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It was pretty neat how they dropped it in the driveway with the detachable hydraulic lift that came off of the delivery truck…
Best of all, it was in place before 7:30 am leaving us a full day (unexpected) to start filling it up!
Posted on May 22nd, 2010 at 9:47 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 8 Comments »
So the ball is rolling…
Actually, saying “the ‘wrecking’ ball is looming” would be a more accurate statement…
The quote for our first floor renovation is in and we’re scheduled to have one of those PODS self storage unit things delivered tomorrow morning.
The POD is only setting me back around $300 for delivery and the first month and then about $160 per month after that.
Kinda pricey, I think…
A bit more expensive than that storage unit we had years ago but when it’s right in front of your house, well, it’s a lot more convenient for something that I expect to be short term…
Besides it’s pocket change when compared to what the renovation is going to set us back.
Ready for it?
» $33,487.70
We haven’t signed the dotted line yet… but we’re going to…
Posted on May 21st, 2010 at 8:07 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 6 Comments »
So it’s been over two weeks now since we initiated the re-fi and everything is set and ready to go except for one thing…
The appraisal.
We’re dragging our feet on this because of the entry room of our house. It’ll kill an appraisal on it’s own.
The picture above is actually a glimpse of the room I’m referring to in all of its glory — not something stolen from some random person’s flickr gallery. That’s my actual house. It’s bad. Seriously.
Now for most people, the appraisal is little more than a formality but for us, well, we could have a diamond encrusted bathtub in the bathroom and it wouldn’t matter… The entry room is a deal breaker.
The original plan — two weeks ago — was to get some shady drywall contractor to come out to do a quick and dirty cover-up just to get through it…
The more we thought about it, though, the more we thought that might not be the right move.
On Wednesday night we had an extreme makeover type of contractor come over. We told him that this entry room was the primary focus right now but that we’d actually like to have the entire first floor renovated but due to budget concerns, for now, everything on the first floor except for the kitchen.
I’m not saying that the kitchen doesn’t need to be renovated — it certainly does — but, for now, well, we can live with it.
Though we only wanted 3 rooms renovated and a new staircase (maybe 650 square feet total) he went through our entire house from top to bottom. Yep, he went up to the attic. Scoped out the entire upstairs, the rooms we actually want gutted, and the basement too.
He was basically picturing it all in his head — you could see it in his eyes — and looking for potential stumbling blocks. Oddly enough, I think it worked in our favor that we’d already destroyed one room so that he could see exactly what he’d be working with behind all of the plaster
He flat out said, “You should start by replacing all of the wiring…”
It’s not that I didn’t know that — it’s just that I’ve never been sure what order to do things in.
I mean, do you replace a floor before or after you put up drywall?
It was only after the fact that we learned that you should replace siding before a roof — I don’t want to make that mistake again and I wish one of the contractors we’d had over back then would have mentioned it.
On that note, I also don’t ever want to deal with terrible contractors ever again…
This guy, who didn’t seem like a seedy scumbag for even a second, didn’t seem phased or unsure about anything our 125+ year old house threw at him.
If anything, I think he was shocked at the quality and condition of the workmanship within which, yeah, made me feel pretty good about my currently crappy house.
When he asked what our budget was for the three rooms I lowballed a $15-$20k number (which we’ve already saved up).
He mulled it over — likely scaling back what he’d imagined in his head considerably — and finally said it’d probably cost a bit more than that but we’d be shoring up some support columns in the basement and re-wiring the entire house as well… two things that I’d wanted done anyway but wasn’t sure how to work it in to the equation.
If he comes in at $30k, this is a done deal.
Even $35k, it’s a done deal.
$40k?
Well, let me get back to you on that…but still, pretty likely something we’ll move forward with…
So now the plan for the appraisal depends on what this specific contractor comes back with.
If it’s a number that works for us, we’re going to get one of the PODs delivered ASAP and we’re going to completely empty the entire first floor of our house in anticipation of the demolition phase for the remodel and then schedule the appraisal.
With a completely bare (and possibly even already gutted) first floor, my hope is that it will appear to the appraiser that we’re in the midst of an extreme renovation and that’s why our home looks incomplete.
Sure, it could backfire but the way things are now, it’d backfire anyway.
A re-fi isn’t a “this must happen” thing for us. We’re doing alright as it is — I just wanted to finally skirt PMI and lower my payment at the same time.
Basically, if it doesn’t go through, we’re out around $400 for the appraisal and life goes on. We’ll be fine and I’ll still plan on paying off the mortgage before Duncan is even out of elementary school and before I turn 40.
