So the new light fixtures are all installed in the living/dining room and the front entry way! Thanks Dad for getting me such practical Christmas gifs!! All went well in the installation, first time I have ever installed electrical stuff! According to my Home Depot Home Maintanence book, it should have taken a novice 8 hours to hang the chandelier, took me about 3! According to the book, that makes me HANDY!! Whoo Hoo! Hardest part was probably putting together the fixture, especially weaving the wire through the chain and then bending the chain links to hook them on to the ends. At one point someone who lived in this house prior to me placed the dining room fixture in the most ridiculous place, there is no way the dining room table could be under it. To solve that I didn't put in a new electrical box deal, I just swagged the light fixture over! Shazzam! The other fixtures were very easy and took about 2 hours for all three. I thought the entry could have been tricky, but it wasn't. Except now my out door light doesn't work! Going to have to figure that one out. Also switched out some of the old dirty light switches, gold dimmer switches and such, now nice new white swithes and plates on the whole main floor. That was very easy! I only shocked myself once all day! Success!
Monday, January 19, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Cold Cold and more Cold!
Actual air temp this morning when I woke up at 7AM, -42 below!! I needed a half hour to motivate and get out of bed, by the time I walked to work it was only -38! Luckily, I remembered to let my upstairs faucets drip so my pipes didn't freeze. I am going to add a pic of the pipes and the spot they freeze for advise on what to do, plumbers were not helpful!
This day did have one bright spot though, my bulk shipment of Corner Pizza's arrived. Best frozen pizza ever. My freezer is kind of full, luckily my back entry and garage are below freezing!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Purchasing, PT II
Who carpets a kitchen - Gross 
Yep, that is velvet wall paper, the carpet color was Spring Lawn
The front the day I closed - awesome drapes!
Going in for the first time, accompanied by my mom, my dog and the nosy neighbor guy, who is super nice and helpful!
So I made an offer on the house I didn't want to see! I was excited but nervous, what was I getting myself into. It took about a month and 1/2 to close on the house, due to the house having been a rental and giving the renter time to move out. I struggled with this because the renter was an elderly women whose husband was in the nursing home, they had rented the home for 20 years!! During the time of the offer I made sure to ask plenty of questions about my loan, since I bought the house for much less then I had been approved for a I qualifed for a program that allowed me to skip paying mortgage insurance and had a lower interest rate, huge money savings! I bought the house for $59,500, recieved a home warrenty, $2,000 allowance for repairs and had the owner re-roof the garage. Not a bad deal I must say!
The last weekend of September I moved out of my tiny one bedroom apt, put my furniture in storage and moved in with a friend, it is where I would stay for the next month until I deemed my new house liveable. Here are some photos of the house, the day I closed, October 1st 2007!
Purchasing my first home
Back in 2006 I realized that I had the means to purchase my own home and decided that before I turned 28 I wanted to be a homeowner. I spent the remainder of 2006 getting my finances in order, improving my credit score (kind of wrecked it while in colllege), and saving as much as I could. I also researched financing options and spent countless hours on the multi-listing site in my city watching to see what was available in my price range. Immediatly I knew that if I wanted to be able to afford a house, it would have to be a a fixer-upper, wasn't going to be my dream home this time around!
In July of 2007 I finally felt ready to apply for a loan and begin the search for a home. I really felt it was important to be pre-approved by my bank prior to my search so that I knew what I could spend going in and had better leverage when making an offer. July was an incredibly stressful month, cause it took nearly a month to be approved for a mortgage. Remember I mentioned my destroyed credit score, to go along with that I also have a mountain of student loan debt, none of which was in default, but still I had alot of debt out there. Finally, after providing the bank with every sort of possible documentation, I was approved for a $70,000 mortgage!!! The loan would be through South Dakota's First Time Homebuyers Program and included a grant that would help cover closing costs or a down payment.
