Scenes from our house painting (exterior)

We painted the house this summer, did I mention that? I could swear I wrote a post about it but when I tried to find it, I couldn't.



Anyway, here's a photo of the house in the beginning of the summer:

As you can see, the paint was starting to peel. The sides were in much worse shape, trust me.

Sean and Steve did the majority of the painting and had a little accident we refer to as "the caulking incident." It was the time they caulked the whole front of the house with non-paintable caulk and had to go over the entire thing again with paintable caulk. Yeah, it was awesome.


It's also the reason we ended up painting our house white. Because it was the only color that didn't show the caulking mistake. Because the caulk is clear. Because when we tried to paint over it with green the paint beaded up and ran away. Oops.





Anyway, it turns out we really loved the white. It opens up the whole back yard and we'll add some splashes of color to the door and window trim this Spring. We're also going to get a new fence in the backyard and I will (finally) hang up my window boxes.


Oh, and we're going to paint the cement porch--any color or paint suggestions?

Scenes from our front house painting & caulking "party"

Back in December we spent a weekend getting the upper apartment of the front house ready for new tenants. This included painting the walls and trim of several rooms, scrubbing the bathroom until it couldn't be scrubbed no more, and steam-cleaning the carpet. Oh, and re-caulking the tub.

Our previous tenant lived in the house for 13 years and kept it very clean. Still, after all those years the house needed (needs) some major updates, both cosmetic and structural. Our new tenants were on a tight time line so most of the updates in their apartment were, like I wrote above, of the cosmetic persuasion

Our friend & neighbor Kevin helped us paint on Saturday night. Here he is with Steve in the living room.

We decided to go boring landlord white with the painting but are flexible if our tenants want to paint it another color. Besides Steve, Sara, Sean, and me, we were joined by several generous friends and declared it a "painting party." I guess BEER + PIZZA + [any activity] = PARTY.

My father brought over a steam-vac and helped us clean the carpets. They were stained in certain places and generally very dirty. The above photo is of the living room after the carpets were cleaned and the walls and trim painted. Trust me, it looks so much better. Next time I'll do before and after photos.

My primary job was to clean the bathroom and I got really into it. I scrubbed the walls, the tub, the toilet, and the floor. I put a wax on the floor at the end and then admired its shine from the doorway (me to everyone else: "DO NOT WALK IN THE BATHROOM IT IS DRYING"). With Steve's help, I learned how to use a caulking gun and made the following video of my disappointment:

Rite of Passage: Our pipes burst!

So Saturday morning I woke up around 9:00 and lazed around in bed for awhile, reading a magazine and thinking about what my Saturday would involve. It was the first time in awhile that I'd had a day open and to myself, and the possibilities were endless: shall I go for a walk? Perhaps kick it up a bit and strap on the snowshoes? Maybe I will clean my apartment really, really well and even start in on the disaster that is our back hallway/pantry?

I was planning a mix of getting-stuff-done and having fun but alas, none of it was to be. At 9:30 Sara called to report that her mom (who was visiting at the time) went over to the front house and thought a pipe was leaking. Oh, and the basement was flooded. Like past the first stair.

I jumped out of bed, got dressed, and put on my rain boots. Sara met me outside and we ventured over to the front house to take a gander. Sure enough, the basement was flooded with about a foot and a half of water and as I discovered upon getting a face full of spraying water, a pipe had burst.

What followed was a morning (and afternoon and evening) of trying to get the fire-hose sized sump pump in our basement unfrozen and working, as well as finding a plumber who wouldn't charge us a million bucks. There was also the issue of hot water, as in our tenants didn't have any. And then the waiting around for the plumber to get there.

My Saturday quickly turned from a day of doing what I wanted to a day of dealing with shit. After an hour of a self-imposed pity party and a tough love talk from my boyfriend, I decided that I wasn't going to let the flooded basement and bursting pipe ruin my day entirely and that, well, I'm a grown up and I own a house and shit happens. So I cleaned the kitchen while I waited and I learned a lot (relatively speaking) about the basement of our front house.

