By the way, I have to give Spanky credit for coming up with the name LAN Castle™.

On a side note, we got a chance to see an earlier listing for this house from when it sold in November of 2004.  Only three years ago, this house listed for $105,900 and sold for $104,2000.  We're paying about half of that.

There's your economic bubble, folks!

-b0b
(...is glad he wasn't buying a house three years ago.)

The house is on North Lincoln Avenue in Three Rivers.  If you're driving from downtown Three Rivers toward US 131, Lincoln is near the Elks club, two streets north of the BP gas station.  If you turn right (North) onto North Lincoln, it's the third house on the left.

The neighborhood seems pretty nice.  The other houses seem well maintained and I've not noticed any undesirable traffic in the area.  At the very least, it's no worse than where we're at now.

-b0b
(...hates living in an apartment.)

Ooo you're moving closer to me.  There was a house in my "'hood" that was up for sale...the guy who owns it makes his kids do chores maintaining it everyday.  It's pretty nice.

X

You're too good to your "children"

X

I can't tell you guys how incredibly aggravating it is to try to buy a house.  Make sure you stack up on Xanax before you start searching for houses!

Here's some of the crap I've had to deal with this week:

1)  The seller agreed to pay up to $3,600 in closing costs for us as part of our bid to buy the house.  Today, I found out that we can only accept 3% of the sale price in concessions, or $1,725, by law.  That means we have to come up with another $1,841.98 at closing!  SUXOR!

2)  Termites have been found on the property.  They haven't gotten into any sensitive structural areas, but we will need to pay someone to remove the termites before they can do any damage.  That's another $1,100.  SUXOR!

3)  When we asked for our pre-approval letter, we asked the bank to certify that we could get $57,000 in funds.  Once we make our down payment, the mortgage will only be for $54,625, well below the $57,000 threshold specified in the letter.  For some reason, the seller wants the letter to cover the entire purchase price of $57,500, so we had to jump through a ton of hoops to get a new pre-approval letter for and additional $500.  WHAT THE @$#%?!

4)  To get an appraisal done by the bank, I have to give them a copy of a homeowner's insurance policy for the property.  To get the insurance policy, I need to give the insurance company the closing date.  To get a closing date, I need an appraisal...  CYCLIC REDUNDANCY CHECK FAILURE - DOES NOT COMPUTE!

All told, I've probably spent four hours on the phone this week, two hours in the realtor's office, and another three hours at the bank.  SUXOR.

Pray for me, I need it!

-b0b
(...is frustrated!)

Well the truth is I don't...but it was a key part of the joke.

Do what JD did in "Scrubs" just build the porch while you wait.

You could do what my boss did and buy 80 acres of undeveloped real estate in Nevada for $200 an acre!  Heck, even I could afford that!

Of course, the nearest electric line is 5 miles away, and it costs about $50,000/mile to add to it.  Have fun with that.

I'd love to build my own house to spec some day, but it will be a loooong time before I can stomach the cost of building a new house.  I guess I see it as being similar to buying a new car.  Why pay the premium for a new house when I can buy a "used" house for less than half the cost?

For the record, the house Mere and I are buying is going to be insured for $150,000.  That's the replacement cost of building a similar structure on the same lot if the existing house burns to the ground.  In short, we're paying 38% of the cost of a new house.  Sure, new houses have lots of amenities and are built to your specifications, but they also cost 2.5x as much as a used house in good shape.

-b0b
(...thinks land in Nevada is a great long-term investment.)

Hey, speaking of new lan digs, are you moved in yet??

Hey, bob, if you need help moving and/or fixing up the place at all, get in touch with me and I'd be happy to lend a few hands and feet.

X

Yeah if you need help just let me know.  I will come over and stand around and supervise.

Somebody's got to do it.

-b0b
(...that's what the MBA is for.)

Did...did you just call a stove sexy?

Hand in your man card!

That is one domestic god of an appliance. You'll be getting some good lovin' from that oven =)

/haven't baked cookies in a while...may have to remedy that

It only counts if it's a dedicated Cancel button.  No multifunction switches!

-b0b
(...points out that his toaster even has LED's, which need to be modded.)

I guarantee I'll mod my toaster the minute Briney finishes BFE.

-b0b
(...thinks that could be awhile.)

Yeah, Briney organizes his files about as often as Wes's Mom bathes, which is to say... never.

Meredith and I finally closed on the house yesterday, and we've got writer's cramp from signing so freakin' many documents.  It was absolutely crazy.

We've already started the monumental task of cleaning the house.  We need to clean and paint virtually every wall, replace nearly every light fixture, and steam-clean every carpet about six times.  There isn't a wall, ceiling, floor, or surface that doesn't need to be scrubbed.  Blech!

