Superior basement

No, this posting isn't about a basement which is superior to all others. It's about the basement at the Superior house.

After trying to sell the house in Superior for two months, I put it up for rent. I had a great bite, but that deal fell through. Then a friend of a friend was interested in possibly renting it with a view to eventually buying it. That deal fell through. Then another couple in Phoenix was interested, he came out but they found a cheaper place, so that deal fell through. Finally another couple was interested, but they don't want to move in till mid January.

Since they are most likely to rent it, and since they have cats, I thought it would be a good idea to finally cover the walls in the basement. The basement is a very nice walk-out, but it never got finished, which means that the walls consisted of insulation nailed to concrete (for the foundation) covered with vapor barrier. This combination is very fragile, I spent a lot of time fixing tears in it, and I could just see the cat shredding the insulation. So I decided to put drywall up.

Here's what the basement looked like with all the insulation. All the junk is from the previous owner, I took this pic when we first bought the place.

Because the walls are concrete, drywalling the basement would mean building "partition walls" which are simple walls made of 2x4s but don't support any weight of the house, then putting the drywall over it. I hired Walter to do the work, as that would have been more effort than I wanted to do (plus carrying all those sheets of drywall down the path to the basement would have been quite a pain).

I foolishly decided to do it legal and get a permit. I wrote up what I was going to do, and the city happily gave me a permit. For $435. When I questioned them on charging me $435 for $1500 worth of work, they said the permit is based on the (assumed) $7k increase in value of the house. Let's hope they are correct in their assumptions. I gritted my teeth and paid the bill.

OK, so I've been lax in updating

The house has not sold. There were a fair number of people who checked it out, but no one was interested in making even a low-ball offer.

I attribute the lack of success in selling it on a few different factors:

1) I put the house on the market just as the mortgage industry collapsed. While loans were (and are) still available, buyers are spooked and don’t want to make a move.

2) The house is too big to show bare. I think people didn’t know what to look at, so their wandering eyes settled on the few cosmetic issues such as no shower curtains (someone actually said that in their feedback) or the bland curb appeal. I should have staged the house with a bit of furniture, artwork, and silk plants.

3) I was greedy and priced it too high and took too long to adjust it downward. I should have stuck to the original plan and sold it at a small profit when I might have had the chance in early July.

4) Insufficient marketing, though I’m at a loss of how to fix that.

So in late August, when I realized that my very-high-interest-rate construction loan was about to get even higher after the six month point, I decided to do something different. I could have rented the place, but I didn’t trust tenants with the house. I wanted to refinance, but the only company that would underwrite me insisted that it be owner-occupied. So the approach was pretty clear: Move in.

So in mid-September we moved into the house and put the other one up for sale. We had to leave some of our furniture at the old house (remember my lesson about leaving a house bare?), so the new place looks kind of bare. Huge house with nowhere to sit.

Next entry I’ll report on the Craigslist furniture search….

There goes the neighborhood

So there I was, planting some bougainvillea in the front yard, when a Realtor showed up with two people in tow. They went into the house, looked around for a while and came back out. I chitchatted with them for a few moments (they didn't like cypress, I said I could shape it as an elephant, blah blah blah). All innocuous stuff.

I then read their feedback (the realtor is supposed to provide feedback after a showing, and it's done via a website). They said the place was too big, and they didn't like the neighbor and didn't like the neighborhood. I didn't get it, our conversation was bland, and why would they call me the neighbor? Maybe the hired help, but neighbor (they saw my truck in the garage).

Then I got it: two of the neighbors on the block are African American. Those people were racists complaining about our integrated neighborhood!!

Hard to believe there's still crackers like that out there.

Old vs New pictures

I'll not do a lot of commentary in this entry. Instead, I'll just give you before and after pictures (along with a few in-process ones).

Front

Entryway

Living Room

Dining Room

Kitchen

Master Bath

Master Bedroom

Family Room

Downstairs bathroom

Upstairs Bath

Back Deck

Back Yard

For Sale

The IP has a "For Sale" sign in the front yard and is listed on the MLS.

The past several weeks have been absolutely intense. I was working 12 hour days, 7 days a week for at least a month to get things finished and finalized. I even suckered Kathleen into working late with me, but she laid down the law when at 9 PM one day, she had a container of kerosene fall on her as we were loading up the truck. Needless to day she was mighty irritated. And stinky.