The best news, though, is that we’re *finally* moving on this renovation.
Nothing is signed but the first step has been taken and I’m excited…
Posted on May 16th, 2010 at 5:38 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 6 Comments »
I’m almost ashamed to admit that the last home improvement project that I took on myself was over two years ago…
That time, it was replacing an ancient light fixture — this time I was taking on the kitchen sink.
Look at that thing?! It’s like a combination of a kitchen and bathroom faucet all in one. It’s horrible!?
Now, it’s also dripped since I bought the place back in 2002. I know, I know, I should’ve done something long before this weekend but it never really seemed to be a priority…
A couple of weeks ago, though, the drip turned into a stream. Then it started to whistle. And then I noticed that it was the hot water that was running 24 hours per day.
Hey, this is probably costing me a pretty decent chunk of change…
So off to Lowe’s we went to pick up the cheapest (but better) “kitchen” faucet they had. It was around $39.
The instructions said that the new faucet should take around an hour to install.
No problem, I thought, I can do this…
I turned the water off and proceeded to remove the old faucet.
Hmmmmm… It didn’t take to to realize that this was going to be harder than I’d thought… Nothing was moving. Nothing.
I made a quick trip to Home Depot to buy a monkey wrench and some WD-40 to loosen up the the nuts on the copper pipes.
With-in minutes of being WD-40′d, I had the water pipes disconnected but I still couldn’t get the old faucet off of the sink.
The underside was held down by these big plastic wing nuts that were fastened so tight (courtesy of corrosion) that I couldn’t get them to budge. Really, even if it weren’t such a tight cramped space, I don’t know that it would have been possible loosen them — they were that tight.
Another trip to Home Depot — this time to purchase a mini hack saw. My plan was to hack saw through the plastic wing nuts.
The plan was a total failure though as there wasn’t enough room under (and behind) the sink to get the saw blade up to where the wing nuts were. Argh?!
In the process of attempting the impossible, I’d managed to loosen/mangle things up enough on one side to slip the hack saw between the sink and the faucet so I cut right through the copper pipe (above the countertop). Hack saws are the best.
On to the other side… Crap. It was still flush with the sink so the hack saw wasn’t going to get the job done…
Out came the drill…even though it wasn’t listed a tool “needed” for installation.
From under the sink, I started to drill the plastic wing nut, here, there, from this side, from that side and then, suddenly, it started to give! No, not fall apart, but actually spin!
I unwound it, thinking, sweet, I’m almost there, and then it stopped. It wouldn’t move. Ugh…
So, since it worked on the other side and now that I had a little give, I went back to the hacksaw method.
Five hours later, I’d drilled and hack sawed the old faucet from the sink. Really, the one plumbing tool I’d purchased (the monkey wrench) was of no use. None.
Twenty minutes later, we had a new faucet.
I swear, the home improvement projects that I attempt would be *so* much easier if they were more of the addition kind rather than the renovation sort.
It’s not pretty but at least it doesn’t leak…
Posted on November 22nd, 2009 at 1:47 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 3 Comments »
Hey, what happened to paying off the mortgage before your kid is even in school?
Well, I’ve been on pace now for over a year to have my mortgage done and paid for in early 2014 — not that far away — but I’ve decided to take a different route and here’s the reasoning…
The primary reason is that we *need* to renovate the first floor. While I can envision having my main entry way looking as it does for another 40 months or so, I don’t want to.
The other reason is because I’m afraid that if we don’t do the renovation now (or I’m guessing in the next 18 months), we’ll run the risk of never getting it done.
See, I’ve come to the conclusion that in a worst case scenario (a major job loss), we could keep up with the mortgage as it stands now on just my wife’s income.
Now say, for instance, that worst case scenario arrives before we’re able to renovate the first floor…
See where I’m going?
Yeah, we’d be strapped for cash *and* be living in squalid conditions.
Seeing the ends are nearer for a renovation than they are for a mortgage payoff — and the benefits of a renovation far outweigh, well, the alternative (a worst case scenario = nothing), this is the wisest plan that I’ve come up with so far…
Seriously, I thought about this for like 5 minutes straight…
So I’m going to institute my “Mortgage Ladder” plan in November and start saving like a mad man.
Notice, though, that I did *not* say that I’d curb my spending…
One thing at a time…
Posted on October 14th, 2009 at 8:33 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Home Improvements, Mortgage | 2 Comments »
Just a little update on that tree project that got started up on Monday…
The logging truck showed up this afternoon and took away the big stuff.