Nate the Plumber--and that's actually how he introduces himself--showed up just as the water in the basement was all pumped out and the lights turned back on. It was dark in the basement all day (and flooded with freezing water) so I hadn't been able to see the burst pipe, I just felt it when the water sprayed my face. Not knowing anything about electricity and with our electrician-in-residence at work, I didn't want to play around with the fuse-box and light fixtures while standing in a foot of water. Once the water was out and the lights came on, this is what I saw:

Nate the Plumber went to work thawing out the frozen pipes, cutting and replacing the split pipe (thankfully it was a small part), and solving our drainage problem. He eventually concluded that the waste pipe* in the middle of the house had no access point and therefore no ability to be cleaned. We usually get the main drain pipe in the front yard cleaned of tree roots twice a year but our regular Roto Rooter maintenance didn't do the trick this winter. Nate thought that there must be a clog towards the middle of the house and without the ability to clean it, our basement would keep flooding. So, Nate and his son cut the pipe and installed a Y-shaped pipe for access.

And so far, so good. We had a big melt on Sunday and while that would usually flood the basement, it stayed flood-free. My fingers are crossed, hoping that we've solved our problem for the time being. Or at least until the lining of my rubber boots has time to dry out.

*Steve claims that he's never heard anyone describe this by a name other than "shit stack."

The Winter Of Incessant Basement Flooding

Winter '08/09 will go down as the Winter Of Incessant Basement Flooding. So far the basement in the front house has flooded four times this winter, requiring us to do the following (in no particular order):

• Sump-pump gallons upon gallons of water onto our driveway and into the street during a days-long snowstorm, creating an ice rink at the end of our driveway.
• Bring in the "big guns," i.e. borrow a sump pump with a hose that looks like it could fight fires. See above.
• Inquire about replacing our now-fried electrical board for the brand new furnance for the downstairs apartment.
  
• Have Roto Rooter come out to clear the root-infested drain pipe. Twice.
• Cringe whenever the temperature rises enough for the ice to begin melting and then frantically check the basement for water.

I have to say though that after I (mostly) handled the first flood all by myself, I felt pretty frickin' awesome. Two years ago I would've wanted to lay down in the fetal position and/or call my dad.

Learning how to take care of a home, I've learned, is mostly baptism by fire.

Do not get a mortgage with CitiMortgage

I am, at the moment, on the phone with a representative and I am crying. I cannot tell you how many times I've talked with someone who was going to "clear everything up" only to have the same conversation 2-3 weeks later.

An open letter to my mortgage company

Dear Jerks,

As much as I love wasting hours of my life on hold with your collections and customer service departments, it's getting kinda old. Especially because the error in accounting is entirely yours.

I've made my payments, on time and without exception. In fact, the checks posted weeks ago, a fact I've explained to all four of your employees that have either reached me at home, at work, or on my cell phone. Once I explain everything to your employees, they usually say something helpful like "Oh wow, yeah this is a mistake," or "I don't know what's going on here," and then end by telling me "I'm going transfer you to customer service." Twice their transfers have led me to 35-45 minutes waiting periods, all of which I've ended because my lunch break was up. Twice the collections representative hung up on me when he/she tried to transfer departments.

The woman with whom I spoke this morning--my cherished Sunday morning--was frustrated herself. After a couple minutes of her bullshit customer service lines, she said, "Ok, I'm gonna be real with you, I can't even see my supervisor--I don't know where she is right now." Awesome. Then I got disconnected when she tried to transfer me to customer service.

Awesome.

So no, I won't be making a payment over the phone because I didn't do anything wrong. Your company messed up, your employees have backed up my claim, and next time a collections rep calls me at work, I'm going to refer them to the letter I've slipped in January's payment. It's written for the customer service department and it includes my phone number and the best time to reach me. Until then, leave me alone.