We've already started taking our "before" pictures, so I'll get some posted later tonight if I get a chance.

-b0b
(...makes no promises!)

There is no possible way we can have a LAN tomorrow.  The refrigerator won't arrive until sometime next week, so we'd have no place to chill the Dew/Jolt/Bawls/Red Bull.

No Dew, no LAN!

-b0b
(...mmm, Dew!)

It's been a couple of years since I've seen it, but you can still find it occasionally at random gas stations.

-b0b
(...also notes that Spencer's used to sell it back in the day.)

Since Corey used one of his bimonthly posts on that submission (0.02 per day!), you know it must be true!

Mere and I only had a few hours to work on the house this weekend, but we managed to get quite a bit done.  We've torn down all of the incredibly ugly window dressings, moved and installed the stove (thanks Spanky!), replaced the door knobs/locks, and done a fair amount of cleaning.  Honestly, house work isn't that bad when its your own house!

I've also started replacing the light switches and electrical outlets throughout the house.  The light switches have integrated dimmers that I really like, and all of the electrical outlets are surge-protected.  They're a bit of a pain in the butt to install, but built-in surge protectors is simply a geekly must-have. 

So far, I've replaced two light switches and one receptacle and only managed to zap myself once.  How's that for a track record?  I only have ~20 more light switches and ~25 more receptacles to go, which is 15 more zaps if my current rate holds steady.

Of course, I've found a couple of issues that I'm not sure how to correct.  Some of the outlets in the living room are from 1924(-ish) and have only two prongs.  Since they don't have a ground, I'll have to pull a grounding wire to them from the basement.  That will be practically impossible since the basement has a drywall ceiling, preventing me from fishing a ground wire up the wall from downstairs.

Meredith has all the pictures on her camera and she's been stuck at her mother's house dog-sitting for most of the weekend, so I'll try to get some pictures posted tomorrow night.

-b0b
(...just realized he posts 236 times more often than Corey.)

So do you still plan on moving in on Friday?

X

Picture Time!

Meredith and I have been busting our butts all week trying to get the house into livable condition.  By far, our biggest project has been the master bathroom on the ground level.  The bathroom had the ugliest, dirtiest wallpaper you've ever seen.  In addition, the carpet was completely ruined (which is why you never put carpet in a bathroom in the first place).  Both need to be removed before we can paint and put down new vinyl flooring.

Here's the butt-ugly wallpaper before we got started.


As you can see, the wallpaper was absolutely hideous.  This "nook" is for the washer and dryer hookups.  You can see how badly the carpet and wall was damaged by years of abuse.


Removing the wallpaper is a two-step process.  First, I had to tear down all of the wallpaper by hand, one piece at a time.  It took about four hours to get this first part done.


Once all of the wallpaper was down, we moved on to phase two.  We borrowed a steamer and started removing the nasty glue/paper combo that was left behind when the wallpaper was removed.  If you look closely in this picture, you'll see the seam on the wall where the old wallpaper used to be.  We've spent a combined four hours on this so far, and probably have another 6-10 to go.  SUXOR.

After the glue/paper remnants are removed, we'll have to scrub the walls to remove any remaining debris.  Then, the walls will be primed at least once with Kilz, and then painted.  After the paint is dry, we'll pull up the old carpet, clean and prime the old wood floor beneath it,  remove the toilet, and start laying vinyl tile.  That should be interesting...

-b0b
(...has never pulled a toilet or laid a floor before.)

Quote:


Well there is always the dryer, the fridge, and the AC unit to go...


Keep us updated with pics!

You mean you're going to take down that creepy wallpaper?!  Might I suggest this "color" scheme to improve....

My other big project this weekend was installing a new toilet in the second bathroom upstairs to replace the existing one which was cracked beyond repair.  I've never installed a toilet before, so this was a bit of a daunting project.  I didn't feel like paying a plumber a bajillion dollars to install it for me, though, so I plunged in head first (not literally, of course!) and decided to do it myself.

First rule of toilet replacing:  Get a friend!  I replaced it by myself and nearly killed myself in the process.  You have no idea how heavy an old porcelain toilet is until you try to manhandle it down a flight of stairs and around the house by yourself.

Second rule of toilet replacing:  Wear clothes you can burn.  The "S" shaped pipe on the back of a toilet (or beneath a faucet) is designed to hold about 15 ounces of water in it.  This water plugs up the pipe to prevent sewer gases from coming back up through the toilet.  This water gets really nasty after stagnating in an empty house for two years, and you will get it all over yourself when you pull the toilet off the floor.  I can't describe how incredibly atrocious it smells.  Who wants a hug?

