01/1/11

goals for 2011

Well, it’s the new year, and it’s time to think about resolutions and whatnot! I’m not making resolutions, per se, but I wanted to take some time to talk a little about our house goals for this year. Not sure what we’ll actually be able to accomplish before 2012, but here is a try.

1) Fix the backyard – February/March. This is important for water drainage issues, as well as bug problems. Also, I want to put up a clothesline to dry our clothes outside this summer.

2) Save up for the foundation repairs. The quotes we got ranged from $10,000 to $18,000. We have about $5k saved right now. The cheapest price is from a company that I hesitate to trust, as it was their botched estimate that convinced us to get this house to begin with – we wouldn’t have bought had we known the full extent of the damage. The most expensive price is unfortunately the price we think would actually fix everything, and fix it right. So, we need to look over the quotes again and decide which price we want to save up for. Our decision about that will affect how long it takes to save up the money, and whether we’re able to do it in 2011 or not.

3) Fix the kitchen. My reward for saving up for the foundation is to tackle the kitchen! Even though it might not make the most sense compared to all the other problems, it does make sense to have a nice kitchen for resale value, and it also affects my daily life probably the greatest. And it’s the most exciting for me. :-) As I work hard at saving money this year, I hope to brainstorm some wonderful plans to make the best use of the space. I’ll also need to come up with a realistic budget!

In between, we hope to tackle some little things in 2011. We want to replace all the light switches and electrical outlets so that they will all match. Also, I want to replace the blinds in the bedrooms. And if I can, I’d like to get new baseboards for the main level of our house. And last but not least, we need to either clean or replace the carpet in the den because the cats have pretty much destroyed it. Not sure what exactly to do about that, but I’d love to get that room back!

Right now I’m feeling positive about everything; we’ll see how long this lasts!

12/23/10

fixing our house to sell it?

There are two plans of attack when it comes to long-term house repairs… fixing it up to live in it, and fixing it up to sell it. With the former, you focus on repairs that are important to you and your standard of living. You are planning to live in the house for the long term, so you aren’t as much focused on resale value. Ideally, your fixes will add to the value of the house. The other is making project decisions knowing you are going to be selling the house. Your focus will be on resale value, and on aesthetic appeal.

I think we are leaning to the latter. Ideally, we’d hope to get as much money out of the house when we sell it, but at this point I think our primary objective is to get it to a point where we *could* sell it without having to set the price too low, or have it sit on the market too long. As we decide where to put our money, I think we should keep that in mind.

I was googling fixing up older homes – I’m hoping to find a blog or forum where I could get a chance to dialogue with other people about these issues (like Young House Love). I wasn’t successful, but I did come across this thread on an unrelated forum that I thought had a lot of good information.

After reading several sites, I decided that I don’t think we can get around fixing our foundation. Sigh. That was the money I was trying not to spend, but I don’t know what else to do. However, I do think it’s something that could wait to be fixed right before we sell. It’s important, and I don’t want it to get worse, but to be honest I am used to the back half of my downstairs being at a slant. It doesn’t necessarily affect my daily life.

Other things that would probably be important to fix, other than general cleaning/touching up paint: (in no particular order)
– Curb appeal. There isn’t much that needs to be done to the front yard, but the backyard needs an overhaul. We have plans to do this in the spring so we can seed instead of having to get sod.
– Kitchen. They say kitchens are very important to selling a house. This affects my daily life, so I have a lot of interest in seeing it fixed up sooner than later. I am fine with doing something very basic – stock cabinets, peel & stick tile on the floor, etc. I will need to price things to figure out a realistic budget. Fortunately, we don’t have to get new appliances, so that will save us some.
– Bathroom. The other important selling feature. This might be as simple as lightly sanding the walls and paint, or as complicated as putting up drywall. We’ll have no idea until we can take down the mirrors and faux tile to see what’s underneath. If we can afford it, I really want to replace the tub & tiles, but it might not be worth it in the long run.
– What other issues affect the resale value? I should probably take a look at our inspector’s report and focus on the things he flagged. Also, I would need to keep in mind the concerns that were told to us as we were trying to get financing and insurance. Some of them we have fixed already – like the fuse box. Others, I don’t think we’ll fix unless we stay here longer than 3 years – like the roof. (Or maybe the roof would be more important than the kitchen/bathroom?)

Stuff I have to think about. Really, I just like the idea of getting some aesthetic things taken care of. Maybe then I won’t hate this house so much. :-)

12/22/10

is our house a money pit?