Sincerely,
Whitney

Quick hit

Found this great gallery of decorating ideas via KRISATOMIC: LivingEtc. I'm a big fan of the sections on "Walls," as I have a ridiculous amount of photos to put up. Great ideas.

Roto rooted

Today the Roto Rooter man came and cleared out a bunch of roots inside our sewer line. It was pretty neat, actually, and probably something we'll have to do twice a year as maintenance. According to our tenant, the house has historically needed roto rooting 1-2 times a year.

I did a little research and found the following on invasive roots and how to deal:

• 5 Steps to Dealing with Invasive Tree Roots
  
• Sewer Line Replacement Procedure - This narrative takes it a step further than we needed (fingers crossed) but it's interesting nonetheless.
• Q & A on invasive tree roots with Reader's Digest's Handyman
  

It seems like periodically reaming the pipes is not a bad option. Roto Rooter man also recommended the following: once a month, fill all sinks and tubs in the house with water. At the same time, release the plugs and then a couple seconds later, flush the toilets. He says this should clear out the sewer line fairly well. I'll keep y'all posted.

Any other experiences out there? Has anyone tried the chemical solution (i.e. copper sulfate crystals)? Share in the comments please...

When it rains, it pours

Quite a few crazy things happened in my first week back from vacation: my car was stolen, for one. Before I left for my break, I dropped it off at the mechanic's because the transmission seemed screwy. When I came back and called to inquire about the status of my car, the shop owner discovered that the car was missing. He thought that perhaps some of his guys took it to a "trammy shop" to be scanned; he'd call me in the morning.

Sure enough, the next morning, he called to tell me that the car was gone and the police were on their way. A stolen vehicle report was issued, my insurance company and the mechanic's insurance company set up to squabble, and then last night I picked up a voicemail from the police saying the car had been found.

I'll give some updates when I know more but let me take a minute to gloat about this particular irony: my car was stolen not in my neighborhood in the city but in Amherst, the "safest town in America."

Besides stolen cars, I rang in the weekend with an overflowing toilet and spent Saturday replacing the tiles of the drop ceiling in our tenant's kitchen. I think this is one of the gifts of owning a home though: necessity makes you do things you didn't think you would, or could.

Scenes from my home office

So a couple weekends ago I put together a bookshelf for my office. It's from IKEA so you can either exclaim, "Ooo, I love IKEA--awesome!" or call me a yuppie behind my back. Or if you're Steve and Micaela, to my face.

Anyway, if you've ever put together furniture from IKEA you know that they include wordless instructions and a crapload of wooden pegs, non-screw screws, and a set of allen keys. The instruction packet also features a happy little man who mimes something like, "Call IKEA if you need help!"

What follows is my photographic evidence of the process--from start to stop, frustration to frustration, bruise to ultimate triumph:

Those damn pegs pissed me off, I thought I would die one or two times when they kept popping out. Instead I hit things and swore.


Sadly, my office doesn't look much cleaner than this now...


Can you feel the chaos evaporating from my life? The cube-shapes are crying, "Order! Cleanliness! Success!"


Of course I picked the hottest day of the week to tackle the project. I was sweating a lot and took breaks to rub ice cubes all over my face.


Battle wound: it grew bigger and is now a nice, faded yellow.


Ooo, getting closer.


I own you, bitch: when I finished I sat on top of the bookshelf so that it would know who's the boss.


Yuppie-ville, here I come! Look at those baskets, those file folders, those boxes--so lovely. Seriously, I'm really happy with how this came out and can't wait to get the rest of the office squared away. Onward!

Updates

REHAB WORK. We did our first NACA-funded repairs on our house last week: two new furnaces and one new boiler. The boiler is sparkly and fancy and I think Steve wants to marry it. The company we used, TruTemp, was professional, responsive and especially great given the difficulties of working with NACA’s rehab department, known as HAND. This rehab work is included in our loan package so it’s not something we’re paying out of pocket but rather over the course of a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage—yay! In the next couple weeks, we’ll begin our next major rehab project: a new porch roof on the front house, some new siding on the back of the rear house, and some chimney repair.

