Thanksgiving 2009

Had a nice Thanksgiving. Watson and I went over to Jill's in the morning and he got to spend some quality time with Iris. Actually he seems like he is ignoring her but he really isn't...she has so many disabilities that he just can't quite figure her out. Iris gives him a hard time if she decides he is eating too much of her food and he is always trying to police her litter box.

Jill and I went to Johnny's Butcher Shop restaurant for turkey dinner. It was a buffet and we got plenty to eat even though it isn't exactly the best ambiance. We had turkey and ham and the usual trimmings. I had my piece of Pumpkin Pie.

We decide we needed to walk a little so we went to the green way but the wind was so strong that we gave it up right away...too cold. Instead we went back to Jill's and played Wii bowling and golf and then Jill tried her hand at Wii boxing and wore herself out. We messed with the cats a little and had some cookies and opened a bottle of white wine and toasted Thanksgiving. We have much to be thankful for.

I decided to make my Stromboli with apples and dried cherries and cranberries. I make it out of boxed pizza dough. I chop up an apple and add the dried fruit with a little water and microwave it for a couple minutes and then wrap it in the prepared pizza dough with some sugar and cinnamon and some egg brushed on top...and bake it at 350 degrees for about a half hour. Today's wasn't the best I've made but it was good. We watched a DVD of Designing Women and relaxed with our dessert and some more wine. We had a nice day.

Watson and I went home but I got so sleepy that I took a nap...hoping to sleep all night but only slept 2 hours. So now I'm awake and writing this blog and listening to Tina Turner songs since it is her 70th birthday. She is still touring at her age....I'll have a tall one of whatever she is having because it works for her.

Open House

Today was my first "open house" in an attempt to sell my house. My agent is doing a good job and I'm happy with her but there was some kind of mix up and the house wasn't listed in the paper on the open house list....only on the real estate company's ad. But we still had 6 groups that came and went through the house and one that was serious enough to go talk to a banker tomorrow to see if she can work out the financing. I am optimistic but I don't expect the house to sell on only one open house.

The house has never looked better. There area still a few things that I'd like to do but sometimes I obsess over small things that no one else will notice. I've pretty much worn myself out and I don't think I'm going to do anything more other than keep it clean and looking good.

I took Watson and went over to Jill's this morning to get him out of the house. He behaved very well but he disappeared and we were afraid that he got out of the house. We searched the yard and the block and then a couple blocks thinking that he got outside and then got scared and ran. We had no idea how he could get out but we couldn't find him in the house. Later, Jill found him in her bed under the covers asleep.

Done !!

I got the house on the market on October 15th and the sign went up the next day. I'm pretty happy with the listing price but I don't have a great deal of wiggle room. That's fine. I think the house looks good. I need to work a little in the back yard while I'm waiting and I hope to get the deck re-sealed if the weather holds.

I'm rewarding myself with a week at the Lake of the Ozarks. I needed to use my timeshare week before the end of the year and this was a good use for it. I am happy but a little sad to sell the house and the week away will help the transition. Watson doesn't quite know what to make of everything.

October ... deadline is slipping a little

This is October 11th and I was hoping to have the house on the market by now but I'm slipping a little. I only have a couple tasks to do so I hope the weather will cooperate and I can get them done this week. Next week I'm going to the lake just to get out of here for a while. I am truly getting burned out on this house stuff.

We had a beautiful day last week and my real estate agent came by and took some exterior pictures. The next day it started raining and we got about 5 inches of rain over the next three days.

Eric, my carpet installer, called to say he could do my job a day earlier than planned but when the day came it was raining so hard he had to put it off. The carpet would get too wet just hauling it to the house. The next day the rain was mostly over and he arrived and got the job done in about a half day. This was for the two secondary bedrooms upstairs. The old gray carpet was pulled out and now I have some nice pale straw-colored carpet in the two rooms. This sort of matches what I have in the rest of the house. Eric was also going to try to fix my crackly hardwood floor but the solution he came up with didn't do the trick so he stopped. I'm happy with the new carpet but it took some getting used to. I'm also pretty much resigned to the hardwood floor noises. It seems to be a problem with the tar paper that they put down under the wood. It didn't bond properly with the wood so there is a sticky sound when you walk on it. It changes with the humidity and the expansion or contraction of the wood. Sometimes it isn't bad at all.

