Package the second

Shall we go back to opening my mail? Yes, yes we shall. To go along with my beautiful sink I bought it some bling. My sink that has been taken from me. My sad sad lonely sink sitting in a box somewhere not being loved.

Did you guess that it was a faucet? I'm actually really unsure about this little beauty. I love it's curves and the way she feels in my hand. I love all the things I've heard about her. But just dry fitting it into a sink on my floor hopefully doesn't do it justice.

It has a pull down sprayer with a button on the back of the spray head that switches it from the normal output to a more spread out spray. I've wanted a faucet like this for awhile but can't say that I know anyone that has one that I could really test out so this is one of those things that SEEMS like a good idea but could really go either way. When I set it up like this I didn't tighten the faucet to the sink fully, mostly because I put the collar piece on backwards and was not about to go to the effort to switch it around, so it was a little wobbly and I was struggling to get a picture taken with it upright. I was also having problems getting the sprayer head to stay up where it belonged. I'm really hoping this has something to do with it not being fully installed and not having water in the lines. I'm really hoping. 

I wanted to buy a faucet with a magnetic docking system but they are a little more expensive and didn't fit the budget we were trying to stick to. If this sprayer head doesn't stay docked and becomes a nuisance, like many reviewers on other faucets complain, then I'll definitely push to spend a little more the next time. But I spent so much time comparing prices and trying to figure out from awful photos online which one was truly the prettiest that I really hope this gal works out for us. Honestly, for some reason, when you are looking at faucets for the kitchen and bathroom there is a big difference in style between the less expensive options and the options that come when you drop some more money.

I don't find that to be the case with most things in the world. Yes, I drool over expensive light fixtures and clothing and appliances but I also find that there are plenty of beautiful items in lower price ranges too. Maybe I was just being overly picky in my search for sink fixtures but it seemed like every faucet had something wrong with it. I didn't like the handle on one and the curve of the neck on another and so many things just seemed a little off. This faucet that I ended up with flares out at the head just a little less elegantly than I'd like but really, in the grand scheme of my kitchen, I don't think that's going to end up being a deal breaker.

I'm so excited and anxious to get my new counters installed! I feel like something terrible is going to happen and we'll have spent all this money and end up hating it. I'm not sure why I feel that way. Does everyone feel like that during a big renovation? I've never had this anxious feeling before but every other project has been something I've done myself or something my dad has been mostly in charge of so I know that there's always the option to change things in the middle of the project. I've always had a measure of control over every aspect of a project. Even when I'm building something and I'm not entirely sure that it's going to turn out perfectly, I don't get this feeling because I figure I only have myself to blame for the mistakes I see in the end. Bleh, I just want it all done already so I can stop feeling so anxious and so I can have a pretty new kitchen.

Counters are a-coming

Today was counter templating day. We've done a lot of renovations to our various homes and I've been privy to my parents building their last two homes so I've seen plenty of trades go in and out but this is a process I've never been a part of. We ordered our counter tops through Lowes and the first part of the process was to choose the stone, choose the edge style, and pay for the labor and materials based on the estimated square footage that I gave them. We choose a granite counter top after several trips to the store, some internet research, and being absolutely certain we were going to purchase quartz. This is becoming a theme in this kitchen. I hope this all turns out for the best and we never feel like we're settling for less than what we wanted! We had granite in our last house and loved it. The only reason we had decided against it was reading about how it should be sealed every year. We hadn't had problems with our old counter but I wanted something maintenance free. While we were discussing this choice with the sales woman, she told us that their granite has a 20 year warranty on the sealer. It took us approximately 12 seconds of looking at the prices difference and the sample stones and we were sold on granite once again.

We were super pumped to learn that the granite we liked, that she pulled out of a drawer like it was a super special secret option, was from a local counter place in the nearest city. Which means we get to go there and look at all the slabs and choose the actual one they will cut our counters from. Just like on HGTV! Have you ever gone to a stone warehouse? Did you just fall in love with every piece you saw?

This templating process was the second step in getting our counters. A guy from the counter company came out with special tools to take precise measurements, make a diagram, and take my preeeecious sink away with him. See, their company has templates for sinks from most of the larger companies and while they have them for Swan products, my sink is maybe from a new line they haven't seen yet. He said that normally they just say they can't cut out the sink in these cases (WHAT?! What do people do in that instance? I mean, I guess buy a new sink?) but that because they normally do Swan products, he was given permission to bring the whole kit and caboodle back with him. I tried just offering him the paper template they had sent but he took my new beautiful baby. He says they'll bring it back when they install the counters.