On an extremely hot day in August with the assistance of my realitor and the advice of my father I began my search. L, my realitor, had seven homes for me to take a look at, six of which I was interested in and one that I agreed to see, but was pretty sure I didn't want. The first house I looked at was beautiful, cherry cabinets, granite countertops, laminate floors, every thing was new, but the house was TINY!! We are talking only about 600sq ft, 1 bedroom, 1 bath. No dining room, no guest room, nothing. Price if I remember right was $69,000. The next house was decent, on a busy street, needed cosmetic work and then came the basement, the walls were caving it. This was a problem I was going to have to be watching for. The previous spring my city flooded and a lot of homes now had foundation troubles! The next several houses were no's, they all had so many issues with foundations or they were just not usable spaces. Last house of the day was the house I didn't want to see, I was pretty disheartened, thinking I would never find anything I could afford that was in decent shape. The house we pulled up to was ugly on the outside, but in a decent neighborhood. The first thing I remember about going inside was the smell, lots of smoke, dirt and old people smells. The house was dark, crammed full of stuff and filthy dirty. It was hard to even tell what you were looking at. But my dad and L thought the house "had good bones". Part of the foundation had been replaced seven years earlier, it had a new roof, a garage and the basement was partially finished. I just needed to get past the cosmetic issues!
I said I would think about it. A week later I brought my mom and then boyfriend to take a look at the house. The boyfriend was no help, he thought I should tear the roof off and add on, my mom thought the house was doable and said she would help me work on it (thats yet to happen!). I thought about it for another week and near the end of August I put in an offer.
In July of 2007 I finally felt ready to apply for a loan and begin the search for a home. I really felt it was important to be pre-approved by my bank prior to my search so that I knew what I could spend going in and had better leverage when making an offer. July was an incredibly stressful month, cause it took nearly a month to be approved for a mortgage. Remember I mentioned my destroyed credit score, to go along with that I also have a mountain of student loan debt, none of which was in default, but still I had alot of debt out there. Finally, after providing the bank with every sort of possible documentation, I was approved for a $70,000 mortgage!!! The loan would be through South Dakota's First Time Homebuyers Program and included a grant that would help cover closing costs or a down payment.
On an extremely hot day in August with the assistance of my realitor and the advice of my father I began my search. L, my realitor, had seven homes for me to take a look at, six of which I was interested in and one that I agreed to see, but was pretty sure I didn't want. The first house I looked at was beautiful, cherry cabinets, granite countertops, laminate floors, every thing was new, but the house was TINY!! We are talking only about 600sq ft, 1 bedroom, 1 bath. No dining room, no guest room, nothing. Price if I remember right was $69,000. The next house was decent, on a busy street, needed cosmetic work and then came the basement, the walls were caving it. This was a problem I was going to have to be watching for. The previous spring my city flooded and a lot of homes now had foundation troubles! The next several houses were no's, they all had so many issues with foundations or they were just not usable spaces. Last house of the day was the house I didn't want to see, I was pretty disheartened, thinking I would never find anything I could afford that was in decent shape. The house we pulled up to was ugly on the outside, but in a decent neighborhood. The first thing I remember about going inside was the smell, lots of smoke, dirt and old people smells. The house was dark, crammed full of stuff and filthy dirty. It was hard to even tell what you were looking at. But my dad and L thought the house "had good bones". Part of the foundation had been replaced seven years earlier, it had a new roof, a garage and the basement was partially finished. I just needed to get past the cosmetic issues!
I said I would think about it. A week later I brought my mom and then boyfriend to take a look at the house. The boyfriend was no help, he thought I should tear the roof off and add on, my mom thought the house was doable and said she would help me work on it (thats yet to happen!). I thought about it for another week and near the end of August I put in an offer.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Shoveling, Frozen Pipes and Dead Mice, OH MY!
The big Blizzard did hit, just like predicted. The man friend did make it to visit, yeah, so we were stormed in together on Sunday! So nice, we snuggled, took naps, watched Elf and made Baked Potato Soup together, from scratch, YUM!! The whole weekend was really great, I had NG Drill on Friday and came home to find the man friend sleeping on my couch, had drill again Saturday morning and assisted in delivering mattresses to those in need, which was cool, except for the house that smelled so bad I almost vomited! Saturday afternoon we went grocery shopping, and bummed around town a little while the weather was still decent. That evening I made delicious mashed potatoes while the man friend made steaks that were also awesome!
