I'm just going to go bury my head back under the covers

This is just a rambling of words. I'm just feeling totally overwhelmed with all this building and having to move soon. The days keep ticking away and the shop is still nowhere near ready. DH recalls around the beginning of June, when we were trying to decide when to put our house on the market, asking the builder - will the shop be ready by the end of July?! (since it was supposed to be done by end of May). Oh for sure, he said.

The inside should be finished painting today. A couple months ago when the plumber came to do the rough in work he asked DH what kind of sink he was putting in the vanity and DH said a deep sink, so the plumber said the vanity will be a kitchen style, not a bath style, to accomodate the deep sink. Yesterday morning he calls, as he's supposed to come back out now. He wanted to make sure the vanity was installed and hole cut. Um no.....we thought the builder coordinated that with you? And our builder (who has had our plans since forever) says "oh you're having a vanity? Yes, the bathroom  has a sink, a shower and a toilet and hookup for washer and dryer. It's in the plans. What the heck are we paying him for if we have to do all the coordinating. I kind of tried to be funny with him and said, sorry, but we don't know how to install a vanity or cut the hole ourselves.

DH hurt is knee pretty badly yesterday, so now we have that to deal with. With all the water lines being dug up the property is a big mess again and he stepped wrong and twisted his knee out and he kept trying to work through it yesterday and it kept giving out on him. I tried to make him keep his leg up in the recliner with ice last night, but he spent most of the evening walking around talking on the phone (still trying to find an electrician). He can't sit and talk on the phone at the same time and I got annoyed and said you need to sit down and rest that knee. Of course this morning it's swelled up and quite painful and I know he'll just make it worse by being on it all day again today.

The well pump got installed. It will be powered up tomorrow to check for leaks. The propane guy stopped by. At least we found out he could do a temp set up with it above ground, if the site isn't ready yet for it to be buried and then we can bury it later. He's also got a guy scheduled for a few days mid month to epoxy the shop floor. Did I mention we still need to find an electrician? The couple of electricians he has talked to so far what to charge even more to finish the rest of the job, than the electrician we had bid for the whole job.


I went to the city yesterday to work on some more bids. I first stopped at the cabinet lady's place to try and light a fire under her butt. Her excuse now is she's having computer problems. I also told her I need her to send her layout to the granite place, so they can redo their bid. I also stopped at another granite place to get a bid started, but it sounds like this one will be more expensive, plus she doesn't really carry any of the granite color I am looking for. I want browns and creams. Apparently that is out of style now. Everyone wants grays and whites. I will have to check back with the first granite place we visited last January and see what their stock is now, as they had lots of what I wanted back then.

Then I went to a carpet place the builder uses a lot. Talked to Bob. Bob is a super nice guy. Everyone should be more like Bob ;)  He's working up a quote and I'm really hoping the builder is right and it's lower than the one we got months ago from a different flooring place.

Last two stops was Walmart to pick up some "work socks" as DH has worn his out. Then the grocery store to stock up on water and a couple other things. Finally got back home early afternoon. Found an email from my son, asking if I could scan him his social security card, as he needed a copy of it to accept a job. In my overwhelmed state of mind I couldn't remember where I would have put his card (kept with our cards) since we moved. I know where I kept it in our old house in my desk, but it wasn't in that little file drawer. DH needed me to come out to the property and bring his shop vac, so I sent DS an email that I would have to look for it, but get it to him as soon as I could. He did email back with a Thank You! I then recalled that after we moved here and bought a big safe, that I had put all that stuff inside. I don't know the combination! I thought when we bought the safe I had saved it in my phone notes. Nope. So, I called DH to ask him the combo and he was so very overwhelmed with 20 things going on at the same time he just choked up and said "I can't even remember the combo to it right now". I said don't worry about it, we can do it tonight when you get home. Later, after we got  home he gave me the combo and I put it in my phone and he reminded me where we had "hid" the combo and safe paperwork. I was able to scan and email it to DS. I also added to him in the email that I hope all is going well for him. No reply back after that.

It was 95 yesterday. Any time I had to stand out in the sun while at the property yesterday afternoon was so hot. I just can't do that kind of heat. It was much better standing in the shop, but even with all the openings it still smelled like paint. I fell asleep on the couch last night at 8pm and woke up at almost 10pm to go to bed.

Today, the drain field is supposed to get dug and septic system installed. Oh, and then we found out yesterday afternoon that the county planner guy is quitting. OMG. He's like a one man show for the county. He's the one who will have to inspect and approve our septic system. The excavating guy and the propane guy had both just heard. It does sound like he has given notice, rather than just up and quitting, so we need to get this septic done very soon so there are no delays getting it signed off. I don't know what this county will do without him. 

The stone mason guy is a whole other story. He apparently had a melt down yesterday. That's a story for another day. Stonework around the bottom of siding is the least of our concerns at the moment.

I also have today off work. So far all I feel like really doing is crawling back in bed and burying my head under the covers. When I have too much to do I tend to get nothing done.

Relaxing things

Today, Saturday, should be fairly relaxing. I thought DH might take it easier today, but he left the house about 7:30 to go to the property. It sounds like he will spend most of the day and so he didn't see if I wanted to go too. There's really not much for me to help with, so unless it's just for a few hours, I'd just rather stay home and get things done here. (or relax).

The tape and texture job is almost finished. The guy is terribly slow at it, but is doing very good work. He was supposed to be done by the end of this week, but he wasn't quite finished yesterday so is working this weekend, as we have the painter showing up Monday. Even though he is very slow (and like to talk sometimes more than work) DH has grown fond of him (I even sent an extra egg sandwich with DH this morning for him) and he told DH he's not rushing the job because he really likes DH and doesn't want to rush it and do sub par work.

A lot got done this week, so that is very good. Water lines dug, well pump started to get installed, stone work on shop, tape and texturing, insulation in ceiling area blown in. Last night the excavating company owner (basically he's a two man company) texted DH to see if he would mind if he pulled his guy off our job (yet again!) for a "couple days". DH said yes, at this point he absolutely does mind! The septic system has to get gone next week, no if's and's or but's. What a POS. 

I still have Netflix (my my dd's Mother's Day gift card) for another month. Last week I finished watching Madam Secretary. I had watched it a year or so ago, but now got caught up. Yesterday I just started watching "Anne with an "E"".  What a delightful, sweet show!

I also finished a book that was just as delightful. You may have seen the movie "A River Runs Through It". (we've seen it several times). Since books are usually better than the movie and this movie was really good, I figured the book (author Norman Maclean) must be wonderful. And it was. I even took a pencil and underlined some passages. I had to buy the book (used on B&N) as it wasn't available through my library as an e-book. Just beautifully written. I highly recommend this novella.

Two of my favorite passages:
"Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn't think so. At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear"

"Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it".

I'm sure this will be a book I read more than once, over the coming years.

Good news

Just received an email from our agent. It appears buyer is backing down from his demands. Now he is saying, if there are any repairs called out by the appraiser (the inspector thinks it would only be the siding cracks) then the cost to repair will come out of the allowance we already gave the buyer. Now, there you go. Seems reasonable to me. Looks like we are back in business.

Some good bits

In the midst of all this stress and crap there are at least a couple of bright spots.

My DD applied for some jobs with the big company her fiance works for. She's been asked to interview for two positions. The positions are in the same department, one is a level 1 and the other level 2. She's every excited. It's actually right down the road from where she works now, so she and fiance would still be able to carpool. Her interview is Monday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for her.