In construction, we use "punchlists" which are huge lists of things that need to get fixed, here's one page of my punchlist for the past two weeks. But in addition to the punchlist, I have endless daily lists of things to get accomplished.

Finally last Friday the electrical and plumbing inspectors from the city came and gave me final OK. And Chris came with a listing contract. We discussed the price and agreed on a number (as before, I won't be giving details that can let a potential buyer pinpoint this blog... too much liability, if you know what I mean. However, I'll be happy to give you those details in an email, just send me a note). And on Monday the Final Inspector came and signed off the permit.

Now that it's done, I'm still working through a min punchlist. For example, today I will

> put no-grow film and bark chips on the bare spot in the back yard where the old flowers were

> clean the gate (I had painted it and cleaned it. Then the bozos from the powerwash company blew dirt all over it)

> Move the sprinkler controller. The choice was to move the controller, or run a new wire to it for power. Moving it is much easier.

> Tidy up the boiler room

> Get the gick off of the tub. American Standard had put some sort of label over the on-off switch. I took the label off and the adhesive they used left a gross residue on the tub. Wonderful.

> Paint the pantry door

There's others, but they are pretty minor. I'd like to get those minor things wrapped up this week, I don't want to have a potential buyer come in while I'm still running around with my toolbelt.

I'll try to take some pictures today and post them.

White flag?

Got lots done this last week, including:

> Installed the wetbar counter in the family room

> Roberto tiled the new bathroom and the counters. This turned out to be a major headache, as I didn't read Elysia's instruction and told the tile guys to use the wrong stuff. Needless to say, they ran out, and had to tear it out and re-install with the right stuff

> Frank installed sinks in the new bathroom. Another headache, as we used the wrong template for the sink and the opening wasn't big enough. Had to buy Frank a special grinding wheel to make the holes bigger to install them.

> John finished, but didn't install the access doors in the downstairs bedrooms and the master bedroom closet

> John mortised the 13 new interior doors for hinges and hung them. Didn't paint them yet, but began drilling them for locks and handles

> Frank installed the pedestal sink downstairs. If Frank weren't a preacher he would have let loose with many explatives. As it was, he only said "dag burn it" a bunch of times (Don't worry, the avocado green commode goes next week).

> Installed the heater covers, and only had one missing piece. Not sure what I'm going to do about that.

> Walter installed the granite countertops in the kitchen. Installed the new microwave and the stove.

> John installed door handles for the four exterior doors

> Installed the baseboard. All 196 feet of it. I had to contend with all the existing carpet tack strips with their hundreds of very sharp tacks. I only punctured myself about four times, but now I know how a swimmer feels with that first piranah bite. Only make one serious error when I installed some door casings backwards and had a wierd gap. I doubt anyone will notice

> Paul choped down the ugly two trees in front. That left a huge pile of pine needles which I was just going to bark over. Today I noticed Kathleen raking and digging them up. How was I supposed to know that you're supposed to get rid of them first??

> Kathleen also uprooted about 125 iris bulbs from the back yard. I'm sure glad she likes doing yard work, I find that part of the property to be a big mystery.

> Tore out most of the basement carpet, and all the carpet from the stairs.

> Applied clear polyurethane to the banisters. Now they're all nice and shiny.

This week I hope to finish up with the sinks, install the lights (I should have done that weeks ago), finish installing the stove and begin the dishwasher, put casings around the freedom doors, and get the carpet installed.

Heater covers

Today I put the covers back on the heaters. I'd been dreading this, as I just knew I would lose at least once cover. This usually isn't such a bad thing, as Depot sells pretty much everything. Except, of course, covers for the kind of heaters at the IP.

Well, I got them all on and no covers were missing. I am missing a corner piece, but I'll figure out a way to wing it.

The appliances arrived today and Walter began installing them. Microwave went in fine, but the stove interferes with the gas supply line. Yep, the gas supply line that Frank put in for me a few weeks back. Per my directions. Per what the stove manufacturer said to do.

I guess Frank will be re-routing the gas line tomorrow.

The kitchen is almost done. All cabinets are in, the appliances are almost in and the slab got installed today.

John has mortised all the new interior doors and they're all well hung. Just need to add handles and paint them.

Kathleen came over today and measured the windows. She'll be dealing with the shear curtains to hide the ugly windows.

Tomorrow I'll start with the baseboard and the casings.

The camera was out of batteries, hence no new pictures for this post.