Recently, we’ve been talking about our priorities and what we are thinking about our house in a long-term way. We’ve also been talking about where we want to spend our money, how tightly we want to squeeze our belts, and what sacrifices we are willing to make. It’s one thing to scrimp and save for a time, but for it to be a lifestyle – well that’s harder. We realized one thing: we don’t want to sacrifice everything for this house. It was an interesting observation, and one thing I wish we’d realized a year and a half ago. But then, we had no idea the amount of work it would take to get this house going.

I’ve talked a lot about the different house projects we have. Major projects. If someone handed me $40,000 right now, I would have it spent in no time and I wouldn’t even be touching the “fun” projects like redoing the kitchen! And that’s not even accounting all the major projects that we anticipate becoming issues in the next 5-10 years (like, needing a new roof).

The question is, where do we draw the line? When do we decide that this house needs too much work? When do we walk away, poorer but wiser?

We have no idea, but we’ve started talking about regrets. We know that all houses have issues, and that with any house there will be a never-ending list of projects and improvements. The thing is, we are struggling under the burden of our list. I was reading on a forum of some complaints by other moms who are renting their houses. The things they were complaining about were all things we are living with, and to be honest are all far down on our list of priorities. A friend came over to visit, and we were talking about the things we could do with our house. She would start with an idea, and then it would just snowball. And then she would stop and shake her head. It was almost too much.

We have to be in this house until August 31, 2012, or we will have to pay back the $8,000. So at that point, what should we do? Could we sell the house without fixing anything? We would most likely have to list it at the price we paid, and be prepared for it to be on the market for a long time. Or we could take out a loan, fix the problems, and then sell it and hopefully make enough to pay off the mortgage and the loan. A possibility, but that’s assuming the housing market is better in 2 years. And it still might take a long time to sell, and we’re stuck with mortgage + loan payments in the meantime. And, to be honest if we can fix everything I would rather stay here. Or we can just live as we have been, trying to save and just praying that nothing major happens because we definitely don’t have the budget.

We obviously won’t make any decisions about this until after we pass the three year mark. However, we have been thinking about what it would take to sell it in the condition it’s in now. There are things I’d want to do, which don’t cost any (or much) money, and would make the house more attractive. Most of them involve paint and heavy duty cleaning.

Selling sooner than later would also encourage us to pursue more projects to make the house more attractive. Expensive projects like the foundation would probably be left undone, and we will definitely be penalized for that. But perhaps if we can make the rest of the house look nice, we’ll attract a buyer.

I’m probably fooling myself into thinking we *could* sell this house. To be honest, I am not sure we would be able to without fixing the foundation which is really the chunk of change that is weighing us down. Sigh. Oh well. Let’s just hope we don’t ever *have* to move, or we will be really stuck!

12/6/10

on the coldest day of the year…

It’s not really the coldest day of the year. I’m just being dramatic. :-) But, it’s been one of the coldest days of this season – highs in the mid-30s, I believe. Sometime last night, our heater stopped working. We thought it was odd when the house was so cold when we got up for church, but didn’t deal with it until we got home and messed with the thermostat and realized that the heater wasn’t blowing warm air. Paul checked for a pilot light, but there was none.

My uncle stopped by and he and Paul troublsehooted the heater until the found the problem – the part that ignites the pilot light went bad. They were able to replace it without too much trouble, and our heater is working again. Thank goodness my uncle was able to come and find the problem, and thank goodness Home Depot was still open!

A part of me was hoping just a teeny-tiny bit that we would have to replace the whole unit. Of course, I don’t REALLY want to spend that money right now, but if I *had* to I would certainly be glad to have a more efficient HVAC unit! Oh well. :-) I guess we’ll have to wait and do it the old fashioned way, saving up for it.

10/28/10

cutting corners

We live on a corner lot. I don’t think I’d buy a corner lot again, though it’s certainly not the worst thing about this house. My biggest annoyance is the people who cut across our yard. And it’s not kids or teenagers who are doing it, but rather adults – all women, sometimes with their young kids. I recognize the repeat offenders, but I’ve never seen them anywhere else but our yard (I’m assuming they do live in the neighborhood though). And because of the house being angled to the street, they actually walk right up along the house – it’s not like they’re only cutting across the corner.

I’ve been trying to brainstorm how to solve this problem. A fence seems like the obvious solution, but because this is a front yard I am hesitant to put up a fence. A nice white picket fence would definitely look the most neighborly. Again, though, the cost. My other concern about a fence is wondering about our property line. As you can see from the map, the property line (the red line on the map) is quite a ways away from the sidewalk/street. That would make it annoying to mow, if we had a fence so far from the sidewalk. I’m not sure what the fence laws are – something else to research I guess.