After a blissful weekend, Monday morning was a real shocker. The man friend was up early, pacing and nervous about his drive home, he was probably hopped up on caffeine cause he drank twelve cups of coffee! I groggily started preparing to go to work, and was very disappointed I wasn't getting a snow day. Actual air temp out side was -22 and with the wind chill it felt more like -42, yuck. After my shower (only shower in my house is in the basement) I went up stairs to brush my teeth and all that good stuff in the other bathroom, however no water came out of the faucets! FROZEN PIPES!!! Not a good way to start the week! So I called a plumber and they came in about and hour and by 10am I was good to go again! So the man friend gave me a ride to work so I wouldn't have to walk the 3 blocks to my office and he took off for home.
All day I dreaded going home cause I knew that massive amounts of shoveling awaited me. So at 5:30pm I bundled in many many layers since it was about -13 degrees and began digging out. An hour and half later I had most everything done and ran to Wal-mart to pick up some pipe insulaters and other goodies. Arriving home I was beat, starving and to lazy to cook anything so I laid on the couch for a while and rested. Around 8pm I ventured into the basement to check the pipes and pick up the pieces of the false ceiling the plumbers had removed when I suddenly stepped on something hard and crunchy. I looked down and saw a little mummified mouse carcass! I started screaming like crazy, the dog and cat looked at me like I was nuts. I screamed and jumped around that carcass and finally took off for up stairs! Just as I reached the top of the stairs my back door opened and my neighbor lady burst in, scared me so I screamed more! Turns out she had been outside feeding the neighbors dog and heard me screaming so came over to check on me! I was a little embarrassed!! After I calmed down I returned to the basement, picked up the little mouse mummy and threw it outside! I am guessing it had been up in the ceiling and fell out when the plumbers were over! Yuck, I have never ever even seen evidence of mice in my house, I was creeped out all night!
I have plans to head to the man friends next weekend for his Christmas Party, and wouldn't you know, they are forecasting more bad weather, got to love winter!
After a blissful weekend, Monday morning was a real shocker. The man friend was up early, pacing and nervous about his drive home, he was probably hopped up on caffeine cause he drank twelve cups of coffee! I groggily started preparing to go to work, and was very disappointed I wasn't getting a snow day. Actual air temp out side was -22 and with the wind chill it felt more like -42, yuck. After my shower (only shower in my house is in the basement) I went up stairs to brush my teeth and all that good stuff in the other bathroom, however no water came out of the faucets! FROZEN PIPES!!! Not a good way to start the week! So I called a plumber and they came in about and hour and by 10am I was good to go again! So the man friend gave me a ride to work so I wouldn't have to walk the 3 blocks to my office and he took off for home.
All day I dreaded going home cause I knew that massive amounts of shoveling awaited me. So at 5:30pm I bundled in many many layers since it was about -13 degrees and began digging out. An hour and half later I had most everything done and ran to Wal-mart to pick up some pipe insulaters and other goodies. Arriving home I was beat, starving and to lazy to cook anything so I laid on the couch for a while and rested. Around 8pm I ventured into the basement to check the pipes and pick up the pieces of the false ceiling the plumbers had removed when I suddenly stepped on something hard and crunchy. I looked down and saw a little mummified mouse carcass! I started screaming like crazy, the dog and cat looked at me like I was nuts. I screamed and jumped around that carcass and finally took off for up stairs! Just as I reached the top of the stairs my back door opened and my neighbor lady burst in, scared me so I screamed more! Turns out she had been outside feeding the neighbors dog and heard me screaming so came over to check on me! I was a little embarrassed!! After I calmed down I returned to the basement, picked up the little mouse mummy and threw it outside! I am guessing it had been up in the ceiling and fell out when the plumbers were over! Yuck, I have never ever even seen evidence of mice in my house, I was creeped out all night!
I have plans to head to the man friends next weekend for his Christmas Party, and wouldn't you know, they are forecasting more bad weather, got to love winter!
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