The whole thing took almost two hours and after he had left I realized that I had completely forgotten to ask him to include a new window sill. Ack! My brain raced as I tried to think what the best solution was. Maybe I should call him. Maybe when we go to choose the slab we could just give them the measurements. Thank goodness I had the sense to look out at my driveway to see him sitting in his car still. Whoop! I took a minute to screw up my little courage and ran out in the rain to beg him to come back in. He told me that he usually asks about sills so at least I'm not the only one who forgot. Thankfully he didn't have to adjust his template at all. He just wrote down the measurements and said it wouldn't be a problem. Whew!

Now we wait for them to figure out the actual size based on their measurements and then they'll reconcile that with the amount we paid and we either pay more or get a refund. I'm willing to bet that people almost never get a refund but I would love for that to be the case! We'll be digging in the couch cushions to find any additional sheckles to cover this project. But I'm so excited to have new counters. We chose a stone called Moon White. It's mostly gray with some white and some red spotted through it. Of course the stone sample was a 4x4in square so I'm terrified we'll see it in full and decide we hate it. I'll take pictures when we go to the stone yard.

Mail day

It's been awhile. How've you been? How are things? And your family?

We have a lot of exciting changes going on around our house and it finally feels like I can be excited instead of overwhelmed by this house. We closed on our current house, Hilltop Manor, almost exactly one year ago and it has been wonderful and stressful and exhausting and fun. I'm hoping to catch you up on what I've done so far and where we still need to update things but today I thought I'd share my mail with you! I got some super fun packages and I can't wait to see everything come together.

Of course I had to open the largest box first and inside was my preeeecious. It's basically exactly what I said I didn't want and I lurve it so much! I wanted something colored, maybe even black as a strong accent against the rest of our light colored kitchen. I was looking at composite granite. Our current sink is white porcelin or enamel and I hate it with a passion. It stains easily and gets scratched by silverware. We had decided on a black tectonite sink from Lowes that was around $150 because the composite granite sink was closer to $250 and we are stingy and they looked exactly the same. However, when the time came to actually purchase our items, the sink we had decided upon had been discontinued and there were no options outside of stainless available in the same price range. Our goal had been to buy everything we could through Lowes at the same time to take advantage of special financing but we couldn't pull the trigger on a sink we hadn't researched that was twice as much as we had been expecting to spend.

All of that turned out to be a blessing because I went home and researched my little heart out and stumbled upon this lovely sink at Jet. It's a Swanstone sink, which is something that sounded vaguely familiar but wasn't something I could place in my jumbled brain. I read their website. I read reviews. I googled. And I learned that this was what I had been looking for. Something that is heat resistant so I can put hot pans directly into the sink and keep them out of reach of little hands when I'm no longer in the kitchen. Something that is drop/impact resistant so that my little helpers aren't as likely to damage it throwing dishes into the sink. Something that doesn't stain or scratch. According to their website and can clean it with bleach and I can scrub it with anything short of a metal scrub pad and it's even resistant to acetone. We'll see how long it takes for my carelessness to damage this sink. I'm not gonna lie, I am not awesome at taking care of my things. I like to set hot pans down without putting down a trivet. I put everything in the dishwasher. That's just how I roll and I know I'm not going to change any time soon so we're planning our new kitchen to withstand my horrid treatment.

I've been told by my 7 year old that this is a long blog. I guess that means you get to see what was in my other packages another time. Until then here's a picture that little B demanded I take when she saw that I had my big camera out.

Before we even begin

We talk as if the purchase of the new house is a foregone conclusion but, as in all real estate transactions, we do need to be prepared for things to go south and fall apart. The fat lady has not sung until we have left the closing with keys in hand. I think that's what leads to the most frustration during the home buying process, knowing that there's always a chance you could lose all of the things you've been dreaming about. But let's move on like that isn't in the back of our minds shall we?

I have lists. Oh boy do I have lists! I also have Pinterest boards and flooring samples and pictures on my phone. But the first list is of all the things that need to be addressed before we make the big move. We'll have to slowly start taking things over to entertain the kiddos while I work on the house but that is just a drop in the bucket. If the bucket were the size of a double garage packed full of our stuff that we packed for staging. No joke. Our garage has become my Monica's closet.

So here's the list in no particular order:

• pull carpet
• paint baseboards
• replace outlets with gcfi inside & out
• epoxy garage floor
• remove insulation above water heater to dry and replace
• get bids for electrical work
• get exterminator estimates for quarterly service
• place stick down linoleum tiles under sinks
• cover one junction box and add another in the attic
• replace kitchen light fixture (M would hit his head on the current one)
• get plumber to repair tub assembly
• replace exterior knobs and locks
• price, select, and schedule new carpet
• buy microwave
• install baby gates at top and bottom of stairs

Anyone else feeling like this is going to take me a little longer than the two weeks I'm shooting for? Ugh!