Another option is a split-rail fence. Both this and the picket fence idea are possibilities, but they’re both expensive so aren’t feasible right now. Plants, flowerbeds and shrubs, are good options but both cost money, require upkeep, and take time to grow. Maybe we’ll explore that idea more when we have the money to put towards something more permanent. In the meantime, though…

I saw a house in another neighborhood that solved the problem in a much cheaper way. They put up a bunch of tall wooden gardening stakes, and strung a bright rope in between them. It was definitely not the most visually appealing solution, but it didn’t look horrible either. And I priced the supplies at Home Depot yesterday – definitely doable. It would be high enough that people wouldn’t trip over it, but not so high that they’d be able to duck under it.

Today as I was researching online I had another idea. Instead of putting the rope/stakes around the perimeter of our yard, why not instead line the driveway? That would look the most neighborly, but also deter people, assuming that they would turn around and go back to the street once encountering the “fence”. And if I find people are simply hopping it, or going under, or taking it down, then I can move it and put it along the street. (I like that it’s easily movable. That also is nice since I don’t feel like researching fence laws. I have had enough of trying to decode our city and county’s laws when I was trying to figure out if we could move our shed to anywhere else in the yard.) It’s probably the best low-cost option right now. I think I’ll go measure the space right now so I can know how many stakes and rope to get. Maybe I can run by Home Depot tonight. :-)

Updated: Side benefit – we could like the “fence” with Christmas lights for some holiday decor!

10/4/10

estimates

First off, I’m not doing very good about keeping my kitchen clean. :-) In my defense, I probably shouldn’t have started this on a weekend. We’ve been pretty busy, so I haven’t really paid much attention to the kitchen. We did, however, finally replace the light bulbs in the kitchen – we haven’t had light in there for several days because the light bulbs blew out and both of us were too lazy to fix it. (I know, I’m just being honest here.)

Tomorrow is Monday and hopefully I can get back on track.

Last week we got the estimates for fixing our foundation and they were as discouraging as we were afraid.

Company C sent their estimate. This was the company I was most impressed with. His solution was to rebuild the footing and use piers to put the house back up to its correct height, and keep it from sinking again. This would cost $18,230. He also recommended a water-proofing system, a vapor barrier, and two sump pumps to prevent water from collecting in the crawl space and causing any further damage – that totaled about $5,000.

Company A’s estimate was a bit more palatable, but still high. They wanted to just use piers to fix the problem, which from what several of the companies we’ve had out here have said it’s not good enough. Their estimate was $10,820. However, this company was the one that missed the extent of the damage a year ago. While it was somewhat hidden by the sun porch, I don’t think it was so hidden that a professional looking for problems wouldn’t have noticed. Their $5,400 estimate was what convinced us to get the house – we would have walked away if it had been any higher. So I’m a little ticked off at this company, and not sure that I really want to work with them.

Either way, we don’t have the money right now. We are still looking at any other possibilities, but I think we might have to go the old fashioned route and save up for it. (Unknown rich relative, now is the time to make your appearance!) One of the downsides to saving up for it is that it’s going to take so long. It’s impossible to tell how much longer it will be before it gets worse, but it’s not like we’re about to fall through our floor right now. In the time it will take to save for this repair, we will have other repairs to save for too: a new roof, a new hot water heater, replumb the house, and also a new car (as our current car will be too small for us shortly as our family grows). We sort of feel we are left between a rock and a hard place.

Since it will probably be several years until we’re able to repair this, we decided we should go ahead and use the money to fix the backyard and the water issues, in the hopes that this will keep the foundation from getting worse. I’m also thinking of some other minor repairs that I’ve been wanting to do – it would be nice to take care of it now. For example, putting all the insulation back into the crawlspace, as the weather has turned cooler here. Also, I have been wanting to get our HVAC serviced and our ducts cleaned – just to see if that helps keep our heating bills down this winter. (It’s so difficult to save money when you’re paying so much to heat the house! Our house isn’t very energy efficient.)

And just because I like to dream… I like to imagine what I would do if someone handed me $40,000. I like to think about fixing the foundation, replacing the windows, putting in a new HVAC unit that’s more energy efficient, getting all new non-rusty pipes, a new hot water heater… All these things would help keep our energy costs lower and make an impact on our quality of life! But…. Alas, I don’t have $40,000, so I will have to keep my dreams locked up and focus on reality.