DH called to chat with his dad last night. FIL said our son stopped by to see them this past Sunday. He said he looked really good and told his grandpa he's "kicked the drugs and cigarettes". FIL also said son asked about us. While I'm not so sure that part might be true, it is very good to hear he is doing better. Like I told DD, even if he never wants anything to do with us, there is no reason he still can't be a good, productive person with his life. We certainly aren't stopping him from doing that.

I was re-reading the pages that came with the inspection items the buyer wants repaired. These are pages directly from the inspection report, with the pictures. On the bathtub patch. It says it's functional and it's just a note pointing out that there is a patch there and the suggestion is to maintain the caulk to prevent water penetration and damage. It does not say it needs to be fixed. So, why is the buyer saying he wants "master bath drain repaired"? Just stupid.

I also sent my agent an email saying since we are being asked to explain our position (by our own agent), maybe it should also be asked of the buyer and his agent, why, since the siding and concrete were pre-disclosed, why they did not include it in their initial offer, if it was going to be an issue for him? Our agent replied back "that is a good question, I am going to ask that".

I guess book club died.  There has been no emails about it in 2 months now. My property neighbor mentioned it the other day, that she guessed it was over and done with. As we were both walking away from each other she commented "maybe we'll have to start a new one" and I said "yes, maybe we will".

DH sent me a pic (it's 7pm and he's still working at property) of the water and septic trench dug and a water line laying in it. Some progress there, at least. I'm sure DH will be sooo tired. He left the house at 5:30am.

House sale update

My agent just called. The buyer is saying if we won't fix all the items on his list then he wants an additional $3000 allowance! See ya.

My agent then wanted me to explain to him, because apparently he doesn't understand, why we are having problem with this. I said we are having several problems with it.

1) We bought this house with the same exact issues (less than 2 years ago) and same things on the inspection report done then. It was not a requirement by our financing to fix any of it. We did not ask the sellers to fix anything on the inspection report, as we felt their agreement to accept less than their asking price was already them accommodating enough.

2) I also explained why DH did not fix the few cracks in the siding after we moved in. Because in his opinion putting caulking down the cracks was going to make it look worse than just the cracks and then it would look like that whole side needed repainting. There are 2 foot eaves around this house, so DH was not worried about water/weather damage. In fact, the photos of the cracks look exactly the same as the photos taken 2 years ago. If this was a house we were going to stay in, long term, then we would fix the cracks when it was time to repaint the whole house.

3) We disclosed the 2 main issues (siding and concrete) with our listing, per agent's instructions! DH told him that was the 2 issues he was aware of (and not that serious to boot) and we weren't fixing for a sale. Agent said to disclose it in our listing documents and then they can't come back to us about it. I reminded him that is what (or at least that was how we both took it) he told us.

4). We already agreed to give the buyer $4000 back. We are not doing anymore. Period.

5) I said I guess my idea of the purpose of an inspection is different. My purpose, as a buyer, would have it done to make sure there are no major issues with the  house that a regular person could not see, or know to look for, while viewing the house. If there was something major found, then yes, that would be cause for re-negotiating the price.  Not to pay $3000 to the buyer because he wants stupid little stuff, that's normal wear and tear on a 10 year old house, fixed and put back to new.

He also tried to bring up "well VA might call out the siding, but that is probably the only thing". I said well, then the buyer can fix that if he wants. No other financing would call it out and require it to be fixed, so why should we pay extra because of his financing?

"Well, I'd hate to lose the sale".  I said this $4000 allowance and another $3000 allowance may be no big deal to you - you and the other agent still get the commission on the full amount, no matter how much allowance we give back!

We aren't that desperate to sell this house. If anything has come out of all the delays in building our shop - we've learned nothing works out according to the timeline planned anyway.

The really stupid part is this is not a run down house - at all. It is practically like brand new still. I have a feeling we will now end up putting off  selling this house and building the house until next Spring, so we aren't living in a shop in the winter, because we all know the builder isn't going to get it done quickly. One upside I guess would be that once the shop is done we could then get things moved over there as we had time and energy and not all in a rush over a week or so period.

Miss complainer

I feel like all's I'm doing is complaining. Maybe my new title should be One Family One Complainer. I am SO stressed out. I can handle one, even two stressful things at a time and do well and stay calm. But not every single issue at the same time. Builder, subs, the delays, bank, sale of this house, nephew's death....and then when DH gets stressed (which he handles by getting mad) that makes me stressed even more. Sometimes I think just being able to vent it all on my blog is what's keeping me sane. So, thanks to those of you who are following along and hanging in there with me.

I am not sleeping well (neither is DH). I usually find myself waking around 4am, in a cold sweat, and can't really go back to sleep. When I am stressed I can't eat, so I am losing weight. I'm exhausted, have headaches and stomachaches. UGH! I feel like I can't handle this much at once. I'm to the point I don't even care if we sell this house or get the house built. Dealing with all these people who can't follow through with what they've agreed to is beyond ridiculous.

I know I "asked" for this by building a house, but I really don't think every aspect needs to be this darn hard. The guy doing the stone siding got started yesterday, around 10:30am. It's a slow process. DH said he's about 30 years old or so. For some reason his wife comes with him, but she doesn't do any work. Mostly she sits in their truck with the a/c running (because it's 94 out). Today they showed up at like 11:00. Spent half the time trying to talk to DH or the tape and texture guy (so he then wasn't getting anything done either). At 2pm his wife gets mad at him about something and they get in an argument and leave at 2:30.  So he was there 3 1/2 hours (half of which he yakked and got nothing done) and leaves. Just ridiculous. It does look nice, so far, though (it will be grouted in between stones and have a ledge piece along the top)

The excavating guy, who said he'd be back on Wednesday, I guess counts showing up at 3pm and dropping off a piece of equipment as working. DH and I went over to the county office and got our septic permit, per his instructions. That's the nice part about small town, the county guy already knew we were on our way, he was just finishing up filling it out when we walked in his office. Took all of about 5 minutes.

Still no word on what the buyer of our house plans to do. I guess he has until next Monday to respond. At least, as of the end of yesterday, the other items for finishing the shop are rolling along. Excavating started for water and septic. Water pump guy is supposed to start putting in the well pump on Monday. The tape and texture is supposed to be done by the end of this week and the painter lady is supposed to come Monday and take two days. Once water is in, then hopefully plumber guy isn't too far behind to finish the bathroom. We still didn't know what we are doing about finishing the electrical. DH hasn't been able to get ahold of deceased electricians wife to find out about getting all the parts her DH had in his van for our project.Then at the end of yesterday, the equipment operator who works for excavating company owner, told DH his brother can do it and do it right away. Then last night the first electrician's wife called and it sounds like DH got things squared away with her as far as her figuring out (with DH's help) what all of our parts (that we've already paid for) are in his work van.  I know DH will feel a whole lot better once water and septic are in.

People pleaser

I am not a sales person nor do I like to negotiate. At all. My mom was very good at it. If there was a new car to be bought in our family, my mom did the negotiating. My dad would just sit back and let her at it. I recall one car sales lot visit with my step sister. She was 19 or 20, had a full time job and wanted to buy a car, so she took my parents. My mom haggled with the salesman and finally the salesman looked over at my dad and said "what do you feed her? nails?!". I'll never forget that, haha.