DECORATING. The living room continues to shape up as my lovely boss was kind enough to give us her hardly-used poposan chair. So, in one room, we’ve got a formal sofa and a poposan chair. What’s that Van Morrison line, the one that could describe our process of furnishing the house? Oh right--Bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit.

TRANSITION TIMES. I can’t speak for Steve, but I feel that The House is still an appropriate number-one conversation piece—sort of. I’m straddling a line between the newness of owning and moving into our house and the development of some semblance of a routine. My office is still a mess, there remain a couple boxes in the hallway, and I’ve got a list a mile long of all the shit we still need to do, buy, or fix but our kitchen has come together and we cook in it every day. I’ve begun writing again instead of just thinking about writing, and I know Steve is working on some music projects. So clearly, we’re getting used to our respective new lives in our new house.

PRESENTS. Growing up, we had lilacs and I always made “perfume” from them in the spring with my friend Kelly. Our perfume consisted of mashed lilacs, some water, and a couple drops of lilac-scented perfume that Kelly already owned. We sold it in Dixie cups door-to-door using a red wagon—seriously, we were that cute. Anyway, the lilac bush was destroyed in the October storm so you can imagine my delight when last week, I discovered that the massive bush between our yard and our neighbors was actually full of lilacs, on the cusp of blooming. Sometimes I feel like our house came with presents—like lilac bushes and door stoppers and pretty cupboards.

Yay! Water in the basement! Yay!

So Buffalo was somehow miraculously saved from that bad Nor'easter that put New Jersey and West Virginia into states of emergency. We got a little bit of freezing rain, and lots of complaints from people who thought spring had sprung and packed away their winter clothes accordingly (this includes me).

Around 8:00 last night, I picked up a voicemail message from our tenant informing us that the basement in her house was flooded. Given that I was at a meeting, I let Steve handled the first shock of going over there and hurried home.

About two inches of water covered the basement floor, which wasn't so bad considering other times when apparently four feet of water was hanging out, sometimes with sewage (Oh seller's real estate agent, why did you not tell us?). When I got there, Steve was already at the store getting whatever we needed to fix the problem--he came back with a sump pump.

In a painless 10 minutes or less, the sump pump was set up and pumping and we were back home chugging wine* and eating two boxes of macaroni and cheese. And I did my taxes.

I think some part of the flood seemed novel, one of our first potential disasters. Like: Yay! Let's sump pump this mother! Yay, we did it! Yay! Wine!

Questions is though, when does the novelty wear off?

*"chugging" is the appropriate term

Scenes from our closing day

At 9 a.m. yesterday we had our final walk through of both houses. I don't know about Steve but I was definitely resisting the urge to run around from room to room and say, "Do you think "Aqua Bay" works in here? The light is great!" and other stuff that would probably bore our Super-Agent Wendy. So, we maintained our cool while she was there, only showing hints of our excitement, like when Steve got to lock the door himself (above).


We then posed for multiple pictures in front of our house, blocking out the HUNT Real Estate sign when Wendy took the official Realty USA photograph. Check out the stained glass window behind my head--pretty awesome. Wendy said she'll send a postcard with our photo to our new neighbors. No doubt they'll think, "Who is that 12-year old girl and her awkward dad?"


Presents! Wendy opens the gift we got her while Steve holds the basket she gave us. Fresh fruit, bottle of wine, and small Lindor truffles--yum. We gave Wendy a certificate for a nice dinner at nearby Left Bank.


After Super-agent Wendy left, Steve and I went back into our house and did some measuring. I promptly did the "we're alone I can dance silly if I want" dance. This was the first time we could go in the house without a realtor or home inspector.


Around lunch time we picked up some loot from the hardware store for this weekend's awesome painting party: rollers, brushes, and paint trays. The clerk at the store gave us some very informative information about paint supplies, including the new Teflon rollers. Just ready for a post on painting supplies.