Our home inspection rundown

Home inspections. I absolutely recommend getting a professional inspection done at any property that you are thinking of purchasing. If you are a general contractor or home builder then I can see how you might be qualified to do your own home inspection and I'll let you off the hook. Anyone else would be foolish not to get another experienced pair of eyes looking at every detail. You might be the best DIY handyman or handywoman out there but you are emotionally invested in this purchase. You are picturing the end result of paint and finishes and, if this is the home you plan to live in, your stuff in certain places. You're going to miss things. I've gone through this process 5 times and I always miss things.

During our home inspection there weren't many things that came up that we were unaware of but the few things our inspector found were totally worth spending the money to know about. The thing that concerned me most was a water leak that has obviously been an issue for awhile. We knew something was going on due to the hole in the ceiling below the second floor bathroom but the inspector was able to confirm that it wasn't going to be too major to get the tub assembly fixed. There is also a lot of questionable electrical work happening but only one actual super dangerous spot that needs to be addressed asap. He did point out that there is some shifting happening with the chimney that needs to be watched and is something we may not have seen until it was a much bigger problem. He also checked the air flow and heat in each room and suggested that we have an HVAC specialist come out to look at the master bedroom vents. The problem with these vents is that they run through the concrete slab and truly could become a big ole mess if we have to do too much to them. Thankfully it is just the two vents in the master and we aren't too scared of the implications.

Beyond those items there are lots of little cosmetic things like holes in drywall and missing trim and a leaky sink sprayer. We learned from the neighbor that the pool definitely needs a new liner which is not a small expense but is something we can do after we have sold our current house because obviously the pool is a luxury that we can live without for however long we need to.

We haven't gotten a hard closing date from our closing company yet, which is an endless source of annoyance, but we do have deadline to meet in order to close within 45 days of HUD signing our contract. If we cannot close on time, we will need to apply for an extension and pay $375 for the honor of waiting longer to get our new house. Can you tell I'm not thrilled by that idea? It makes me so angry. That money doesn't pay for anything. It doesn't go towards closing costs or the purchase price. Just light it on fire and kick it around. I will be one irate lady if it comes down to that because we have done everything we need to do within hours of it being requested and we are just sitting around waiting on the closing company to do their work. We know that market in our area is rreeeaalllyy slow right now so it's not like they are swamped with closings so it feels like someone is sitting with it on their desk with a post it note to work on it at the last possible second. I'm sure that's not true and I'm just a bitter wench.

Okay, next time for real is the big listy loo of things that need to happen before we move into the house. Do you work for a closing company? Can you explain to me why it takes so long and why they can't tell us when it's going to happen? Our deadline is less than two weeks away and we're getting very antsy. I keep hoping they'll call and tell us we can close tomorrow. That would be lovely my friends.

P.S. I'm posting this without proof reading because my eyeballs are getting blurry and I'm going to bed now. Please grant me grace on any typos and/or poor structure. I do my best.

After you win the bid - Buying a foreclosure

Congratulations! You won the bid. Now panic. There are a lot of rules and regulations and all the paperwork must be completed in a timely fashion and completely correctly. This is truly where having a knowledgable real estate agent is going to help you. Find someone who has been through the process more than once or, if you have an agent that you really love, make sure they have someone in their office who can walk them through the process.

After winning the bid you will be required to fill out the purchase contract in full and have it sent back within 48 hours. HUD will then review the contract to ensure you haven't made any mistakes. Make sure that you sign the forms with your full legal name including your middle initial each time you sign. That and remembering the actual date was much more difficult for me than it should have been. In my defense, I have an extra last name that I never use and haven't signed anything other than a receipt in a long time. They get to take as long as they want. This is the hurry up and wait thing I was talking about.

I'm still a little unsure about the accuracy of some of the information I've gotten through our realtor so please make sure that you check with a professional but this is what I've been told. The contract says that you have 45 days from the initial acceptance of your bid but we have been told that we have 45 days from the day we received the signed contract back from them to close on the purchase. Our goal is to close as soon as possible but I'm a little concerned that this question of the date is going to come back to bite us. You are given 15 of those days to do a home inspection and if something comes up on the inspection that you cannot live with you can get your earnest money returned as long as you back out within that 15 days. If you wait too long you will lose your earnest money.

The inspection process for a HUD home is a little more challenging than it is for buying a normal home. HUD homes always have the utilities turned off and they are winterized from October to May. You absolutely must get authorization from them to have the utilities turned on before you schedule the utilities. Then you may schedule the utilities and your inspection. This means you are paying deposits and fees for all utility companies plus the amount you pay for your inspection. Some buyers will choose not to get an inspection but as an owner occupant, I want to know what I'm getting into and am not yet confident enough in my abilities as a do-it-yourselfer to forego a professional inspection. You are buying this home AS IS so don't get in over your head.

