New Air on Monday!

One of the important projects this weekend was to take down a "closet" that was built around the air handler so the new system can go in on Monday. It turns out the closet was built of plywood, which made it extra fun to try and demolish. But we did.

The new air unit is a 15+ SEER heat pump. By upgrading to 15 SEER we qualify for a 1500 tax credit next April. The heat pump also came with a $600 rebate from the manufacturer, a $350 rebate from Progress Energy, and a brand new programmable thermostat.

Once we have air, the rest of the contracters go to work, starting next Tuesday.

Eric's Dissappearing Bathroom

After a lunch break Eric discovered the joys of smashing bathroom tile with the sledgehammer while listening to his iPod. He just kept filling one garbage can after another with demolished bathroom junk.

Great job today.

Today's Focus

This gives a pretty good picture of the focus of today. The original garage, as built in 1969 was nearly 26' deep and 20' wide. Sometime in the early 70's someone decided it was a better idea to shorten the garage to 20' and put in an unducted shower room with the shower put where the original washer and dryer were located, and an unducted, very narrow laundry room that was untidy, smelly, and downright ugly.

Today we set ourselves on the path of returning the garage to its original nice design. What we found as we demolished the two rooms at the back of the garage was lots of illegal and highly unsafe wiring (dryer plug hanging by wires out of the wall is but one example. We are not done yet, but made huge progress today. By the end of the weekend we expect all the walls to be down, the drywall removed on the back wall down to the studs. Then we will bring in licensed plumbers and electricians to fix the wiring and plumbing disasters that we have uncovered.

Among other issues, the plug for the garage door opener is wired into the light switch so the garage door opener will only function when the overhead light is turned on. Plus the light switch for same is on the wrong side of the garage. I would consider doing all this work myself, but I climbed into the attic today and thought it would be better to pay someone to trudge through the attic. Otherwise, I'd have to put this off until November.

Garage Organized

After lunch it became apparent that we needed to get the new shelves up so we could get organized and clear a path for the rubble to get through the garage to the dumpster.

Eric and Betsy quickly set to work and build four sets of shelves. The came together pretty quickly, but Eric preferred to be tearing stuff down instead of building something.

We Need A Really Big Garbage Can

Having never done this before we started filling up our 3 48 gallon garbage cans, and stacking stuff up to be cut up, tied with twine, and brought to the curb on Tuesday.

Wrong!

About 10:00 this morning it started to dawn on us what we were getting into, so we ordered a 10 cubic yard bin. They delivered it around 12:30 and we were in business. By the time we quit working around 6:00 PM it was more than half full of wood and drywall.

Garage Walls Painted

We have now primed and painted the walls in the garage, which has done wonders for the awful cat-pee smell there.

Eric the Helper

For those who haven't seen Eric in a while, he's pretty tall now. And was a huge contributor today. He essentially took down the entire garage bathroom by himself.

Let the work begin!

Using our nifty homemade box on our dinghy trailer we loaded up this morning and brough tools and ladders over to our newly purchased "home."

Thankfully I missed hitting the house with the car again.

It's Ours

We signed the papers last night at 5:00 PM so the dump is ours. I've never been less thrilled to buy a house, but I'm hopeful I'll be happy at the end of August.

Prior to signing I went to Lowes and purchased 3 big garbage cans, an 8 lb sledgehammer and a 6 foot long 19 lb. chisel.

We filled up the trailer with cleaning supplies and drove over to our new house. I christened the house by backing the car into the garage door with the lift gate up. Oh well, add another cost to the upgrade.

Last night we tore the old wood shelves out of the garage. Then attacked the cat pee smell with a bottle of industrial cleaner on the floor. We spread the cleaner out and left it to sit overnight. Today Betsy is going to pressure wash the floor and hopefully the smell will leave with the soap. Tonight I am priming the garage walls which should cover up any of the smell that's attached to the walls.

Friday - Saturday - Sunday are demolition days. Our goal is to knock down the walls in the garage to return the garage to it's intended size. Knock down various do-it-yourself shelves throughout the house. And the huge job is to break up and remove the ugly tile that made up the front entrance, kitchen, family room and hallways. Betsy is tackling the ugly laminate flooring in one of the bedrooms, and the linoleum in two of the bathrooms.

Lots of work is planned. We will need a lot of energy to get it done this weekend!

Ceiling Fans

So we had little to do this weekend because of our lawyer malaise problem. We figure we have about a 75% chance of closing tomorrow, but at this point expect anything to happen.