We also picked up a broom and a mop. Steve told me about these Mr. Clean "magic sponges" that release a chemical so awful and effective that his parents decided not to repaint a wall after wiping it down with the magic sponge. They didn't have any, we'll continue looking. I should note now though that I completely plan on having a wash-windows-with-vinegar-and-water house, free of most chemical cleaners. I just want the heavy duty stuff for an initial cleaning.


At 2:30 we went over to the NACA office and met our lawyer, Dena, in person for the first time. She was great, a total hustler. Steve and I learned much from Dena in the two hours we had with her, including "CYA: Cover Your Ass," and the names of Italian cookies (below). Whenever we feel like wusses on the phone with contractors or banks, we're going to channel Dena and kick ass.

I also signed my name twice on one document. Once above my name and once above Steve's. I thought Dena might kill me but she just called me an ass. We love her!


We also bought a tray of Italian cookies from Romeo & Juliet's for the folks at NACA and totally ate some while we signed our 360 pages of documents.


We finished up our closing around 4:45 p.m., hands tired from signing, and hauled ass to the paint store. As you can tell from Stephen's joyful expression, closing wasn't all that stressful itself. It was the before-work and the running list of after-work that makes us tired, tired people.

As the last piece of paper was signed, Dena said, "Congratulations, you're now in debt!" Yay!

Note to self

Do not listen to Talk of the Nation program on the current "meltdown in the mortgage industry" and "fall out of homeowners" the day before you close on your first house.

the fine art of harassment

a while ago i blogged a bit about my strategy of handling issues as being crazy and calling people an endless number of times and just being really intense about the whole process. now i'm pretty sure that's actually the way you're supposed to do it.

so far i've noticed that with every contractor or NACA person i really have to be insistant to get any kind of legitimate information or action. with many contractors i've found that several follow up calls were necessary to actually get an estimate done (i guess business is booming in buffalo). Thats a difficult call to make, "did you get a chance to look at the house?" "no" "really, I put you in touch with my real estate agent last week and you told her it would be done last tuesday." I don't say that, but I want to scream it. To me this practice seemed really shady. If they had told me that they weren't going to get to it until next week, i probably would have called someone else.

I've found the same situation with the paperwork people are quick to give us positive, "yep! you're done!" answers when we've really only completed a minor task in the great paper rodeo that is buying a house and securing a mortgage/rehab loan through the Neighborhood Assistance Coorparation of America. I understand contractors fudging their schedules because they are very busy and they don't want to lose the work, but I can't understand folks not saying that we've completed another of the many tasks we need to complete to buy a home. Are people that eager to please?

I've developed a strategy of calling everybody on my list a couple times a week to see where things stand. Sure, the helpful folks at the switchboard sound a little meaner every time I call, but I get my questions answered and things seem to move forward faster. Does anyone know a way to do this without being a jerk? other than being educated?

"You've just complicated my life so much more"

While we wait for the next surprise, my friend Kevin has made my life much more complicated. On Wednesday night, he gave me a book of paint swatches:

The book is so much fun to play with as it makes a natural fan for which I cool myself down during the oncoming panic attacks!

Anyway, I just want someone else to choose paint colors at this point.

An Open Letter to New Era Heating & Cooling Inc.

You probably don't know who I am. My friend Steve has been contacting your staff for the most part, working hard to get you into the home we do not yet own so that you can estimate the cost of work we need done.

Steve tells me that you were something of a pain in the ass, New Era. You rarely returned calls, you were often disorganized, and occasionally you were not nice. But we decided to go with you because your estimate seemed fair and, truth be told, we hadn't heard anything bad about you. Excited that we had finally picked a contractor for this job, Steve and I virtually high-fived over the phone.

Yes, New Era Heating & Cooling Inc, we needed you. And because we were about to throw several thousand dollars your way, I thought you needed us too.

But, as you abruptly told us late last week, you "don't do HUD." My brain was moving a little slow that afternoon so it took me a minute to understand what that meant: you don't wait around for payment from people on programs. All that extra paper work is too much. Fair enough, I guess. I can understand how annoying that could be from your perspective.