Me, I can't stand to negotiate or ask for anything extra. I won't even offer someone a lower price at a garage sale. There have been a few times I was buying something used, like on Craigslist that I might offer a bit less, but that would be the extent of it. If they countered with something else, I'd take it and be done. I'm a agreeable type of personality. I don't like conflict and I don't like to come across as I'm being unreasonable or mean, etc. Just not in my nature. It literally makes me sick to my stomach to haggle over price. Some people are great at it.

We probably wouldn't have offered the owner of this house we are in as much as we ended up getting below his asking price. The only reason we did is because his sale fell through (we sorta kinda new the guy through a friend) and he had told us what they have offered him ($8,000 less than asking) and he had called to see if we were still looking. So, DH told him we'd offer same as he took from other guy. If that had not happened and we were just looking at on offer (without that previous history) we probably would have offered like $4k less, but more than likely full price. So, with the $8,000 they took off their asking price we sure as heck did not have it in us to then use all the inspection piddly stuff and then come back and ask them to pay to fix. I guess we are different than a lot of people in that regard. Now if the inspection had shown something serious or major, sure then we would have had to renegotiate. But there was nothing major, nothing broken, nothing that didn't work as it should.  It was just very minor stuff due to normal life span of things along with some general regular maintenance type stuff.

I don't take personal an inspection. They are paid to do that. What I do take personal is being asked to be even more accommodating than I already agreed to and expected to spend more of my money.

When the offer came in on our house it came with asking for $4,000 allowance our of our proceeds. I thought about counter offering like $2000, but again, I didn't want to come across as difficult to deal with, or have to negotiate, so I accepted the offer. Honestly, at the time the thought of doing a counter offer instantly made my stomach clench up. I don't want or like to feel like that so I always agree to what anyone ever asks of me.

But, at some point even us easy going folks have to draw the line. I'm not going to just keep giving and giving, just so that I don't come across as a hard to deal with person. Of course, that is how I'm being made to feel by our agent. "well, if you don't agree to this you might lose the sale and I don't want to lose the sale". Well, of course he doesn't. But we already did our part and our due diligence in pre-disclosing the issue with the 3 cracks in siding and the cracked concrete. We already did our part with agreeing to give the buyer the $4,000 allowance. We're done giving and negotiating anymore. And if that makes us hard to work with and unreasonable, so be it, I guess. It actually feels kinda of good to finally not just always be so agreeable and accommodating to anything anyone ever asks of me. I doubt I'll make a habit of it (too much stress getting to that point). DH is the same way - just constantly tries to please everyone and give give give. Example: day before yesterday (after the tape and texture guy finally did a full days work) he came home telling me how terribly slow the guy was, that he even talked really slow, like maybe a few brain cells missing. Then yesterday he comes home and sees his Teeter inversion table in the corner of the room. (the thing we paid $300 for that he rarely uses anymore) and asks me how much we paid. Then he said he was just wondering because the tape and texture guy has major back problems and his doctor recommended a table (one that costs $75) but he doesn't even have the money for that. DH is thinking about just giving him ours for free. Because DH loves to do things for people and loves to have them like him, but as soon as he's trying to ask for something or expect something from someone (like getting the work done we've contracted and are paying for) he's the biggest jerk, to them. We're expected to give and give and be so accommodating, but the minute we expect something we're wrong for asking or expecting. I don't get it.

These issues that the buyer needs (siding) and wants (the rest of his list) fixed are only an issue (probably) with his VA financing. These 3 cracks are in photos and listed in the inspection report we had from 2 years ago. It was not an issue with FHA, nor would it be with conventional financing. It is not my responsibility to pay even more due to the financing he is using, especially when we disclosed it with the listing. If he wants this house he certainly has the option of paying for the fixes he wants, himself.

I've always wished I had more of a personality like my mom. or other people I know who don't have problems dealing and negotiating. I'm sure those that have that kind of personality don't understand people like me. (and probably don't realize how literally sick inside it makes me). What's the big deal? LOL. I know I would have gotten a lot farther in a career if I had been the type of person that doesn't mind conflict. I tried being a supervisor for a year and a half. I absolutely hated it. Had major stomach problems the whole time. I'm just an introvert with a people pleasing personality. But not today, haha.

Standing ground

Well, today should be interesting. Yesterday sure was. The buyer's inspection report and what he expected us to fix was sent. First off, the side of this house that faces the sun has a few cracks in the siding (hardie plank cement type siding). The concrete at the garage door is cracking. It was this way when we bought (and had inspection and FHA appraisal) and nothing has changed. Before we listed our house DH told our realtor that those two issues were the only "major" issues that we were aware of with this house and that we were not repairing for a buyer. Our agent told us to list them in the listing disclosures and then we are covered, a buyer can't then come back and say fix, after making an offer.

So, we get the list of "demands" yesterday. In addition to repairing the siding and concrete, he has a list of totally piddly little things. The inspector said our electrical panel in the shop is wired reversed hot and neutral. It is not and was inspected by a state electrical inspector when we put it in! It is 200 amp, so there is no neutral. he wants the furnace cleaned and serviced, wants a patch in the masterbath tub drain fixed. I'm not sure why the patch (barely visible, it matches tub color) was needed in the first place (it was there when we bought) but whatever the reason, it fixed the issue and has never leaked. Why replace it with another patch? That will probably just end up leaking! Underneath the crawl space there is a floor joist with a notch cut out (to fit a pipe coming down). It was built that way. Probably not exactly how it should have been done, but it's not causing an issue and never will. There is a "fake" post that comes down in our covered front porch area, basically put there to hook the gutter on, is my guess. It is not a support beam. It's not secured into the concrete at the bottom, he wants that secured to the concrete. And there's a couple spots on the shakes where they have expanded and shrunk over the years that you can now see the edge of the wood shakes. In addition to the things he wants fixed he is requiring that they all be done by a qualified contractor (good luck finding one of those available!) and receipts furnished.

I sent the notice back this morning with our initials in the "rejected" section. We had already disclosed the siding and concrete. We also feel that the $4000 allowance we already agreed to give back to the buyer out of our proceeds is more than adequate concession on our part in this sale. The buyer is going VA financing, which is not our problem to deal with. FHA and conventional would/did have no issues with the same condition of this house, less than 2 years ago. If his financing requires more than what is standard, then that is his issue to resolve. Not to mention we still have to pay the realtors fees and closing fees on this $4000 allowance. The agents are making money on money we are giving away to the buyer. Don't expect me to keep on giving.

My idea of getting an inspection done on a house purchase is to make sure there are no MAJOR issues that a person cannot see just viewing the house. ie - mold, water damage, wood rot, foundation issues, termites. It is not so the buyer can come back and nit pick to fix stupid stuff. While it's only a 10 year old house, it's not a new house. Good luck finding a house in this tiny town that is in better condition than this one. I honestly doubt there is one. I'd say 90% of the houses in town are at least 50 years old.

Edit: just to clarify. I'm not taking this personally, at all. I know this is a great little house, in great condition, and being 10 years old, there of course will be minor things that an inspector will pick out. I also know this is one of the nicest houses (and for the money) in this little town, so I'm not really giving a hoot if the buyer wants stuff fixed. Like I said, good luck finding another house in town as nice (and new) as this one. It's also nothing that has gone wrong with this house in the almost 2 years since we've owned it. (we actually improved it). These were all the same items on the inspection we got. (other than the shop electrical panel, we had that put in after purchasing) We just chose not to worry about them, especially since the sellers had already come down in price. Now, if we had not agreed to give the buyer a $4000 allowance, I might have considered taking care of a few of his items. But the $4000 was generous, on our part, I think. We also did our part and due diligence in regards to these two "main" issues of siding and concrete. We told our realtor up front about them and told him we were not fixing or paying to have fixed. We didn't change anything after the fact/offer,  the buyer has, which is completely his right at this point, just as it is our right to not agree to them. We will see what happens. At this point, we are ok with whatever happens either way. It's just one of the many things we are dealing with right now.