Since we couldn't do any work we decided to go looking for what kind of ceiling fans to buy. We have already settled on our appliances, air conditioner, and front door. So it was off to see fans.

We decided to go to a few fan stores, then to the big box stores. But after visiting Dan's Fan City we felt we found our fan store and gave up.

Dan's Fan City Ceiling Fans - Palm Fans too


The prices are in line with the big blue and orange box stores, but the selection is infinite. Depending on room size they recommend one of about five motors that come in five or six different finishes. Then you pick your blade size and style, and your light style. They claim the quietest fans on the market and I have to say the store was darn quiet for as many fans as they have operating.

Fan store found.

You need patience to buy a forclosure home

We still haven't closed. In the infinite wisdom of the bank they have picked a lawyers office that is a 3 hour drive from Orange County to handle the close instead of an Orange County Title company that knows the area.

We continue to wait for liens to be cleared that require action from Orange County agencies.

It is frustrating, but there is nothing we can do. We have already lost a weekend that we planned to use to knock down walls and remove tile.

We can only hope we close before this weekend.

D-Day is July 24

Everything seems set and ready to go. We are just waiting for a closing time and date from the Title company, but expect the close to happen July 24. At least we are ready for that.

We are hoping for a Friday close, because we plan a very busy weekend of demolishing bad stuff in anticipation of putting in new good stuff.

In the mean time we are learning about high efficiency air conditioners and heat pumps, kitchen appliances, tile, carpeting, wall restoration, how to gut rooms, front doors, and gutters. The more things we see the more the budget spirals out of control. Then we have to stop and decide what we want, and when we can afford to get it.

We are keeping our fingers crossed for Friday.

Used Kitchen Appliances

Craigslist is surprisingly full of top notch kitchen appliances for sale including many new items. We are definitely going to check some of these out. A previously installed stainless Advantium microwave fetches $300 vs. $800 new.

Where do these come from? Are people selling their appliances for cash before the bank comes to foreclose? More on this as it develops.

The Job List

Prior to moving in we need to accomplish the following in four weeks.

1. Re-key all the locks.
2. Brand new air conditioning system. We are working on quotes for a high efficiency system. Currently there are tax credits of up to $1,500 and many manufacturer rebates for installing a brand new 15 SEER or above rated system. This will be one of our first projects to get done so we can work on the interior comfortably in the August heat.
3. re insulate the attic.
   
4. Upgrade electrical system to 200 AMP service with master surge suppressor installed.
   
5. Demolish the DIY shelves in the living room and set of drawers in the office. Take out the shelves in the master bedroom closet in preparation of carpeting and installation of a closet system.
6. Demolish the existing garage bathroom, un-ducted laundry room, AC closet and garage shelves to restore the garage to its original size.
7. Remove and rewire phone lines, Ethernet drops, DirecTV wires.
   
8. Remove existing builder grade tile in the foyer, family room, kitchen and hallways.
9. Repair any nicks and dings in the walls, resurface the walls with an orange peel finish.
10. Cover up the paneling in the family room with 1/4" drywall, orange peel surface, prime and paint.
    
11. Repair kitchen ceiling and resurface to match the family room ceiling.
12. Remove all kitchen appliances
13. Replace the kitchen counters
14. replace vanities and cupboards in two bathrooms.
    
15. Tile the foyer, kitchen, family room, hallway and hallway bath with a modern large tile that resembles travertine and uses a 1/16" grout line.
16. Carpet the bedrooms, living room and dining room.
17. Replace outlets and switches as needed
18. Replace light fixtures and ceiling fans as needed
19. Install new kitchen appliances
20. Possibly replace the front door.
21. Replace or repair the french doors from the office to outside.

I'm sure there is more, and the project will grow in scope as we proceed. August will be a busy month.

The building inspection results

The building inspection found many hidden problems, including:

1. the air conditioner compressor was opened up, vandalized, then closed back up. Due to its age, 1995, it will need to be replaced. Add $6,000 to the budget.
2. The beautiful french doors from the office bedroom out to the pool is completely rotted out at the base due to ongoing water exposure from water hitting the patio and splashing back. This will require either replacing the door, or at least some major surgery involving fiberglass. And the addition of a gutter along the roof facia here. Add $2,500 to the budget.
3. Front area gutters have to be replaced
4. The house has aluminum wiring, and it's recommended that the outlets be inspected and replaced where needed.
5. The seal on the refrigerator door has been slashed, possibly vandalism.
6. The dish washer was partially disassembled. Who knows why.
7. There are no GFCI switches installed in bathrooms, kitchen, or at the pool light receptacle.
8. There are wiring deficiencies throughout the home and attic that have to be brought up to code. Add $4,000 to the budget.
   