Sorry — no time-lapse video today.
(If you haven’t seen the video yet, it’s pretty cool and it’s less than 1 minute long… In a nut shell, it’s worth watching.)
Really, this guy was in and out in less than 15 minutes. It’s amazing what one person can do with the right equipment.
Hopefully they’ll finish things up tomorrow.
I can’t wait until the stumps are gone too…
Posted on July 8th, 2009 at 8:30 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 1 Comment »
They didn’t quite finish today — just some clean-up and stump-grinding left — but the trees are down.
And look — we’ve got sun!
I’m not sure that this side of the house has ever seen the sun! We’re pretty excited about that…
Best of all, for the first time ever, a contractor has done work at our house and NOT wrecked one of our cars or another part of the house that they weren’t hired to work on.
A job well done — I’ll have no problem making that $2750 check out to these guys.
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PIAC Post Extension:
The video doesn’t really portray the full effect of having this cluster of trees taken out so here’s a before and after rollover of the first frame and the last frame:
Posted on July 6th, 2009 at 9:46 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements, Photo | 12 Comments »
Sometimes you feel the momentum building up behind you and you just have to go with it.
That’s how having these enormous trees taken out as we speak is making me feel.
There are a bunch of french guys out there working for me and making my house “better” which, in turn, raises my standard of living.
If feels pretty good, you know?
It has me thinking that I should just go all out and get a contractor in here to do up the first floor.
Maybe even get the oil tank out of the basement while they’re at it. And I should get things rolling on that “tear down the garage and build a brand new one” idea I tossed around last year…
Okay, perhaps that’s a little much… I don’t have *that* much momentum…
But I still have that itch to go all out and just get all of these costly renovations just plain out of the way and in the rear view mirror without worrying too much about how to pay for them…
Sure, you could pull any number of scenarios from when I said I’d considered lowering or eliminating my 401k contribution — something I still haven’t done yet.
Doing something drastic there would definitely make things easier to finance.
And Grant, who pops in pretty regularly with well thought out comments, had a great suggestion too. Take an extended break from my crazy mortgage payment schedule and instead save up to do everything I want to do next year.
Sure, it’d push back paying off the mortgage by around a year but it would also give me a much nicer living situation a lot sooner…
And thinking about it…between December of 2007 and July of 2007 while still struggling with my credit card balances, I spent over $40k on home renovations.
Less than a year later, I was debt free.
I can totally do this.
The problem is finding a contractor…
Posted on July 6th, 2009 at 10:25 am by Brainy Smurf
2009 Goals, Finance, Home Improvements | 1 Comment »
So, like I said yesterday, we’re planning on having a few trees removed from the yard.
Earlier this week, we called a few companies out for estimates — Asplundh, an international tree service that you’d normally see doing municipal work around power lines, and two local companies.
Asplundh hasn’t come by yet — they said they’d be coming by next week to check the project out — but the two locals have stopped in and provided quotes.
For the two locals, I should mention that neither of them is the type of thing where it’s some guy with a chainsaw and his brother that’s missing an arm from the “accident” last week — I’ve seen both companies all over the place with multiple bucket trucks and crane type vehicles in tight places.
They’re both appear to be quite reputable.
As far as Asplundh goes, we were planning on green lighting the project even before next week so they’ll probably be coming out too late.
That’s okay, though. I was leaning against them anyway because I’d prefer to use a smaller local company because that’s just the way I am.
And no, that doesn’t mean that I’m one of those folks who refuses to shop at Walmart, though I do refuse to shop at Walmart, my reasoning is because Target is *so* much better.
Back to the trees…
So, in a back-to-back fashion, both companies sent a little french guy covered in sawdust to scope out our situation. Call me politically incorrect but I always thought drywall was their specialty… Apparently, they’re tree experts too.
Both seemed pleasant enough and I got a pretty good vibe from both.
The first quote we received was $2750. And the second was $2950.
Pretty close together.
It was funny, once we got down to the pricetag, I wasn’t standing there in stunned silence (like I had with the roof and the siding).
With the first one, I actually had to bite the insides of my cheeks to hold back a smile… Seriously.
While my wife and I didn’t actually come up with a number in our heads ahead of time like we wanted to (in a feeble attempt to prepare ourselves for pretty much any number), this quote was well within our limits. Yeah, the limits we never actually set.
Thinking about it though, nearly $3k is still a pretty hefty sum so why am I so content with it?
Is it simply because I have the funds available to cover it?
Maybe.