Weekend update and stress

With all the stress this past week, we tried to relax some this weekend. I don't think it really helped a whole lot. I was just about to start typing what we did on Saturday and I can't even remember now! Proof I'm stressed, I guess. I know we went out to the property, but I can't remember what we did. I'll have to think a minute to jog my memory. Ok, I remember now! Geez.

I dropped DH off at the property and went into the city to stock up on groceries. Stopped at Target, the grocery store, and then a quick run into Walmart for a take and bake pizza, steaks and 55 gallon garbage sacks. Our car was really dirty and covered in bugs on windshield and grill, so I also pulled into the car wash. On my way home DH called and said he needed his saw out of the car (he has his tools in two bins in the back of my small suv) so I stopped at the property to drop that off. He said his sister was on her way back home and was stopping by to see the property, about 15 minutes behind me. I ran home really fast, unloaded the groceries and then drove back to the property to I could see them (sis, her dh and their daughter) since we probably won't see them for awhile again.

After they left, we moved a stack of soffit material. It had gotten delivered with the siding in error. The builder said he didn't order it (as we were using tongue and groove boards for soffit) so it's just been sitting there in a stack behind our shop for 2 weeks or more. It needed to get moved because supposedly the excavator is coming this week and he needs access behind the shop. I also need to make sure we are not billed for this material when the builder takes the draw on the siding and tongue and groove soffits we did use.

I really don't remember what we did the rest of Saturday afternoon. Dinner was the take and bake pizza and we watched tv Saturday evening. DH said the only thing he wanted to do at the shop on Sunday was he needed to crawl up in the crawlspace above the ceiling and get a hole drilled out the front, top of the shop wall. The electrician had installed the wiring for a floodlight to be put up above the big roll up door, but he didn't drill the hole to run the wire through! DH said he wished he had one of those "headlamps" he could use. I said I'll bet neighbor friend across street has one you can borrow (he works in mining) and sure enough he did and brought it over.

Sunday morning at 8am we went out to do that. Luckily the scissor lift is still there, so DH was able to just raise himself up to the crawl space opening and get up where he needed to be and drill the hole and poke the wiring through.

That's not actually the crawl space hole. That is on the other end of the shop, but these recessed light openings are still "open" so he was able to fit up inside that and then he wasn't too far from where he needed to drill the hole.

Then we went back home. I had mentioned on the way home how stressed I now am and after we got home he suggested we take a lunch and go somewhere and relax. Then he said "or we just stay home and get the inside our our car cleaned out". We ended up doing that. Pulled out the blanket we keep down in back (for dogs) and washed it. DH vacuumed car and I wiped down the interior. There was so much dirt and dust inside from the property. AFter we got done it was still early (before noon) so I packed the lunch and we decided to go back to our property with the dogs and use the game trail to get down to the river. It's steep hike down, but I just went slow. The river is low enough now that we have a little rocky beach area to stand or sit on a big rock. The dogs went right in, though they still won't swim. They just like to walk along with it up to their bellies. It was peaceful and shady. Some fisherman went by. Some floaters went by. DH flew his drone. We watched and waited to see if a bald eagle was going to come out of the tree he was sitting up in across from us, to get a fish, but he ended up having more patience then us, LOL.

Back up to Friday - the drywall tape and texture guy showed up at like 4pm. Really? He did stay until like 7:30pm. Looks like he put trim around the bathroom corners and did some seams. But guess what? He's a no show this Monday morning! All's the builder can say is "he says it will be done by next Monday, so don't worry". DH said well he also said he'd be here last Monday, then last Wednesday, then Friday and I guess he gets to count Friday, since he showed up at 4pm.....

So, I guess trying to relax was probably helpful, just doesn't feel like it when it's back to all the stress Monday morning :(

TGIF

About the only good news I got yesterday was the inspector came back to pick up his radon testing unit that he had to leave for 2 days. All good. Very low radon level.

I have scheduled off work the last 2 days of the month, so I can work on getting some additional quotes on our flooring and countertops. I finally got an email back from the cabinet lady (of course she is on vacation) who said she is still interested (no explanation as to why she hasn't given me what I asked for months ago) and will get me the revised quote next week. This is her last chance. I'm not contacting her again about it. The quote should be a good chunk lower, as I said, we removed one of the kitchen islands. I'm going to stop in the granite place we got a quote from months ago and have them re-do it, since we don't need granite on one island and we also decided to do the bar countertop on the one island we will have in wood (preferably wood slab we already have). That should reduce their quote.  Then I'm going to at least one other granite place for more quotes to compare.

I had gotten one flooring quote. Builder had told me to get a quote from a different flooring place he uses a lot, as they would probably be cheaper. So, I'm going there, too and hopefully knock some off that. I know I had talked to the first guy about using remnants in some rooms. I don't need my carpeting to all match (I'm only carpeting bedrooms and my office) and he says they sometimes get nice stuff at really cheap.

On a good note, the siding work is slowly getting completed (with DH doing half the work!)  Here's a pic from  yesterday

FYI, that's not me sitting there LOL. It's the siding guys wife. She painted all the trim work and will be painting the inside when it's ready. We also now have a door in, which is going to get painted dark brown

This afternoon my neighbor across the street and I went out so she could see it all. I have been so tired today. I tried to take a nap this afternoon but could not sleep. Just too much going on in my mind I guess. But, I knew getting out of the house for awhile would do me good and it did. Hopefully I can sleep better tonight.

Question update

So, to update my question from yesterday. Thanks for all the comments. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't stupid (and crazy)! The bank really ticked me off yesterday. I'm basically dealing with two bankers, one does the construction loan and one does the end loan. They tried to tell me that they had only qualified me for $453,000 with me selling my house. I said no, that's not what you told me. You told me I qualified for that in addition to keeping my existing mortgage. I then forwarded them emails where he told me this and I then had emailed back and asked - ok, so to clarify, once I get this house sold and out of this mortgage, I would then qualify for more? and he replied yes, but understand that part would have to be a second mortgage (because $453,000 is the max conforming loan limit in our area).

Then they both tried to tell me they didn't know I was building a house too! OMG! I'm like what are you talking about? Banker guy says "I was just told you were building a shop with living quarters". Banker lady tells me "I thought you were just building a "shouse". I'm like what the heck is a "shouse"? It's a shop with living quarters. I said I have no idea what you are talking about. Our shop plans have a small bathroom, that's all it's ever had and plans have never changed. Then I said why in the world would I have included the house foundation in with this shop construction loan if I wasn't building a house???!! Then she tried to tell me "well you weren't approved for that amount unless you sold your house first, because of your debts". I'm like WHAT debts?! The only debt we have is this house mortgage. Period.

The banker guy then emailed me back that I was correct, they did approve me for the $453,000 with my existing mortgage loan. The whole conversations with them was so annoying. Our builder was flabbergasted. He was like "they have the shop plans. It doesn't have living quarters in it....plus they approved including the house foundation being done with this shop construction loan!".