09/28/10

consensus is not reached

So we had a third estimate for our foundation this morning. It seems that no one can agree on how to best fix it! Meanwhile, we (the non-experts) are left trying to sort through which company we believe the most.

The problem: In the back corner (underneath the closet at the back of our carport), the footing is completely cracked through. It is sinking in the ground, coming apart from the wall of the house. This has caused the entire back half of the main level of our house to dip – there is about 3″ from the center of that level to the back. The cause is most likely water flow – there is some debate about whether we have water issues in our crawlspace or not. I don’t think there is standing water, but maybe it comes in when it’s raining? I don’t know. I should take some pictures from inside the crawlspace about what’s going on.

Back before we bought the house – July 2009 – Foundation Repair Company A came and gave us an estimate – 6 piers would fix the problem, $5400. Based on this estimate, we decided to move forward with the house. (If we had known then what we know now, we would have walked away.)

Almost a year later, we finally have the money and get ready to solve the foundation problems. I call Foundation Repair and Waterproofing Company B. They come by and look at the crawlspace and say that piers are not going to solve the problem, that it’s an issue with the joist and we need a general contractor who works with wood. The fact that he said that to a potential client really resonated with me.

After that, we take down the porch that was on the back of our house and discover how bad the back corner really is.

Enter Foundation Repair Company C, who gave us a discouraging report about the problem and the cost to fix. Out of everyone I’ve met with so far, he impressed me the most – though he was also likely the most expensive (haven’t gotten official estimate yet). He spent a long time in the crawlspace, taking pictures that he then showed me. He pointed out that the footing is cracked all the way through, and we would need to rebuild the footing and then use the piers to jack the house back up to its proper position. To put the piers in, he would need to take out part of the carport floor and also remove the floor of the closet which is directly over the cracked footing. He also said there was evidence of water and erosion in the crawlspace, so he would waterproof the walls and put in a sump pump. Total cost was between $10,000 and $20,000 – he would speak with a structural engineer and get a more precise estimate.

Then we come back to Foundation Repair Company A. I called them again and explained that removing the sun porch revealed more damage, and I would like a new estimate. This guy came out last week and went through the crawlspace and took pictures to show me. He agreed that there was more damage than the initial estimate. He talked about piers, and said that he would need to remove the stoop outside our sliding glass door in order to put in the piers. I asked about the footing being broken, and he simply said, “It won’t move.” Tomorrow, he is coming back with a structural engineer to look again and then will give me the official estimate.

Today, I met with Foundation Repair Company D. He came and I showed him the back corner, where the most visible damage is. He looked at it and also peeked into the crawlspace and said that he didn’t think piers would solve my problem. He said we need a masonry specialist to rebuild the footing, which is something that their company didn’t do. He referred me to a guy he recommended. I mentioned what Company A told me, and he said that the piers would make it not move, but it wouldn’t be fixed correctly. He didn’t elaborate, so I’m not sure exactly what that means.

I intend to contact the masonry guy and get his opinion. The fact that two pier companies have said that they couldn’t solve it means a lot to me. Maybe I should do some reading about foundations and see if I can make a more educated decision, when the time comes. (Our goal is to get this taken care of before it gets too cold, so we can put the insulation back into the crawl space.)

09/23/10

discouraging news about the foundation

A few months ago, we had a guy come out to give us a quote on our foundation problem. At the time, I thought he was so nice and helpful. He told us his company’s solutions would be overkill for our problem, and I just needed a general contractor. We didn’t get any more estimates at the time because weren’t sure how to proceed. I couldn’t imagine why the guy wouldn’t have been honest with us. Paul then pointed out something. “It could be that the job was too small for them.” That was a valid reason, and gave me the motivation to make the necessary calls and schedule estimates.

So, I called 3 other companies and have estimates this and next week. The first one was today, and it was discouraging.

With the porch gone, you can see the foundation issues much more clearly. The biggest problem is this wall right here:
Foundation issues exposed
The far right of the wall goes to a closet at the back of our carport. Next to it is the dining room, and on the far left of that level is the kitchen. Underneath all those is a crawlspace.