9. The attic has insufficient insulation and needs to be reinsulated.
10. A couple of windows are cracked and need to be replaced.
11. The garage bathroom area is completely insufficient and needs to be torn out.
12. The back porch structure likely has to be replaced in the short term.

All in all, our inspector found roughly $15,000 in additional repairs that will be required. We went back to the bank on some of this, and received a further price reduction to help offset these issues.

Not Much Curb Appeal

Right now the house is painted some type of mustard-y gold-y ick-y color with no offsetting trim. We hope to have it painted and some landscaping in by Summer 2010. We think we have already picked out the color, and have a pretty good idea of how it will be landscaped.

Garage

Out in the garage someone started installing a fourth full bathroom. Not sure why, unless the plan was to convert the garage into a sixth bedroom suite. Everything about this bathroom is a disaster. It is all going to be torn out and restored to garage space. The shower in back will likely become a closet.

Foliage

Winter Park is a lush, green, place to live. The backyard area needs to be cleaned up, and part of what you are looking at will become a patio area.

Back Yard

The back yard is dominated by the oversized pool. You can see one of the bedrooms has a nice set of french doors that are unfortunately rotted out and will have to be replaced. What a waste.

Pool

The pool is a huge 20 feet wide by 37 feet long. The deck around it needs a good cleaning, and we will eventually widen the deck on the far side of the pool to accomodate a few chairs. The pool deck is currently too narrow. The wiring to the pool motor is substandard and currently unsafe and will have to be updated.

Back Porch

This gives a pretty good idea of how big the back porch is and why we are excited about upgrading it.

Back Porch

Right now the back porch looks like it belongs in a tenement. This area will eventually become the jewel of the house. It is a very large 34'x16' under roof. The master bedroom, dining room, kitchen, family room, and a bathroom all have direct access to the porch. The screens are all shot, the floor is black with mold and the porch ceiling is moldy.

Master Bedroom

The Master Suite is a bit on the small side, but does have a nice slider out to the patio. This will be one of our longer term projects where we redo the master bath and make this a nice livable area.

Dining Room

That's not a chandelier, it's a light you hang over a pool table. This area will be carpeted. And hopefully we will install a chair rail and two tone paint in this area. The view will be nice once we fix up the patio.

Living Room

Our goal is to transform our living room into an everyday entertainment area.

Living Room

The living room carpet was black with mold and smelled awful. It actually made me sick. The rug is gone now and the cement is a big improvement. The windows are relatively new and good quality. The amateur built in shelves will be knocked out. The front door is in bad shape and will be replaced. The light fixture at the front door is hanging by its wires for some reason.

Kitchen

The kitchen is on the small side but functional. The cabinets and drawers seem to be in pretty good shape. The appliances will all be replaced. The window will make a nice pass-through to what eventually will be the jewel of the house -- a screened and finished patio. Right now though, it's a home for all kinds of critters.

Kitchen

The cabinets are nice and will be kept. The counters are badly stained and will be replaced with WilsonArt HD counters. The ceiling will be made to match the family room. The lower counter holding up the tool bag will be knocked out. It will be replaced with a higher breakfast bar along the outside edge of the kitchen, and a bookshelf at the end of the counter facing the refrigerator. The refrigerator seals were vandalized and we will replace the fridge. We may replace the seals and keep it in the garage.

Graffiti

The back bedrooms are full of handwriting of expression only, no thought. It would have to improve to become bad poetry. Unfortunately it is in at least 3 bedrooms and the hallway.

Family Room

The kitchen is off the family room. The fire place is way too big, but will have to be left alone other than a thorough scrubbing. At least we have a mantle for the clock. The ceiling above the kitchen is unfinished. That will be fixed.

The ugly tile will be scraped up and replaced by modern tile. The wood paneling will be covered up with 1/4" sheets of drywall with a modern knock down finish added.

The ceiling fan -- besides being broken -- is wired with an extension cord run through the attic, down through the closet, out through the wall and plugged into the far receptacle. The light switch on the far wall switches two can lights in the kitchen. I will tie all the can lights in the kitchen together and use the switch wiring for the ceiling fan.