September house update (updated)

Well, I had the real estate agent come by to look at the house and got a whole new list of things I need to do. I thought I was done or almost done. At least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel....she made some good suggestions and it will end up costing me another $1,500 or so.

The big ticket thing was new carpet in the two smaller upstairs bedrooms. I thought that I could do it for under $800 but it will run about $1,100 and for another $50 Eric, my carpet installer, will fix the crackley hardwood floor in the hallway....he thinks he knows what is wrong. It will take a couple weeks for the carpet to arrive.

So, in the meantime, I'm trimming trees, cleaning up the yard a little, washing windows and replacing blinds. I need to clean the deck and paint the utility room. The wood stove needs new flue pipe and a chimney cap. De-cluttering and packing up personal stuff is a big job.

Then I'll need some cleaners to come through in case I miss something.

I'm starting to get burned out on this house stuff and I have a whole other house I have to build in the future. I need to get away from it for a while. I'll have a week at the Lake of the Ozarks in mid October and a short trip to St. Louis the end of September....that might help.

Update of the Update...Sept. 18

Heard from Eric -- he can't install the carpet until October 9th which is after I wanted to have the house listed...but that is the best he can do and I want him to do the job.

I rented a chain saw and spent half a day cutting lower limbs off of my cedar trees so that you can walk under them to cut the grass. I don't mind them being low u other people wouldn't like it. I cut a few limbs from around the swing set so I can rehabilitate that area a little. I found out that one of the main trunks of the large maple tree is dead so I got that out as well. I only took out the bare limbs from the hickory tree where I already removed the branches. I think it looks a lot better and I didn't cut too much so the privacy is preserved.

I loaded up the truck with a bunch of limbs and took them over to the city's dump site. I have made probably 8 or 9 trips there this summer but this time they wanted to know if I was a city resident....and I'm not...so they charged me $27 or the two loads that I dropped off....$54 total...but I'm not too upset because I really loaded the 2nd truck-full and got just about everything hauled away. I also cut the larger limbs for stove wood so that will be useful in the winter.

While I was cutting the limbs, Ty, my real estate agent, stopped by. She had visited the house up the street that is for sale and wanted to talk about comparisons of my house to it. She thinks my house is really as good or even better in some ways but she says that the price they are asking is not realistic. Francis's house, up the other way, has been for sale for some time and is tied up in a contingency contract. My house is much better than his in terms of updates and layout and I think I should expect to do better than his. So maybe I'm somewhere in the middle ---which would probably be okay for the most part. Ty doesn't want to know what my bottom line is but it is higher than the number she was thinking about. Most of what she said was very positive and I think that seeing the other house and then seeing mine again made a better impression than her first visit. I think we will try to have a sign in the yard by October 1st even though the carpet won't be in yet.

August 2009 Update

August 14, 2009 - My efforts to get the house ready to sell as soon as the market improves are coming to completion. All of the major fix-up projects were completed this week. I had the painters come in and do the downstairs and the stairwell and then I got all of the exterior trim painting done. That was primarily the deck door and the garage and basement doors. I have been organizing the garage and getting things thrown out. Jill and I painted the hall and part of the foyer. I painted the small bedroom and took the border down. I still have a way to go with that but I'm close and everything looks pretty good.

I painted the master bath with satin paint to cover up the flat paint we used originally. I did the same color, "Stallion", so it looks much the same. The flat paint was soaking up water and starting to crack and peel. I ended up sanding the wall and then putting on a coat of white sealer paint and then putting on a coat of satin paint.

I have a bunch of clean-up to do with my paint projects and a lot of general cleaning to do. I need to wash windows and clean up the brush pile in the back. I need to get a temporary cleaning service to help with the cleaning. I put some fresh sand out on the front patio because the rain was starting to undermine the pavers.

I hope to have the house ready to show by the end of August. Home sales are picking up and there are two houses for sale on my block.

I had a good birthday on August 12th. Nothing outstanding but I got some birthday well-widhes and Jill and I went to Yen Ching's for supper. Jill bought me a new bed set. As usual, I watched the Perseid meteor shower and it was one of the best I've seen in maybe 40 years of watching.