Here is basically what I was told today. The back half of the main level of our house has sunk about 3 inches (measuring inside the house). The main culprit is the foundation wall in the back corner (see picture above). The guy wasn’t positive – he wanted to show it to a structural engineer – but he was pretty sure that the wall can’t be fixed, and would need to be replaced. This is just the foundation wall that runs along the back of the closet by the carport. Once replaced, about 6 helical piles would be needed to jack up the house to its correct position. Unfortunately, part of the carport floor will need to be removed to put the piles in. I was also told there is a lot of water damage in the crawlspace, which may have been caused or worsened by the floods from last year (a year ago, it rained heavily for 8 days straight). If that’s true, then that would explain why the estimate that we got 14 months ago didn’t reflect this extent of damage.

He also said something about waterproofing the entire crawlspace and putting in a sump pump. He showed me pictures of how the ground is all eroded under there. I asked him for ballpark estimate, and he said it would be more than $10,000 and probably less than $20,000. He will get a more specific estimate back to me in the next few days.

Whew, this is a lot to take in and we’ll need to figure out what to do. We obviously don’t have the cash on hand for that, and it concerns me to wait too long to deal with this problem – saving up $10-20,000 will be very difficult to do quickly. I am eager to hear what the other two engineering companies have to say, to see how their estimates compare.

I will keep you updated!

07/20/10

this land is your land, this land is my land

We got our land surveyed yesterday! I’m so happy to know exactly where the property line is, and now we just need to figure out what to do about our fence.

The fence along the back (?) of our property is true to the line; we’ve never questioned that. The fence that runs up the side yard in between us and our neighbors is the one in question. From what the surveyor said, it starts out on the property line, and then slowly deviates. Not sure if this was intentional or just poor planning on the original owners’ part.

Our fence started deviating from the property line

From this picture, you can see the fence has moved to about a foot into our yard. (This is our fence, BTW – not the neighbor’s fence.)

The pink marks our property

By the time it gets past the house, it’s quite a bit off. The piece of fence that the pink thing is tied to belongs to our neighbor. Our fence is the post on the far right. I think you’d have to see it to understand what’s going on – it’s so hard to explain! But yeah, you can see how far over they are – and if we’re able to restore the fence to its correct position, it would really help with the water flow.

Today I turned in the permit to City Hall to demolish our porch. It was $250! I can’t believe I have to pay that much to take down something that’s not up to code anyways. They said they would call this week and set up an appointment for someone to come inspect it. I wasn’t expecting this, so now I’m paranoid that they’re not going to let us remove the porch for some reason. My dramatic-mind is going through all sorts of scenarios…

07/16/10

moving forward

So, some updates on what’s going on as we try to move forward with our immediate plans.

  • I found out that we do need a permit from the city to demolish the add-on. I got the necessary paperwork and will be filling it out today. I hope the permit isn’t too expensive.
  • I called around and found that there’s no official documentation of our property lines. One option was to rent a metal detector and see if we could find the metal stakes that surveyors usually bury in the ground. However, because we’re pretty sure the neighbor’s fence is partly on our property, we decided to go ahead and pay for a survey so we could be sure before we approach our neighbors.
  • I set up a survey for Monday. Yikes, that was more money that we didn’t expect to spend, but such is life, isn’t it?

Once the survey work is complete, then we will apply for the “building permit”. Once we’re okay with that, we’ll get my uncle to start taking down the porch. In the meantime we’ll start stripping the porch of things that we want to Freecycle.

Here’s the plan for the rest of the summer, hoping to complete this before it gets cold in the fall. I’m praying that we have enough money.

  • Demolish porch and deck. (My uncle and cousin will be helping)
  • Get quotes from contractors about the foundation. (I’ve already researched a list of contractors to call.)
  • Repair the foundation, put insulation back in the crawlspace. (Need to research about the best way to go about doing that. Also, need to install a vapor barrier.)
  • Get rid of our shed and buy a smaller one. May need to do the backyard in between the two. (Research setback laws. From what I’ve read so far, it seems we might be very limited as to where we can put a shed on our property.)
  • Grade the backyard and put in sod. (Will get quotes from landscapers for this after the foundation is taken care of.) This is essential to fixing the water problems because our backyard dips in the middle of the yard, so the water can’t naturally flow to the creek that’s behind our yard.

This will take care of the foundation problem, and also the water problem. (And taking care of the latter will help prevent future foundation problems!) An added benefit is that we’ll be able to actually enjoy our yard, free of mosquitoes and weeds. I’m really excited about these projects! I hope it doesn’t take too long to complete this list! And I hope we don’t have too many unexpected expenses, because already we are cutting it tight. (And having a $526 after-insurance hospital bill doesn’t help!) One potential expense is our fence – I’m hoping we can continue to use what is up right now (not sure how that works with grading the property, etc.), but I don’t want to ignore the possibility of having to replace it.