When we had our roof done back in December of 2006, we had saved up $2k and thought we were doing really well. The quote, and cost of the project, was $14k. Yeah, we were stunned. But we had to green light the project to begin solving our ongoing insurance problem.
Even worse, by the summer of 2007, we’d saved up around $6k to have the house sided and, again, we thought we were in really great shape. That quote came in at $26k?! Yikes?!
Again, though, we went ahead and had the work done financing most of it on a credit card. (Thankfully, we did finally resolve our insurance problem!)
So, basically, on the last two sizable home improvement projects, we’ve been caught with our pants down when it came to the actual cost.
I think we’ve almost come to expect it to be that way everytime.
Not so.
We had a decision to make…
Which company should we hire for the job?
The guys that they sent out to give the quote were all but identical — yeah, I admit it, I judge people. Their quotes were so close together that I can’t justifiably base my decision strictly on cost either…
Hmmmm… how to compare the two…
The more expensive place definitely has the nicer looking equipment. Basically, their entire fleet looks uniform — red paint, big white letters, cool looking logo. Plain and simple, from their trucks right down to their wood chippers, their stuff looks sharp.
The cheaper place is a hodge-podge of sorts. White pick-up trucks, various coloured bucket trucks, orange chippers, and a green stump grinder. And the pick-ups are the only pieces with an identifying logo.
Not that presentation is everything, and not that I can relate real well with the tree service contractor type of business, but I know I always have more interest in the RFP’s printed on linen paper over those printed on single-ply recycled toilet paper. One is more professional. Obviously.
On the other hand, again, you can put all the lipstick on a pig (or decals and paint on your equipment) you want but it’s still a pig. Or a pitbull. Or Sarah Palin. Or however that went…
The more expensive place is winning so far…
On the other hand, the cheaper place provided us with the quote on a custom carbon copy quote form. The more expensive place put the quote on the flipside of a business card.
Estimate 1:
Estimate 2:
I know first hand that it’s a pretty big expense to have custom carbon copy forms made up, especailly when they’re not at all essential to the business that you do.
For years I’ve contemplated having custom window envelopes made up for my own company’s invoices but it never made much sense to spend so much for something that I’d only send to companies whose business I already have…
This, on the other hand, is something that they were using to attract new business. And, at some point, they decided that it was worth the expense.
And you know what?
In this case, it worked.
Largely, for that reason, a simple yet fancy quote sheet, that first company is going to be the one that gets my business. From the business side of things, they’re the more professional of the two.
Luckily, they’re also the company with the cheaper quote.
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PIAC Post Extension:
The quote form wasn’t the “only” reason we selected the first place. After giving us the quote, the first guy who came out asked us if we were having anyone else come out to give estimates. We said, yes, and told him the name of the other local company.
His response, no joke, was, “Oh, they’re great people. A nice family. They do good work.”
Back in 2007, when our siding contractor asked if we’d had anyone else come to price the project he called our other option lazy and a crook.
In hindsight, I wish we’d hired the lazy guy who was a crook because I can’t imagine he would have put us through the rigmarole the contractor that we selected did. Just thinking about it makes me angry — a two week project took them FIVE MONTHS!?
Basically, this response earned some bonus points for the first guy — not only because he asked the question AFTER he’d given the quote but also because he didn’t bash his biggest competitor in front of a potential customer.
Now, the second guy who came out never asked if we’d already gotten a quote from someone else but he could probably read it in our eyes. Upon delivery of his, um, business card, he mentioned that the cost quote could come down some depending on how much time it took to truck everything away once it’s all cut down.
Hey, that’s their problem, not mine. I didn’t really like that false “tease”.
But he also said that if we paid cash, they’d waive the sales tax… Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to cancel out the terrible quote delivery method…
Anyhow, this afternoon, we called the first place to let them know that they’d “won” and come Monday, the sun will shine upon us a little bit brighter!
(That is, if the sun ever comes out… It’s been raining for over a month, it seems…)
Posted on July 3rd, 2009 at 4:01 pm by Brainy Smurf
Finance, Home Improvements | 3 Comments »
Last month I hinted at another home improvement project that we’ve had on the radar for completion this summer besides having the oil tank in the scary basement drained and removed.
We still haven’t had that done and haven’t even called anyone about it yet.
Instead, we’re leapfrogging it.
Our second “project” for this summer, now the first, was/is to have some trees in the yard taken down.
This has been something I’ve been meaning to have done pretty much since day one but it seemed so silly to have work done on the trees when the actual house is what needed the most work.
One tree, in particular, has always kind of frightened me.