It's resolved now, but I was just freaking out for a bit that I must be totally stupid on not understood what they told me back in January! 

What does this sentence mean to you?

The maximum loan amount I can approve for you prior to selling your existing home is 453,000 

I took this to mean I was approved for a loan of this amount and didn't need to sell my existing home to qualify for it.

I'll go into more detail later, as this is currently unfolding (and collapsing), but just wanted to get your take on how you would interpret that. I know lots of people qualify/get a mortgage to buy a  house or construction loan in addition to their current mortgage and then sell their current home later. I assumed that's what this meant.

I have a headache

OOOOOeeeeee! Building a house is frustrating! Yesterday was not a good day. We are in countdown mode at 39 days until this house is supposed to close. We will need at least a couple of weeks to get all our stuff moved over, since we are doing it by ourselves, for the most part. We don't have a big 53 foot trailer we can just load up (which takes time too!), like we did last time. DH will be making bunches of trips with his car trailer or dump trailer to get it all moved. So, this shop needs to be finished in 25 days (have I mentioned that he's already had 119 days to get it done?! LOL.)  DH had another bit of a blowout with builder today. Told him it's been 14 days since anyone worked inside getting the shop finished. He said well, you can't count weekends. DH said "ok, let me rephrase it - it's been 2 work weeks since anyone worked inside getting the shop finished." (same difference!) Then DH also reminded him that their work weeks haven't even been full weeks. Fridays are off early (like 1pm) for baseball games, the other days are show up at 10am and leave at 3:30pm. So, they have an hour and a half commute to get here. Gee, I wish I could have counted my 1-2 hour commutes each way as part of my work day, when I used to have to drive to work. I'll bet my DD and her fiance would love to take their commute time out of their 8 hour work day.

Where the heck is the crew that's doing the taping and texturing?! They were supposed to come Monday last week. Then they were supposed to be here this past Monday. Then Monday morning builder said they weren't going to come until Wednesday. Then half of Wednesday came and went. Finally the guy called (should have been the builder calling to tell us, it's his sub, but he didn't want to get yelled at) and said now he should be here Friday..... We are trying to find a new electrician. We think we have a guy lined up, but he needs to know when, so he knows if he can do it in his schedule.  He can't do anything until this drywall is taped and textured. There is still so much left to do.

Taped & texture sheetrock
electrical finished and installed lighting
Painted inside
Plumbing in bathroom finished and install toilet, urinal, and sink
heating installed
water heater installed

and that's just the inside.  Outside still needs:

garage doors installed (they are on order)
siding finished
soffits finished
shakes put on (thank goodness now we are getting pre-painted, so that won't also need to be done)


Water lines dug and installed.
Septic put in
Propane tank put in (we are having it buried)

Seriously, this builder needs to get his %*&# together.

Then builder finally got the banker what she needs yesterday morning, but she needs our signed contract with him and we talked to builder on phone the night before and he was supposed to revise the total and re-email. I talked to him yesterday morning and apparently his wife didn't do it, like he told her to. She emailed it and where we had told him we wanted a time deadline in (like the one he showed us as an example last January, that had 6 months) this time. Well, he put in 9 months! No way we are letting him spend 9 months building our house, when the foundation is already done. The example he had shared with us of one of his contracts had that house at 6 months and that was starting from zero. So, he revised it to 120 days. He built our friends shop AND house in 6 months total.

I follow a town Facebook page where people post about anything. For sale, etc. Well, I see our renter neighbors girlfriend just posted: ISO of shop to use or rent cheap, asap.  Apparently guy is losing the shop he's been using the past year. Most likely people over there got annoyed with all his late night noise, eh? oh great. He better not be bringing all that crap back here! He really just needs to find a house to rent somewhere that has a shop with it and move!

DH is so so tired and worn out, which doesn't help his patience level at all. The siding is taking forever to get done. Why? because he sends one guy to do it all by himself. Even that guy is getting frustrated. A crew of 3 (or even 2) would have that sided in a day or two at most.  Then DH gets a call at 10pm last night from a friend where we used to live. This guy has been trying for at least 6 months to get a salvaged truck he restored licensed, because his state won't do it. Ours will, but he of course has to be a resident. He asked 6 months ago if he could use our address and we told him no. This town is way too small to be trying to pull a scam on the county/state. So, he got some other friend in a bigger city to do it, we thought. Well, he calls again last night and asks. DH is like no, sorry, not going to do it. This town is so small that even the FedEx guy who dropped off my outdoor lights yesterday knew we had sold our house!

Mid week and need more days in the week

Yesterday was a busy day at the property for DH, but he was happy to finally see some progress on the site itself, again. He had brought the rockery guy back in, with a backhoe, to set a culvert under the driveway and start setting rock. DH adores this guy. We would have hired him in a minute to do all our site work, but at the time the guy he works for did not have all the necessary equipment to do all this. I guess he has been adding equipment and is getting there, to handle that type of work.

anyhow, in our bid from the (missing in action) excavating guy, we were going to only have one culvert put in. In the meantime DH decided to put one under the other driveway, too. We ended up just buying both culverts out of pocket last week, as who the heck knows when excavating guy will get to it. The guy yesterday and DH decided let's just let him do both, since he's already doing one. And FINALLY we got our main driveway backfilled in! Gosh! That has been sitting "open" since almost the beginning of the project. It's been driving DH nuts. Then guy looked back at our shed/chicken coop that still needs backfilled and said "let's just get that done too". So, another big pile of dirt is gone. He also placed two of the huge huge rocks I had picked out on either side of our main driveway gate. All that took most of the day, so no rocks got set, but they are back at it early this morning. I was out there after work yesterday and it already looks so much better without all the piles of dirt.

Our builder finally got all his numbers/materials list together to give to our banker lady. He upped a couple numbers, mainly the lumber package as that has gone up so much in price the past few months. The only part I was really confused about was he put in $9500 for concrete patios and walkways. Well, we already have paid for that in our shop construction loan (and not $9500!). DH called him up and he realized he goofed. For some reason he keeps thinking our house has a big deck that needs to be put in from the upstairs loft area. Nope. So, he's removing that add in. He's like "no. we already got all the patio work in on the shop money". Yep. LOL.  It also sounds like he is going to order the lumber and get started on it before we sign loan docs on the house construction. He wants (and we need) him to get going on it and he said he doesn't get billed for it until the next month and then he can just submit for draw right away as soon as our funds are available. That would help speed things along with the house build, for sure.

Today the huge rock pile should start going down, as they use these up to set along driveway. It will do DH good to see all the rocks and dirt piles around getting cleaned up. Still no word from the excavating guy on when he's coming back. He had come back a couple weeks ago to do it all. Did about half days work and then asked if it would be ok if he pulled his guy off to go do another rush job for a few days.....well, a few days was 2 weeks ago and he's long been off that job.

Our neighbor friends across the street are having a pole building shop built. They started Monday and are already almost done with it. I texted her last night "no fair. your's is done in two days and our shop can't get done in almost 4 months!". (granted it's not the same thing, but still). She and I have the funnest texting. She always makes me laugh. She's not working on Fridays and I have to only work half day this Friday so it sounds like we are going to go out to our property so she can see everything.  I also told her I am going to need some "chicken lessons" from her at some point.