I got my new truck - a new white Ford Ranger. Mr. Boots went to pick-up truck heaven when the cash for clunkers program was launched. There was way too much work that needed to be done to keep the old truck operating and even then I'd never get my money back.

I got some news from Rio Rancho this week -- there is an arsonist setting fires up near where where my house lot is -- maybe four blocks away. One of the fires burned 18 acres before it was put out. Not good.

House Update - March 2009

Just got back from a week in Albuquerque. Paul and I drove out and had a great trip -- doing vacation things but also checking out some house things. The building lot is still there and it has been properly surveyed and staked at the corners. We walked around and noted all of the little foot tracks from some kind of little animal...maybe a mouse or kangaroo rat. There is also a substantial burrow from some kind of animal that is bigger than a mouse. It was there last year too so it seems to be an established hideout for something.

We looked at some display homes. The ones we saw that were around 1,500 square feet were too small....you can almost see the whole place from one spot. The 1,600 and 1,700 sq. ft. houses were a little better...not as claustrophobic. These were tract homes offered by mass developers. The house plans are set and you have to take what they offer...no changes.

We went and visited a Stillbrooke model and talked to the agent. They were willing to build on my lot and even use a floor plan that I had rather than one of theirs. The quality of the house would be similar to the tract houses but it would be on my lot. They said the general price would be around $95 per square foot. That was interesting....I'm guessing that that is about the minimum price for something that was live able but not "custom builder" level.

We went and visited the Rachel Matthews model house in Mariposa. They are the developers of my subdivision and Marlene was there. I asked about any developments at Niklas Ridge and there are a few more owners and maybe some houses being built this year. She said they applied for a connection to city water but haven't heard back yet. There was also a chance that the city of Rio Rancho will pave the road and extend water and sewer to a number of areas....including my street. This was going to cost $19,000 per owner but that didn't get any public support so they just passed a $7 million plan for infrastructure improvements that might give me water and sewer service. She also said Rachel Matthews changed their price structure and now builds homes at about $125 per square foot....down from their lowest level of $155 (the Silver level). That seems like it is a manageable price and the homes they build are high quality.

We met with Betty and Max and went over the house plans. We made several changes and talked about things that I wanted and didn't want. We actually ended up making the house a little larger...by about 30 sq. ft. We eliminated the big 'garden' tub from the master bath and added a standard tub in the 2nd bath. We made a 'bump-out' sitting area where the garden tub was and had just one sink instead of a 'his 'n' hers' sink. We also added some space in the garage. The fireplace was moved to the corner of the living room -- which we squared off. Max made the changes and I got a copy of the new plan before we left for home.

I need to look at it a little more and see what Betty thinks on the cost. It depends a little on what I can get for my house when I sell it and how much I owe on the lot. I'm getting it paid down about $1000 each month but still owe $30,000 on it. Actually I don't owe anything on it but it was paid for out of the home equity LOC so it has an impact on what I get for the house.

I'm still happy with my plan...it just is taking a while. Paul liked the builder and designer and thinks they are the best I can go with. The lot is OK and he thinks I'll have neighbors sooner than I think. I think once the water and sewer issue is settled people will start building.

The Color Purple

I started painting the back bedroom. This is my first Mr. Fixit project for the year. The major lesson I've learned so far is always avoid painting a room purple. Jill decided about a year ago that she wanted to paint her bedroom purple with a light lavender color wash over-painted to lighten it up and make it a little antique looking. I was reluctant but said OK so that's what we did. It looked pretty good and she happily settled in...for about three months when she got her own apartment in a really nice duplex (with mostly white walls). That left me with a mostly empty dark purple bedroom. So now I decided to paint it a nice restful green but I needed to use a primer coat of white to try to cover the purple. The primer is supposed to hide the original purple -- but it didn't seem strong enough to do the job. The purple is still there, lurking just under the surface.... It appears to be much lighter....but I know it is just waiting for me to turn my back.

After a couple days of fussing with it I put the green color on and it seems like it did the trick. The purple is gone and the green looks pretty good. The gray carpet in the room tends to limit what you can do but the green goes OK with it.

The next project is painting the 3rd bedroom but I need to take down a wallpaper border and I had so much fun taking off the wallpaper last time, I can hardly wait.