We had a small snafu which turned out okay but led to a lot of frustration on my part. We were told by our agent to go ahead and schedule everything. Then we were told at 10 o'clock that night to cancel everything that had been set up for the next day because we didn't have authorization. When I read the authorization form I learned that we could have lost our earnest money by jumping the gun. It was annoying but not the biggest thing in the world. So one day I called and set everything up, the next day I cancelled and we got the authorization, the next day I set everything up again, and today we finally had our inspection.

Thankfully, there were no big things that came up in the inspection that were enough to scare us away. There are so many little things that I can't even remember them all but most of it was stuff we had already seen and we shouldn't need to call in professionals for most of it. I'm so excited to share pictures and plans with you but I don't want to share any photos until we've closed. Stick with me through the rest of the process. We will be contacting our lender tomorrow to get the appraisal scheduled and hopefully they'll help us get closed quickly. We didn't want to pay for the appraisal until we knew for sure that there was nothing on the inspection report that would prevent us from completing the purchase. Ultimately $450 is a drop in the bucket but it's still a lot to shell out if you don't need to.

Okay, next time I'm going to do a quick run through of the inspection and problems we found. Then there shall be a gigantic list of things we want to do with the house. There are so many decor choices that we just don't agree with and I will be so happy when they all get the heave-ho.

Bidding on a HUD owned property

Last month we placed a bid on a HUD owned property. I did a LOT of googling and reading to try to make myself as familiar as possible with the process and ultimately, I wish I had trusted my own knowledge a little more along the way. I cannot repeat this enough, BE AN EDUCATED HOME BUYER! Do your homework and make this a priority for however long the process takes. It is obviously important to work with knowledgeable professionals and people you trust but the only person you can really count on to be working 100% for you is you.

The HUD listing process, at least where I live, has a few parts to it. The first bidding cycle is open to Owner Occupant buyers. This must be someone who intends to buy the home and live in it as their primary residence for at least two years. After you close on the purchase you must move in within 6 months. You can only purchase a HUD home as an owner occupant once every two years. If there are no bids accepted during the owner occupant cycle, they open the bidding up to anyone who wants to purchase the home. This is where flippers and those who want to buy rental properties will come in. An owner occupant is usually going to end up spending more on the home than someone buying it during the second cycle would.

When we were looking at the Manor (I've decided my home needs a fancy name but can't come up with anything more clever so for now, The Manor it is) it was obviously in the owner occupant stage. The home was listed and managed by a somewhat local company and they had placed it on the MLS so it showed up on all the house listing sites and apps that we follow. M and I both looked at it several times and talked about it and how it might work for us. We were excited about it and the price was amazing for what we saw in the listing photos. We had already lost one property that we thought was going to be our new home so we had been in the mind set that we weren't even going to look at anything until we had an accepted offer on our current house. The Manor made all those plans go flying out the window. We made an appointment to see the house with our realtor and, as I've already said, that showing ended up being in the dark and pouring rain. But we were smitten even in the dark.

HUD listings have a certain time period in which you must place your bids and you normally will not ever know if anyone else has placed a bid or what price they have bid. The home has a listing price to give you an idea of what the house is worth but you can bid anything you want. If you think nobody else is going to bid on it, you can bid a total lowball offer and hope that you are the only bidder. We knew that this house was listed much lower than what it sold for the last time and that it was worth more so we decided to bid above the asking price. We were pretty sure there were going to be other bids and we didn't want to lose but we also didn't want to bid too much. But, never knowing what anyone else bids makes it just a pure guessing game. Our agent suggested we bid an odd number because she knew a woman who often won bids by a dollar or two.

You must use an agent who has a registered number with HUD to place your bid and they enter it online. Once the bidding period closes you will usually have a response within 2 business days as to if your bid was accepted. We heard back the very next morning that our bid had been accepted! We were so excited but then the realization that we are very soon going to be the owners of two houses (again) set in and we got a little apprehensive. HUD properties are sold as is and will not accept any contingencies. So we knew going in that this was a risk.  But nothing risked means nothing gained!

I told you that you normally don't know if there are any other bidders or what they bid but we found out through the grapevine that there was at least one other bidder on our house. We learned that bidder #2 had placed a lower bid and then last minute they called and raised their bid. Unfortunately for bidder #2, the amount they raised their bid to was just $73 dollars less than the bid that we had placed and we won.

I hope that this is a somewhat helpful walk through the HUD buying process. I would love to answer any specific questions you might have about bidding. Next time I'll talk about what happens after you win the bid. This whole thing is very 'hurry up and wait' and can be frustrating. Even more so when your agent, however much you like them, is not familiar with the process.