Yesterday was the buyers inspection. Hopefully all goes well with that. I can't imagine there being any issues. There wasn't any issues with the inspection we had done and it's only been 2 years and nothing has gone bad that we know of.  But, you never know and this inspector guy seemed kinda strange. Hard to talk to.

Got a nice surprise delivery yesterday. Our old neighbor/good friend sent some really nice wind chimes for our new house. That was very sweet of him.

Construction, friends and wedding venue

Yesterday was more of the same on our building process. The builder and his siding "crew" were supposed to show up Monday morning. Finally at 10am one guy with two helpers (ie his wife and son) showed up. They were painting the trim and caulking, while the guy tried to side by himself. DH asked where the builder was. He was told he's "busy trying to chase down money" and that they won't be back now until Wednesday. Good grief. And of course he still has not turned in what our banker needs on the house construction documents, so that she can get the appraisal ordered. They ended up working a whole 5 1/2 hours yesterday (typical day for them, it seems).

Today the rockery guy is back to work on the rest - put in a culvert under the shop driveway and a short rockery alongside the driveway. We also need to finish where it tapers down from the main rockery wall at our main driveway. I finally received the bid on our house garage doors. I wanted a bid, now that we had picked out doors, so I could see how far off builder was and make sure the right number was in the loan. He did better on that. He was only off $423 and it came in over $1000 less than I was expecting, based on trying to use shop garage numbers. The labor for the garage is a lot less than I estimated.


DH is sure disappointed in his friend that lives about a half hour from us. DH has tried to talk to him a couple of times in the past few months and has even asked him twice if anything is wrong and he says no, but he doesn't call or text DH anymore, nor does he or his wife interact with any of our posts on Facebook anymore and his wife used to all the time. Once in awhile she will click like on something I posted, but never anything about the shop construction. And to not even send a message of condolences about our nephew.....well, that's just wrong.

DD and her fiance are still trying to decide what/where their wedding will be next summer. They had an appointment a couple of weeks ago to look at a small venue, but the lady had to cancel the appointment, as her flight got delayed coming home. DD asked her to get back to her with a new time and she never did. DD is like "well, I'm not going to beg her to take our money". LOL. Then this weekend they went nature exploring to a place her fiance spent a lot of time at with his family growing up. It's a place he loves and has a lot of wonderful memories of. So now they are thinking they will just invite 10 people (family) and have it here:

Just a very personal, casual ceremony. She said down below is a campground and there is also a motel nearby for those of us with no camper. Fiances uncle would perform the ceremony. Have a BBQ afterwards. Plus she said it would be free.......and then she said "did I mention it would be free?" LOL. She is not the "big show" type of girl. She doesn't have a ton of friends. They are missing fiance's sister. She just wants to say her vows in front of those most important to her, cry and laugh and not worry about being on display for everyone. I think it sounds perfect.

Getting going on this Monday

DH's sister and her hubs came over to be with their brother this week. I think they are staying at his house, in the city. Yesterday afternoon DH offered if they all wanted to meet us halfway at a nice restaurant and we'd take them all to dinner. It was nice to be all together, though very hard at the same time. There were 8 of us, with BIL/SIL's daughter and also SIL's mother had come over to be with them, too. You can tell they are wiped out, but trying to keep moving forward at the same time. BIL and his daughter had even done a half marathon that morning. Good for them.  I still don't know how a dinner for 8 people only cost $128 (plus tip). I didn't spend too long looking at the receipt. I didn't want to look like I was being cheap looking at every line, LOL, plus it was so much cheaper than I thought it would be, I just signed the receipt and left a nice tip. Usually when DH and I go to this place it's $50, with tip, $100 when we take my daughter and her fiance, so I was expecting at least $200. But half the people ordered a burger, which is quite a bit cheaper on the menu then a dinner meal and a few of them only had water to drink. DH's parents will not be able to attend the memorial service. MIL can't travel and FIL has to stay with her. It's nice that SIL and her hubs were able to take the week off and come and be with them. This is the brother that DH recently reconnected with (barely) but dealing with this has instantly put it all back together for them, I think. I hope they can find some common ground to be friends, going forward. and of course all this even brings home to us even more the pain of our situation with our own son and wishing it could be resolved.

As we got home last night DD was texting me. Then my friend who's DH is cheating on her texted me. And then my neighbor friend across the street started texting me. She had also done the half marathon and was so proud. I don't think I've ever tried to have 3 conversations going at the same time. Plus DD and first friend were serious conversations.

On a brighter note: at work a month or so ago I was trying to find the proof that our previous office lease company owed us for a security deposit of approx $20,000 we had paid back in 2010. I tried to get a copy of the check from our old bank, but they couldn't go back that far. It's kind of confusing relationship, but one of our company owners used to own the building our company rented from. I used to do the books for the building for several years. I pretty much save everything, old docs and emails on my computer. I had previous balance sheets for this building that showed the security deposit our company made, on the books. I think that ended up being the proof. My boss emailed Friday that the new building owners agreed we did pay it and owe it back to us. That's really good news.

As for our building progress: the windows are now in (they look nice) as well as the siding and soffit's were started. Loving the stained tongue and groove soffits. DH helped with the staining, while they cut and installed.

 

I'm having trouble getting motivated to work this morning. It's probably going to be like that all week, with all that's going on. I'll muddle through it. Plus it also sounds like a busy week on tap with the construction. Siding, sheetrock mudding, and some site work all should be going on.

Weekend happenings

DH decided to drive back to the city and see his brother last night. He, his wife, and daughter are doing as well as can be expected. DH's sis and her husband are on their way over here, today.

DH called up the electrician that was recommended and he met us out at our property late this morning. Seems like a nice decent guy and sounds like he would like to finish the job. DH is pretty sure the first electrician had bought all the parts needed, so most likely still has them in his van. This guy said DH is most likely right. So, I guess DH will have to contact the widow and see what can be done about seeing if we can get the parts we've already paid him for. DH is just going to wait another week, until after the service for him.

After electrician guy left we just went over to the shady corner of our patio and sat and had the lunch we brought with us. Even though it's hot out, there was a nice breeze in the shade, so it wasn't too bad. Our neighbor walked over with a couple of yummy brownies she had just made and we visited with her awhile.  Their barking dog problem we had every time we would go out there? All fixed. The dogs are so used to us now, they don't care or bark. Whew! We love their dogs, so are glad it won't be a problem.

Came home and took an hour nap, while DH messaged with his sister. Then after I got up, DH decided to nap. I ran to the store to pick up some lettuce and milk and get our mail. On the way home, passed a guy riding his horse down the main street through town :) This is such a cute little town.

Next week is supposed to see the siding finished up (did I tell you we have windows in now?) as well as Thursday the sheetrock will get started taped and mudded. 

Here is a recent pic DH took of the river, above our property, with his drone. It's coming down and clearing up. Much prettier than the spring mud it looked like.

I truly love living here and am so blessed.

More bad news

Another day of some very sad news. DH's nephew committed suicide this morning. 24 years old and a shock to his parents (DH's brother). So so sad.

I have today off work. We had to go into the bank in the city to sign something. Also stopped at Home  Depot to pick up some more masking tape and also got the little chrome vanity light for the shop bathroom. Then we went to Harbor Freight and DH picked up another little tool bag.

