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Archive for May, 2011

The house is FINISHED!!!

May 29th, 2011 at 04:00 pm

I have reached the point of good enough! We sign the papers on Tuesday. For sale. Woo-hoo!

These don't really show how dramatic the before and after are, but you get the point!




We hired a realtor

May 25th, 2011 at 10:55 pm

We hired a realtor today, after many interviews and walk-throughs. We sign the papers to put the house on the market either Thursday or Tuesday (holiday weekends). We have one more big day at the house-- we rented a floor buffer/polisher and a carpet extractor so we can clean the floors. Stanley Steemer can stick their $600 quote! Momm is taking the kids, so me and hubby can both work on the house to get it finished. Then, it's cleaning staging AND DONE!!

Then it's hurry up and wait for an offer.

Moneywise, it's still sad. We paid 154,500in 2006. Put 40k into repairs and upgrades, and the maximum listing price we are looking at is 152k. Boo.

Some realtors tried to tell us we'd be lucky to get 89,000 out of it. I certainly hope they are wrong.

WHat is up with all the spam entries???

May 24th, 2011 at 02:10 pm

Argh. Spam entries make me mad! Does anyone ever click on those? Isn't it a waste of the spambots time?

It's ready.... almost. $40 staging, and other news.

May 24th, 2011 at 04:05 am

My goal is to list the house for sale on Friday. We are ready to go, except for putting another coat of paint on the door in the kitchen, replacing the sunporch carpet (taking care of both of these tomorrow), and scrubbing the floors.

Stanley Steemer actually quoted me $600 to clean the wood floors and carpet in my 1450 square foot house. With a straight face!! So hubby and I are renting the equipment and doing it ourselves for about $80 on Friday.

You thrifty design geeks will like this. I managed to buy all the curtains I needed to Designed to Sell my entire house at various thrift stores, for about $40. That is pretty cheap for curtains for 5 rooms. And they are nice curtains too! I also bought a beautiful fabric to slipcover my diner booth-- for $1.99. It was even still on the cardboard bolt thing from the fabric store. Boy do I love thrifting.

So, we will hopefully sign the papers with the realtor, roll out the staging furniture, take the pictures, and then plop that for sale sign in the yard by end of day Friday. That is my timelines at least, if the stars align.

It's an exciting prospect. painting, repairing and cleaning that house has been my third full-time job for more than a month, and boy am I ready to move on with my life!

I'm meeting with two new realtors on Wednesday. I wasn't impressed with our last realtor. Seemed like his MO was to just list houses for fire sale prices so he didn't have to do any real work. Um, no. So we're exploring our options. Hopefully one of the two will work out. One just listed a house down the street, which was only for sale a short time until it sold. He clearly knows how to price a house to sell. Fingers crossed!

in other news, I haven't put one penny into the savings account since we bought this house. So sad. The good news is that nothing has come out yet either. We've been paying the mortgage and all the money on repairs, etc. to the other out of cash flow, so all of that is positive. It occurred to me that it is very weird to not save anything. It also made me realize how "rich" we would feel if we just spent everything we made! (don't worry guys, I'm not!)

And in other other news. It's ill-timed, given how busy I am, but I did land yet another monthly freelance contract. It's only once a month, short but interesting, and pays about $100. My goal at the beginning of the year was to increase my income by about $300. Then magically, I got a contract for $400. Now this, so I am up to $500 a month in additional, steady income. It feels nice to knock a goal out of the park!

And those of you following my paycheck woes will be happy to know one of the companies I work for is now offering direct deposit. No more lost checks in the mail.

On a sad note, my great aunt died this weekend. She was 90. Same age as her mother-- my great grandmother-- when she died. I think 90 is a pretty good run, don't you?

Is that a light I see?

May 16th, 2011 at 05:49 pm

I put in another 10 hour day at the old house on Friday, six more hours on Saturday (along with my mom), and then hubby and I borrowed a truck to move the last of the big odds and ends out of the old house. Phew!