Once I got the old toilet up from the floor, I found out why it was cracked.  Around the sewer pipe, a metal device called a "closet ring" screws onto the floor and holds the toilet to the ground.  That's what the toilet bolts onto to keep it from moving when you sit down.  The closet ring in the bathroom was an old old old cast iron thingamajig that was rusted beyond belief.  One of the bolts that held the toilet in place had ripped through the closet ring in a rather unbelievable fashion, leading to the cracked porcelain when the toilet shifted.

You can buy new closet rings at Home Depot for $8.00, so that's not a problem, right?  WRONG.  Modern closet rings just screw into the floor around the sewer pipe, but this old bastard was welded directly onto the pipe.  Short of a cutting torch and a jackhammer, this thing wasn't moving for anything.  That was a dilemma.  After making two more trips to Home Depot for rust penetrating spray and a "Super Ring," I finally managed to find a workable solution. 

The Super Ring was apparently made just for this kind of situation.  It sits on top of the old ring and has "ears" with screw holes that extend past the old ring.  You can then screw the thing into the floor around the old ring and bolt the toilet onto it.

Finally, I was ready to install the toilet.  We bought an "all in one" toilet kit that had the bowl, tank, plumbing, wax ring, and everything else all in one box.  That's very handy, but it's also incredibly heavy.  I fought for five minutes getting that damned box upstairs, but I finally won!  I ripped open the box, excited about getting to the installation, only to find... a broken toilet.

Much swearing ensued.

I made my 57th run to Home Depot for the day, let the cashier know of my displeasure, and picked up a new toilet.  In case there was any doubt, I checked over every single piece of the kit before I even took it off the shelf.  Once I got it home and lugged it upstairs, it installed fairly easily.  Just make sure you follow the directions carefully and plan each step, because there are a couple tasks you only get one chance to pull off!

-b0b
(.../boring.)

Here are some of those pictures I promised!


This is the old toilet that needed to be replaced.  I think it was taunting me in this picture.



The porcelain at the bottom of the toilet is cracked into two pieces.  Since this is the part of the toilet that seals to the floor, it's would leak all over the place if the water was turned on.



Jump ahead twenty minutes, and I've pulled the toilet off and removed it from the bathroom.  Now, all of the wax from the massive wax ring has to be scraped off the floor around the open sewer pipe.  Lovely.


I apparently didn't take any more pictures of the toilet installation process, but it was kinda boring.  Suffice it to say that after much yelling and frustration, I got the new toilet installed and it seems to work fine.



Once the bathroom and master bedroom were painted, we started prepping the living room.  This included tearing down the nastiest wallpaper border you've ever seen.



After all of the nails were and screws were removed, I spackled all of the holes and cracks in the walls all around the house.  I bet I spackled at least 75 nail holes throughout the four rooms we painted.  Every wall must've had twelve different things hanging on it at one point!  Once the spackle dried, I went back through and sanded it back down to match the rest of the wall.



Here's Meredith in the home stretch.  She was removing one of the last pieces of glue paper in the entire house.  Once the wall paper came down, this glue paper had to be removed inch-by-inch with a steamer.  It sucked harder than Wes's Mom.



Once the wallpaper paste was down, we put up painters tape all over the house.  We went through six rolls of tape, at about 125' each.  Then, we started with the paint.  The bedroom, living room, and office only needed one coat of paint with some limited touch-up work after it dried.



Every inch of floor space was covered with drop cloth.  Meredith painted around the windows, doors, and trim by hand and I came through afterward with the roller.



A couple of electrical receptacles in the living room were absolutely ancient and had been painted over so many times that I couldn't get them unscrewed from the wall.  A hammer fixed that.



One of the last "clean up" tasks in the bathroom was to replace all of the light switches with dimmers and all of the power outlets with GFCI and TVSS-protected receptacles.  This is a "before" picture of the light switch panel on one side of the bathroom.


The first switch has been replaced.  These switches have a small slider on the right side of the switch that allows power levels to be dimmed progressively, just like a round dimmer switch.  Very handy at 2:00am when you need to go to the bathroom but don't want to blind yourself.



All of the receptacles in the bathroom were also replaced with surge-protected outlets.  This is the old receptacle hanging out of the wall before being disconnected.



Here's the new surge-protected receptacle after being mounted and plated.  It even has a bright green LED to let you know the surge protection is working.  Eventually, the entire house will have these new receptacles, so everything will be surge-protected without needing a power strip.


Meredith has the day off, and she's finishing up the paint job in the office.  The crazy-looking dolls I posted earlier have already been removed.

Once I get out of work, we have to finish up the paint touch-ups, vacuum and steam clean all of the carpets in the entire house, mop all of the linoleum floors with bleach, clean all of the counter tops, seal up the fire place, and get everything ready for move in.

Then, we have to go home and get all of the furniture ready to be moved by 8:00am tomorrow.  That's going to be a frickin' riot, let me tell you...

-b0b
(...pray for us!)