When we got to the property about noon, the builder and another guy were there working on the trim and siding. They had a little bit of the siding up next to one of the windows. They had started to paint the window trim. We had picked out a dark brown to go with garage doors...but, the siding dark brown (it's two tone wood grain look) is the same dark color and they felt it was too much dark brown. He felt we should change the trim to the lighter brown color in the siding and we agreed. We also decided to get the shakes that are pre-painted, rather than him painting them. They will last years and years and we won't have to be trying to paint shakes high up on our shop and house every 3 or so  years. We are having him put in tongue and groove soffits and they had gotten started on that. I really like the stain he picked out for it. It looks so nice with the siding. Such a richer finished look to it with the tongue and groove boards.

I left DH out at the property and came home. I'll hang out here a couple hours before I go back. It's just too hot outside. I don't do well being outside in really hot weather (95 today). After I got home I called DD, who has today off because this was her 4/10 week at work. We had already been texting all morning, but I wanted to hear her voice and tell her I loved her (though she beat me to it!).

My Friday

DH might have a line on an electrician to finish our job. He was talking to the guy last night who did all the rockery work. He knows of another local electrician he said he would recommend, and did his house. Hopefully he can finish up for us and not cost us an arm and a leg. DH made a list of basically what still all needs to be done to finish the electrical. Basically the wires were all roughed in. The electrician was waiting for the drywall to get in and then he was going to finish. If the drywall had gotten done when it was supposed to.........

Today the siding is getting put up. Maybe. It's 8:30 am and the builder just texted DH he's just leaving his house, over an hour away. But it will all still only be half sided - as apparently the builder hasn't even ordered the stone yet, nor the shakes. It also appears either he ordered, or they sent, the wrong soffits. We are having tongue and groove and what got sent with the siding is not that.  I think the sub doing the tape and texturing (ie mudding) inside is coming Monday.

That's about all I know. I'm taking tomorrow off, since we have to run into the city and do some banking and pick up some building supplies. I can't seem to take my vacation days enough to start bringing my balance down, LOL. I still have almost 6 weeks to use. Once I know a more definitive date of when we have to move out of this house, I will take a week off and use some up.

I'm tired of bad news

I just received more bad news, from a dear friend. She found out last night her husband of 30+ years has been cheating on her. She is just shocked and floored. I can't believe it either. I would have never guessed he'd do that in a million years. My heart is breaking for her. DH is good friends with her hubby, too. Now we are both bummed at this news, for sure.

DD finally got her raise. Another huge disappointment with only a $2000/yr increase and still not promoted to Buyer 2. They tell her they are still working on it. Good grief. It can't be that hard. And supposedly she was getting one of the biggest raises. She needs to find something else and get out of that company. Unfortunately, now part of her needs/wants to stay so that she'll have the time off for her wedding/honeymoon next summer. I told her find something else anyway, even if she doesn't accrue enough time off by then, just make sure to tell them in advance she will need a couple weeks off then, even if it's without pay. I wish she could just walk in there right now and hand them her 2 weeks notice.

I just ordered our "porch lights" for shop and house. I decided to also order the house now because if for some reason they aren't available or out of stock in a few months, I'd be mad that I couldn't get the same ones to match. I think I did pretty good finding one at a decent price at $25.99 each.

 

It has lots of good reviews on Amazon.  

We went out to the property last night so I could take a look at the siding. I think it's the right color! I only have pics of the sample to go off of! Then I was looking around at the covering they had on it, trying to see if it said "tahoe" somewhere on it. Finally see a tag on the tyvek covering.......that says the color is "yellowstone". So we ended up pulling a whole piece out to take a closer look. It doesn't look like "yellowstone". That color (at least online) has a much lighter and golder tone to it. This one matches the pic I had saved on my phone from the building center. I think they must have just threw any old cover over the siding, is all I can think.  Supposedly builder is coming back tomorrow to do the siding, as well as the guy who will pour the foundation for the shed/coop.

The buyer of our house got his "VASHUD" approval (whatever the heck all that means) yesterday to move ahead with the purchase. They have scheduled the VA inspection for next Tuesday.  Then we will just be waiting on the appraisal, - which takes forever out here. Apparently the VASHUD has something to do with homeless veterans, who also have medical needs. Which makes me a bit nervous on his financing, but his lender has told my agent it's all good and he's been prequalified. And I'm sure he must have to meet a bunch of qualifications to get approved for the program and sounds like that has already been done.

At the edge of town, there is a really old building that I think maybe used to be a small hotel or something. A woman purchased it and has been fixing it up for months now to make into small little apartments. This week she got the siding and trim painted on it and boy it sure changed it from looking like a run down old place to something nice and neat. It's nice to see something old and run down get fixed up.  There is also some new little "apartments" that just got built right in town on a vacant lot. Kind of like 3 little townhomes hooked together. Those look really nice, too. I'm kind of surprised that the vacant lots on our street have never sold, since they were created/sub divided 10 years ago. There's still just our house and the rented house next door. But, it was created right before the economy crashed and it's been very slow to recover here, not that it was that great of economy here to begin with. But, this year we are seeing signs of some growth. The two I mentioned above.  We are building on our property and the people on lot 7 are building. The auto body shop right in town just added on to their building and remodeled the outside. It looks much nicer now, too.

The show must go on

First off this morning, DH found out that our electrician, a local guy from our town, died of a heart attack on Sunday. What a shock and so sad. DH said he wasn't over 50 years old. Now we will quickly have to find someone who can finish where he left off. I'm not sure if he was also doing the other house being built at the end of our road. So sad, but we must keep moving forward with our project.

I have to keep reminding myself that one of these days, life will be back to normal. Probably not this year, but one of these days! Yesterday morning I left a message for our lender that we were under contract with our house. Now she can order the appraisal for the house construction loan. Hopefully this will all be timed for about the same time as closing on this house.

Yesterday the siding for the shop got delivered. Ooooh! DH texted me a pic with just a peek of it, LOL. I have to say deciding on that was just about my scariest decision so far. It's such a huge part of the house and shop and so permanent. The good part was there are only so many colors to choose from (it's pre-painted siding), so that made it easier to pick one......but, whether it will look good on a whole house? Yikes!.  And then to also decide the other exterior house colors has been giving me heartburn.  I finally decided on dark brown garage doors and dark trim. I was leaning toward a lighter colored shake. Then on Saturday the kid that did our concrete/wood stamped patio (and he decided on the colors for that and did amazing) was out, so we asked him his opinion, since he sees so many houses. He said "dark garage doors, dark trim, and a lighter colored shakes". Perfect - that's what I was thinking, too. I feel better now, LOL. Sometime this week the siding is supposed to be put up. That will make a huge change in how it looks, I'm sure.

Today one of the concrete guys and a helper is coming to finish the shed/chicken coop foundation. Gotta set up for the foundation walls and then pour tomorrow. Then, finally, our excavator can get back in and backfill and do the rest of what he needs to do. Which the big part is get the water lines dug.

It was 93 degrees yesterday. Hard for DH to work outside in that heat. It drains a lot out of him, for sure. He did say he spent some time just sitting in the shade, eating his lunch, watching the river. And got to see one of the eagles (they have a nest across the river) swoop down and pick a fish out of the river. Now that our house is pending sale, we decided to get out our little a/c unit that sits on the floor and vents out the window. It would have looked kind of crummy when trying to show the house (and thankfully it never got that hot) but now we put it up and can cool down in here somewhat.

Under contract!