I can FINALLY say that all of this hard work is almost over! If I put in some real time cleaning and scrubbing this week, I could have the house ready and for sale by this weekend. WOO-HOO!!!

Once that sign is in the yard, I plan to kick my feet up, watch a movie, and go to bed early. Then maybe, just maybe, I can turn my attention to the house I'm currently living in!

It's all good, bad, and ugly...

May 11th, 2011 at 03:22 am

If I there were a way to let out a long, exhausted breath via words, I would be doing that right now.

I have been stretched to my absolute limit since we put an offer in on our current house about two months ago. I'm like a really bad Plastic Man wannabe-- all stretched out, only I haven't been zapped by some magic ray that actually makes me stretchy!

We are back to our daily routine, as far as where the kids need to go and the work I need to do, etc. Now that I have moved to the other side of town I basically live in the car, driving the kids to the sitter and to preschool. I HATE driving, so I made the executive decision today that we are switching Kid 1 to a preschool in the new neighborhood. We have two good prospects, and I am touring them both later this week. Hopefully, the preschool issue will be solved by the end of the week.

We moved out of our old place April 15. I am STILL working on it to get it ready to sell. It's taking forever, first because it's only me who is spending long hours over there painting and repairing-- because someone has to watch the kids, and I'm the handy one of my family. And two, because it seems like every surface needs primer plus at least two coats of paint to get it to look good. My fault, I tried a new paint and it's coverage is for squat. So, I had to spend more to get good paint unless I wanted to put on five coats. Frustrating, to always feel like you are doing the same project over and over yet it doesn't get done.

I still haven't received one bit of forwarded mail-- which includes about $1300 in freelance checks I really need right now. I went to my old post office, and they have no mail. They said it's been forwarded, and asked me to go to my new post office. I'm almost scared to do. If they don't have my mail, then where is it? Lost in some vortex, along with all the other halves of pairs of socks I've lost through the years???

I still have no idea how our mortgage will be impacting our savings plan or daily life, as I haven't had any time and energy to sit down and plan. And, I've been spending money on paint, supplies, cleaning, repairs, etc. on the other house, a temporary but spendy expense.

Add in that I haven't clipped a sinlge coupon or had the energy to hunt down sale sin feeding my family and my money situation is a total wreck. AAAAAAHHHHHH!

I just really need to get this house on the market in the next couple of weeks, so I can start putting some of my time and energy into all the things that aren't being taken care of while I'm slaving away on painting and mowing!!

Phew. Are you exhausted from reading that? I am!

On a bright note, I did manage to drop off four giant boxes at the Goodwill today. Phew.

Murphy's law of moving and renovating

May 3rd, 2011 at 06:03 pm

I thought I would have the old house painted and ready to put on the market by now. Of course not. I've been there putting in long days of painting and cleaning, but I probably still have two more weeks to go. It takes so long because I can't just go full steam ahead. I have to work on weekends, and then only for as many hours as someone can be with the kids. Hubby has had to work the last two Saturdays (unexpectedly) which further put a crimp in my plans. It's frustrating. I want to get this house on the market ASAP, but trying to accomplish anything-- especially as monumental as this-- is impossible when you have two small kids.

I am thankful for my mom. She spent two days last weekend cleaning and scrubbing, and definitely knocked some time off of the work that needs to be done before listing. Sure, I could sell as is, but in this market, I don't believe in leaving anything to chance. The house has to look perfect and be priced right.

Murphy's law has also kicked in on my paychecks, which arrive by mail once a month. I didn't forward my mail until April 25, because the check usually arrives before then. I'd been at the house every day, so didn't mind picking up the mail. The check didn't come. And in my new house, I've maybe gotten one piece of forwarded mail since April 25. So I'm living in a "where is all of my mail?" limbo vortex, and about $1000 in paychecks, which I could really use right now are caught up in the void. I talked to my employer, and they sent the checks on April 15. I should have had it before the mail forwarding. But of course not. And because I moved, they want me to wait and see if it shows up. I'm stuck. How much longer is it going to take for my forwarded mail to arrive???? I need to get paid!