One thing though, New Era. When we explained to your staff numerous times that we were using the NACA program, why didn't they tell us then that you "don't do HUD?" Why come out to our house? Why make us bug the shit out of you for two weeks straight? Why waste time?

I guess you just wanted to take us for a ride. And it's our fault for assuming that something lasting could come out of this brief encounter. Maybe next time we'll ask more questions.

Best of luck,
Whitney

We bought this yesterday...

After pricing washers and dryers at Home Depot, Lowe's, and Orville's for a couple weeks, we found an amazing deal at the latter establishment yesterday afternoon. Front loading washer and dryer, 18-month interest-free financing, uses nine gallons of water per washing load compared to the usual forty. We basically got the dryer for free--Orville's rocks. All in all, pretty psyched about this purchase.

Also, I can't believe I'm grown up enough to be "psyched" about this purchase.

Did you know we can do 16 pairs of jeans in this washer or 22 full-size towels or even a king-size comforter? Yeah well, we can.

The waiting game

"Roofers wide view" originally uploaded by amiev

Because we're going through NACA, we've got to get estimates done on all the repair work included in our loan application before we can close on the house. As our NACA counselor told us, the bank isn't going to give you a blank check. Fair enough.

So far our strategy has been divide and conquer: Steve is responsible for getting the furnace estimates and I'm handling the roofers. We're tag teaming the home insurance quotes and it's going okay. Actually, it's sometimes a huge pain the ass. And Steve has some telling commentary.

It's sort of difficult at this point to know what to do. Will I regret in three weeks that I didn't start packing up all my shit last weekend? Or should I wait and take care of it when we have a better sense of our closing date? Is it too early to decide on paint colors or to buy furniture?

It feels like Steve and I are waiting to be shoved in the next direction, and I guess it's kind of been like that throughout the whole process. For instance, we got into a routine while looking at houses--ho hum, la-di-la--and BAM! We found the house. Suddenly we were putting an offer on the house, signing our name to a billion sheets of paper, and writing $500 checks for home inspections.

And it's not that I'm necessarily feeling a lull right now (hey, those estimates don't come from thin air), but I do believe we're doing more waiting than we are doing more doing. There's a giant list in my head--and in emails between me and Steve--of all the shit that needs to get done once we get the keys. But now, we wait? Have heart attacks?

Le sigh.

If I had a superpower right now, it would be the ability to check in with the Future Whitney and see what preparation she thinks would've been helpful. Or maybe I'll just call Steve.

I can see how this could kill you

Whitters and I continue on our quest to get quotes from various contractors to replace our furnaces and what not. this process is fairly intense and our strategies for dealing with tasks are in conflict. My strategy is to have heart attack about everything all the time, send Whitney a list of tasks, make lists for myself, lose them, and then call Whitney to remind her of the tasks she might have forgotten since the last time I contacted her. Whitney's strategy is to simply do her best and have faith that everything will come out in the wash. Obviously everything will come out in the wash, but I still need constant reassurance that all tasks are being handled. (I guess my idea of acting like a grown up is ridiculously anal retentive.)

Although I recognize that I'm being crazy, I still feel jilted when I don't get the assurances I need. With the space of being friends its pretty easy to just accept that everything is getting handled and we're buying a house and its gonna go and I should just relax. If I were buying a house with my ladyfriend I think I'd be up late having long conversations about how she didn't understand that I was upset, and that she need to be more responsive to my feelings. I would start putting all the stress of buying a house on our relationship. I would start to view every miscommunication as another sign of our inability to communicate, or worse yet, an attempt to hurt my feelings. Granted, I am a stupid person, but I think that a lot of couples take stressful times as a sign that their relationship is a failure. Watch someone plan a wedding sometime. There are definitely some lessons to be learned here.

I'm pretty sure this is more fun with a friend.
(It'd be more fun with more money too)