Good news! We got an offer on our house. On Friday my agent texted that an agent wanted to show the house on Sunday. Then texted back that they might change it to Saturday morning at 10:30, they were trying to schedule some other viewing appts and they'd get back to us. Well, I never heard anything back by the end of Friday so I texted my agent, but got no reply (which was strange). Saturday morning I was assuming it was a no, since I didn't hear back. I tried texting my agent one more time around 8:30 am but no reply. About 9:20 we left to go out to our property and as we were in town getting our mail my agent texted that yes, they were coming this morning at 10:30. Oh geez. Back home we went. DH pulled his pick up out of garage and left. I ran the vacuum real quick and put a few things out of sight. At 9:50 I was outside putting the kitchen garbage in the can when they pulled up - 40 minutes early. LOL. I told the agent just give me a couple minutes to grab my purse and get my dogs out to the car. The couple viewing it was an older couple, probably in their 70's.

Saturday eve our agent called that they really liked it and we should be getting an offer on Sunday. Yay! We got the offer around noon Sunday. It was for our asking price, less $3500 towards their VA closing costs and $489 for a one year home warranty. We were ok with this offer, but not the 60 day closing. We need it done asap, as we can't start our construction loan for our house part until this house closes. Our agent checked back and texted me that the were ok with 45 day close. We sent back a counter offer, just changing the closing to 45 days and our agent also changed the section where they had to provide proof that their loan application was in process by the end of this week (they had left it as an open date). I just now got a text this morning from my agent that they signed the counter offer, so we are now officially under contract!

I'm sure it will all be great and work out fine. Now we have to hold our builder's feet to the fire and get this dang shop finished so we can live in it in 45 days!

We did good and made some decent money on this house and we are happy about that, too. Our agent had actually wanted us to list it for $25,000 less than we did, but DH did a lot of research of what's for sale and at what pricing and held his ground. So glad he did! It took us 3 1/2 weeks to sell. We got $60,000 more than we paid for it almost 2 years ago. Of course we put about $11,000 into it and we have to now pay realtors fees for selling, but after we pay off our loan balance on it, we are going to have proceeds of about $53,000.  Two-thirds of that will be used to pave our driveway and fence our property, but I am so happy we now will have the money to do that.

Lots to do

It's been a busy few days and throw in a day of being sick with it.  4th of July we spent putting another seal coat on the patio. I brushed the sealant in the cuts and DH rolled it on. Luckily it was still a nice cool day in the 60's.  Here's a picture

The border is stamped to look like slate (that was DH's idea). I'm ready for patio furniture! LOL.

Let me back up to Tuesday. I only had to work a half day and the 3 young guys were out finishing stamping the 2nd half. We decided to try the take out pizza from the local tavern and take out for us and the concrete guys for lunch. I thought it tasted pretty good.

After we got home Wednesday afternoon I started feeling sick. Stomach ache and trips to the bathroom. Ugh. I felt pretty crummy all night. I had hardly eaten much that day, so couldn't imagine it could have been the coffee, donut and OJ I had for breakfast. Lunch I only had a granola bar and water. Dinner didn't happen. The only thing I could think (unless it as a flu bug) was something with that pizza from the day before.

Yesterday I was better, but still not 100%. Had too much to do to lay around as I wanted to go into the city and do grocery shopping. I dropped DH off at the property, as he had to do another seal coat on the 2nd part. The drywaller guys showed up to get started. We were kind of surprised. Figured they'd bale on us this holiday week. I got home and unloaded and put away my groceries and then DH called that I needed to pick out the garage doors - now! A couple of calls with the builder, so I knew what to look at online and also which level of doors fall into the pricing he put on our bid?! Calls back with DH to have him tell me what level of steel and insulation (there were 3 options). A call to the building supply guy to start to tell him what we wanted a quote on, only for him to have more questions I couldn't answer. Back to DH and then another call back to building supply guy. He was supposed to call me back by the end of the afternoon with the pricing and of course he didn't. It's now late morning the next day and still haven't heard back from him. Grrrr. I hate having to call people back that know they are supposed to call me! Not to mention that the doors are going to be like double what the stupid builder put in our bid. (of course) We are going to make some adjustments, to down price them, but I can't make any decisions until the building supply guy gets me the cost breakdown. Like for example, DH doesn't really need automatic door openers for the 3 regular sized doors, just the big roll up door, so if we take that cost out, I'm sure we'll save some. But again, I have no idea how much until he sends me the cost breakdown.

Then I spent half of this morning trying to track down our lights shipment, that supposedly shipped from mfg on the 26th. It should not take 11 days. It was first shipped via UPS Supply Chain Solutions and then they pass off to a local delivery company. After a couple of calls it was determined this order didn't get my name and ph# attached to it, so they were still sitting on it at the local carrier. The local carrier is supposed to call me, but in the meantime DH texted me that they just got delivered.

Ahhh. Too much going on.

Sneak peek..........

                        OMGGGGGG!!!! Look at the start of my patio!!! I am in love with it.

Let's do Monday

I'm looking forward to this week - a nice 2 1/2 day off break right in the middle. I've got two tasks I really don't want to deal with this morning, but I must. First I just sent an email to our realtor asking him if he has any insight(s) as to why, after almost 3 weeks of listing, we aren't even getting anyone interested to at least look at the house.  And I'm not going to buy "price" as the excuse. That house a few blocks away was apparently too high priced (they accepted an offer $20k less than asking) and they obviously had people look at it- they sold it - in 3 weeks.

At the rate all this (building the shop and trying to sell this house) is taking - we are seriously considering that we might end up putting building the house off until early next spring. As it stands, if we sold our house today, the house construction wouldn't be able to gets started on until almost September. It's not going to sell today and even if it sold in the next month or so, starting our house in October and living in a shop during the cold winter months is not what we want to do. It's not like we "have" to do all this this year, I guess. Waiting another 6 months to start the house and postpone selling this until early next year, might be what we end up deciding to do. If a shop takes him 4 months (or more?!) how long is the house going to take? I don't mind living it it during Spring through Fall, but not winter months.
 
My second call I need to make is to the local painter lady who gave us a quote on painting our shop - at $2,000 higher than the lady the builder has lined up. So, that's going to be a no. Just not in the budget to pay an extra $2k.

So far DH has been happy with all the quality of work done (just not the timeline) except for the insulation guy that showed up Friday afternoon. Showed up, did 2 1/2 hours of work. And so far, what they have sprayed in is not at the 1.5" minimum needed to be sprayed. DH even told him before he started - Do NOT skimp on this. DH talked with our builder on Saturday and said he might want to come take a look at it before the sheet rock covers it.  He agreed and said that is the one thing you do not want any areas that are less than 1.5 inches because moisture will get in those areas and ruin the blow in insulation and walls. Now it is after 9am Monday morning and they haven't even showed back up yet to finish it.

The concrete guys were there first thing (like 7am) this morning and the first half our our concrete patio got poured, so at least that is getting done. Now the guy is just waiting for it to get to a certain hardness before he can stamp it. DH sent me a pick of the color and I love it. We let the concrete kid (I call him a kid - he is only 22 haha) pick out what color he thought would be best and he thought a lighter tan would look better than dark, and I agreed.  He said he's going to put some black into the release agent so there will be some black highlights in it. He thought that would go good since our roof has a little black in it too. The other half will get poured tomorrow.

Update: I got the call to the painter lady done. But I did tell her, if she's interested in giving us a bid on the house painting, we are still tweaking that budget and if it turns out we are not impressed with the painting of the shop, we may want to see if we can work in her bid, instead.