”. Understated paint colors (read: bland), plain but friendly colors upon which potential buyers can project their lives, or something like that.

This is how the vanity got painted a color very dangerously close to beige.

Sorry, Jeana, I know it’s the color you shun. But Jeana and I both agreed that the color stops just short of pukishness. Helping that maybe was the addition of dark brown metal knobs.

Up comes the carpet, and voila: the ancient linoleum tiles that apparently covered the entire house. So old the adhesive was gone, I could just pile them up. Getting out those tack strips was a non-fun job, as usual.

Paint. Walls, ceiling, trim and vanity all needed it. The vanity paint color is called, hilariously, Brown TeePee — the perfect color for a bathroom. Not so hilarious was the ceiling painting process. By the time I got to the walls I was DONE with painting*. The wall paint color is Parchment Paper, nice and bland and neutral and boring.

Tiles. Cheapie peel-and-stick that actually looked pretty good (except for the booooring color). So much easier than putting down real tiles, good gracious.

New toilet to replace the massive, water-guzzling antique. Up until this I did everything else myself, but then I called in my pal Ethan. He very nicely helped me acquire and install two toilets in one day. Ethan could not resist using the newly-installed toilet as a sink. “When else can you do this?” he asked. Handsome and handy Ethan blushed furiously at Home Depot when the female employees flirted with him outrageously. Cool your jets, “ladies.”

A new rod and curtains and already-owned towels and we’re done. Kept with blue and brown. I’ve saving the caulking for my brother, lucky man.

Cheapie but cute curtain from Anna’s Linens

That’s my awesome vintage print, and it’s going with me.

Breakdown, estimated.

Toilet: $89

Paint: $40

Knobs: $15

Tiles: $46

Caulk and other stuff: $20

Curtains: $10

Shower curtains: $20

Total: $240-ish

*Done with painting! That’s funny. Hahahahha! There’s just the matter of painting the entire rest of the house, hooray!

July 25, 2013
the sassification of office chair

Darling Andrew gave me this excellent vintage office chair several years ago.

After I moved, it took my Elderly Relative approximately two days to somehow poke a hole in the upholstery.

As I was paring down my fabric stash, I came across some vintage heavy-duty material that I bought in 2000 at the amazing Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale.

Thank goodness, a light bulb went off. This was a good opportunity to use a new upholstery dude I found in the area.

Dude did a good job. My rear end now gets to settle on comfy and colorful kookiness.

You can see that dude changed up the padding, due to the differentness of the new fabric. I am learning a lot about upholstery. I would like to learn how to do it so that I can charge people so many arms and legs, the arms and legs that I am charged now!

July 23, 2013
lessons: drink warm drinks, buy stronger pretzels

Three things (two oddly pretzel-related) that prove that (in the words of my departed friend Turquoise) I AM DUM.

Because I am running around a lot, and live in a region that promotes this lifestyle, I eat a lot of hand food to go. I am not proud of this; at least I endeavor to avoid fast food grease nightmares.

I recently purchased a “high protein” sourdough pretzel from a Big Juice franchise store and hopped in my car. I managed to drive with pretzel in one hand, not easy to do when operating a stick shift. I stopped at the drive-thru pharmacy to pick up my Elderly Relative’s glaucoma medication. As I reached for the bag of drugs from the outstretched pharmacist’s hand, I managed to fling my pretzel out of the window and into the side wall of the pharmacy. Not a bite had been taken.

This past week I stopped by Target for some decorative hand towels to be used for staging our home for sale (yes! this is my life!). On the way out I stopped at the small food area and purchased — yes — a pretzel. This one had no pretenses of being anything remotely healthy, but I was in a hurry to get to a workshop and figured it was better than a hot dog. As I rifled in my bag for my car keys, the pretzel, fragile due to its starchy weight, broke and fell upon the ground near the exit door. Not a bite had been taken.

In the past few days, to impress my impending Sunday party guests, I have been using an ice tray that cleverly makes ice in large, spherical shapes. Because the tray only makes three spheres at a time, I have been painstakingly creating then saving the ice in a large Ziploc bag. Last night, I noticed with satisfaction I had amassed about 20 in the bag, and prepared another tray for another round.

This morning I came into the kitchen to discover a large Ziploc bag of water sitting on the counter.

July 19, 2013
campaign season no more: bedroom set refresh

Or, How I’ve Learned to Distrust DIY Blogs (again)

I have no idea why I decided to take on repainting a bedroom set when there were so many other pressing projects to do in this house. Maybe I thought it would be quick and easy since design blogs make projects like these look quick and easy. Lies, lies!

This set (dresser and two nightstands) is Colormates by Morris. This is campaign-style furniture which seems to be something people on the internet are interested in these days. I don’t know how long my mom had this set, but it was thrashed. Honestly, the furniture was not that well-made to begin with (made with some MDF, all fittings brass-plated), and its life near the ocean took its toll. Corrosion and rust all ovah. So, restoration was out and making it look somewhat better was in. Because, though I put it down, the furniture has a very pleasing side and shape and holds my chonies* well.

Salty air = not nice to any surface.

Okay, here’s the rant. I fell prey to what the internet does best — showing people what they want to see. I searched some blogs for the best method to paint a project like this. I saw a similar dresser somewhere, but it wasn’t a realistically detailed how-to, more like: “Look at the awful before! Look at the gorgeous after! How did I do it? Just aimed some spray paint at it and voila!”

Dumb me. What I didn’t factor was the fact I had three pieces, with significantly more surface area than what I was looking at. Also, my painting area was through the house, out the back door, and down a pathway. Also, these pieces weigh a lot.

Took forever. After two cans of spray paint and the dawning realization that I was doing it all wrong, I took the can to my local store and had them match it. A pint of paint and a roller later, I was much closer to done. I could paint the items in the more conveniently-located front driveway.

Color: Rustoleum’s Painter’s Touch, Slate Blue, Satin.

Painting the pulls also was time-eating. Sanding, brushing, wiping. Spray paint was actually the right choice this time, but it look a while to get all the nooks as well as the crannies. I did a poly top coat, too.

I poly top-coated the other pieces, too. I believe in that.

This photo was taken back before I realized how much more damn painting needed to be done.

So, voila. You’re going to see more of the complete set in future photos, when the carpeting won’t make you cry. By the way, each piece was topped with glass, because people of a certain generation loved to have their furniture weigh as much as humanly possible at all times.

*chonies=underwears

Bonus makeover shot. Mailbox. I’m tired.

July 10, 2013