Testing the Waters

On February 17, 2012 · 2 Comments · In Uncategorized

There is a name for people who can’t sell their property and don’t want to lose money on it; they call them “reluctant landlords.”

Hi, nice to meet ya.

It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to try our luck again in the real estate market. Our little old condo is back up for sale.

It seems like just yesterday that we were finally able to breathe a little easier when our friends became our tenants. But at the time, we agreed that it was best for all of us if we only signed an 8-month lease. Although it doesn’t end until the end of April, we’re trying to time it so that we maybe won’t have to have a vacant property. You know, if we get lucky.

Which unfortunately hasn’t been our case so far. Six+ months on the market last year, and we never got a single offer. But everyone’s luck has to turn at some point, right? At least that’s what we’re hoping. Especially when you price the property as competitively as we have.

But the market is still slow, so we’re trying to remain realistic. We are testing the waters over the next few weeks to see what happens. If nothing, we’ll start to plan for an alternative. Our tenants sound like they could be willing to extend their lease by a month or two in order to give us some more time on the market. And, we always have the option of trying to find new tenants who will sign a new 1-year lease, too.

Uncertainty. I hate it.

Hopefully we will find that needle in a haystack this time. It only takes one person, after all. We’ve priced the property lower than we ever thought we would. We still have St. Joseph buried in the garden.

So now we wait. And hope. And pray.

 

Just Precious

On February 14, 2012 · 5 Comments · In nora

I love her so much, I can’t even stand it.

She is SO.FUN.

She has personality for days. There is so much that she is doing that we need to capture on video somehow, because I just don’t ever want to forget it.

Simply, she is the greatest thing ever.

Sometimes, I just need to say it out loud.

 

Kitchen Reno: Brick Be Gone

On February 13, 2012 · 3 Comments · In home improvement, kitchen makeover

DING DONG, THE BRICK IS GONE. Can I get a hallelujah??

After all of the demo prep work we did throughout the week, the actual demo took just a couple of hours. My brother and sister-in-law rolled up at our house shortly after 9:00 a.m. yesterday morning. Marie took Nora for a little one-on-one auntie/niece time, and Tyler stayed to help us out.

As a reminder, this is what the kitchen looked like on Friday night:

We got to work right away. Tyler helped us with disconnecting the plumbing under our sink, and getting the over-the-range microwave disconnected and uninstalled. The hardest (and scariest) part of the whole thing was removing our gigantic piece of countertop without breaking/damaging it. But, the three of us managed to support it in all of the right places and moved it into our front entryway successfully. So yep, our house pretty much looks like a war zone right now.

But DUDE. The brick is gone. So ‘sall good. :)

In the lead-up to all of this, Michael and I couldn’t decide which tool would be best for cutting the drywall. We didn’t want to remove ALL of the drywall in the room–just the parts with the brick. We did some asking around, talked to several workers at Home Depot, etc. The problem was that we didn’t want to invest in a tool that we didn’t have another immediate use for. So even though things like the Dremel Saw Max and the Dremel Trio sounded like they could be our answer, we hesitated.

Then, on our last trip to Home Depot this week, one of the guys there suggested that we just “score” the drywall with a sharp utility knife, and go from there. At the last minute yesterday morning, I texted Tyler and asked him to bring his sawzall, really as a “just in case.” As it turns out, this was the perfect tool for the job. Tyler was able to control the depth at which he was cutting pretty well just by feel, so being able to set a fixed depth (which is why we were looking into those other tools) was not an issue. It was certainly WAY FASTER than working with a freaking utility knife, so… yay!

Once Tyler cut our “seams” for us, things started moving very quickly. Soon, we (and by “we,” I mean Michael and Tyler, haha) were tearing off gigantic pieces of brick.

We were definitely not sad to see it go.

The brick “backsplash” on this side of the room was the first to go.

Then we tackled the “big wall.” For this wall, we actually did end up tearing the whole thing down to the studs, since the pattern of the brick was so erratic. If we had cut out only the brick, it would’ve been like putting together a puzzle with the new drywall and the old, and there would’ve been a lot of seams to mud/sand/finish. This way, we can use fewer, larger pieces of drywall when we go to put the new stuff up.

I never thought we’d be so happy to see studs. :)

We also found this “gift” in the wall for us, from the original contractors who built the place. An empty tube of caulk/liquid nails material. From 1973. Couldn’t they have left us, oh, I don’t know, some cash? That would’ve been a fun find.

The last piece of brick we tackled was this spot above the doorway. It was firmly attached to two studs, so it was kind of a pain in the ass. But, with a lot of muscle, Tyler got it down, once and for all. And all of the brick-covered drywall went directly into the trash.

Onward and upward.

We had an electrician come today to take a look at things. We’re adding under-cabinet lights, and need to replace some of the outlets with GFCI outlets. We also want to move a few switches around, add a couple of new ones, etc. So, we’re hoping the electrician will be back to do that work sometime this week, so we can begin to put the walls back up on Saturday.

After all of the demo, we cleaned everything up pretty thoroughly, and organized the kitchen back into a relatively-operative configuration. The most disruptive thing is, of course, not having a sink or a dishwasher. TORTURE. We usually throw everything we can into the dishwasher, and run it every other day, if not more often. Now, we not only have to wash dishes by hand, but we have to do it in the utility sink in the basement. First world problems, I know, but still, I whine just a little. :)

For now, we just have to keep our fingers crossed the electrician can get his part done this week so that we’re not delayed from putting the walls back up on Saturday. The sooner we can get them back up, the sooner we can get our sink and countertops back. It’s the little big things, right?

 

Kitchen Reno: Prepping for Demo

On February 11, 2012 · 3 Comments · In home improvement, kitchen makeover

This week, we’ve been working on preparing the kitchen for demo. We’ve tackled it in small chunks, doing an hour or two of work every night.


It started with emptying cabinets, then removing doors and hardware (in preparation for painting the cabinets, of course).


And then it escalated into removing the upper cabinets, then all of the lower cabinet doors and hardware. We also pried off the trim and window sill from around the window.

So, here’s where we’re at as of this very moment:


We’re waiting until tomorrow morning to remove the microwave, so we have to wait to remove those last two cabinets. That one on the left side is actually totally detached from the wall. We unscrewed all of the screws and then realized that we couldn’t slide it out–because it’s being held in place by the damn brick!


We were pretty sure that the cabinets were not original to the house (they seem to be better quality than builder-grade), but we weren’t positive. Once we took down the big cabinet that used to be to the left of the window, our suspicions were confirmed, thanks to the soffit. The original soffit is even with the rest of it, but they built out the soffit a bit to accommodate the bigger cabinet.


Don’t you love the floral shelf paper lining the lazy susan? *gag*

Once the kitchen reno is over, I promise we will invest in some “grown up” dish towels. :)

So, there you have it. We are heading to bed to rest up to begin some serious demo in the morning. If all goes well (fingers crossed!), we will officially be rid of all of the brick by this time tomorrow night.

Wish us luck!

 

Daddy’s Birthday

On February 10, 2012 · 2 Comments · In birthdays

Nora’s daddy, that is. :)


Oooh, look at that. A store-bought half-moon cookie. As you can see, our kitchen (sneak peek of the demo prep!) is not exactly in good shape for doing any baking right now.

Happy Birthday, Michael! <3