It is by far the tallest tree in the neighborhood. It’s trunk is an amazing 104 inches around — trees that wide aren’t real common in New England.
It’s also far enough away from house that, should it decide to tip over, it would have enough momentum to slice the house right in half. Yep, just like that picture (which was taken last week less than 10 miles from my house).
Should it fall in a different direction, say good bye to my garage and the BMW and Cessna parked inside.
In another direction? Well, the trunk is still thick enough a few hundred feet up to slice a neighbor’s house in half too. While that could be a good thing, I’m not certain that my homeowners insurance would cover it…
Making things even more frightening is that it’s a white pine. The needles don’t fall off in the winter so the the entire tree is like a sailboat’s sail in the wind. Also being a white pine, it’s a soft wood.
Really, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
The pine cones are annoying too.
Posted on July 2nd, 2009 at 8:14 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 4 Comments »
And let’s not talk about the elephant just inside the front door…
Yes, the room *still* looks like that.
I feel shame.
Anyway, while we aren’t quite up to green lighting a project of that scope (financially), we are on the edge of actively getting a couple of other projects done around the house.
One is inside. The other is outside.
Unfortunately, neither will make our living conditions nicer in the short term…
The first project is something that I’ve been putting off since, wow, October of 2003.
My original-to-the-house coal burning furnace (converted to oil in the 1950′s) died and I made the decision to switch from oil to natural gas.
I had some contractors come in — three outrageously friendly Jamaican guys — to replace the furnace (which was roughly the size of my car) with a much more efficient gas burning one roughly the size of a 19-inch television.
Total cost was $5208 and was certainly not a welcome expense at the time.
Thankfully that was paid off in January of 2005.
So what’s the deal now?
Well, being Type-A, in September of 2003 I had my oil tank filled in preparation for the winter. Normally, that would be a really wise financial move.
I never used a drop of it.
So, for the past 6 years, I’ve had an environmental disaster waiting to happen in my basement.
If my oil tank were in great shape, I wouldn’t sweat it, but that’s the thing… The oil tank looks, well, prone to failure.
Now is the time to get it pumped dry and out of there, you know, before I have the government labelling my property as some sort of environmental wasteland and forcing the whole neighborhood to be evacuated for some sort of clean-up by strange men in space suits.
I have no idea how much this will cost.
I like to think that I could make some money on the deal — heating oil today is worth a lot more than what I paid for it back in 2003 — but from what I’ve heard, that isn’t the way it works.
Some local oil company will come in, pump it out, charge me, and them pump it right back into someone else’s oil tank and then charge them. Hardly seems fair.
The second project, well, I’ll talk about that later…
Posted on June 20th, 2009 at 11:01 am by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements | 5 Comments »
As I’ve mentioned before, my home is old. Definitely over 100 years old.
Probably even over 125 years old.
And while my furnace is only a few years old now, my thermostat is probably around 50 years old. That’s just an educated guess. In reality, I have no idea how old it is…
Oh, and you don’t have to email me to let me know that it looks like crap and that I should get a new one. I already know that.
But if you’d seen the room that surrounds it, well, the aesthetic appearance of the thermostat is the least of my problems…
And, hey, the old thing still works like a charm!
Anyway…
It looks like your standard round Honeywell thermostat, right? If you grew up in North America or western Europe, it should be pretty familiar. It may even drum up some warm fuzzy memories.
If you were born in the 1990′s, well, this is how we turned the heat on in the dark ages, you know, before everything went digital and became programmable.
My thermostat is a very early version of the T87 — a model that Honeywell released in 1953. If it were in better shape, it might even be worth something. Apparently one is even displayed in the Smithsonian.
But look closely… There’s a feature on there that isn’t on more modern versions…
See it?
I’ve lived in this house for over six years and I just noticed it earlier this week while researching my BFO post about turning the freakin’ heat down.
At the bottom, just above where it says “Honeywell”, they’ve highlighted a so-called “Comfort Range” between 72 and 78 degrees Fahrenheit.
Apparently, heating the home in the 1950′s didn’t cost so much…
It’s about as warm as it gets in here during the winter months and I’m still 4 degrees shy of the “comfort range”.
Posted on February 8th, 2009 at 12:31 pm by Brainy Smurf
Home Improvements, Photo, Retro | 3 Comments »
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I'm three apples high and nearsighted. I like yellow-haired smurfs, robot invasions, sarcasm, and anything where the secret ingredient is love.
I started this blog in March 2007 after accidently stumbling across a few PF blogs while researching the idea of using 0% balance tranfers to finance a home improvement project -- from there, I was hooked...
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