Waiting, watching, wishing
As Katie said, we’ve decided to shift out house repair focus from the master bath to the upstairs. It was a pretty abrupt shift, actually.
As of Friday, we were definitely going to spend the refinance money on the master bath, which is in terrible shape - part of the reason we could afford the house. The tub is incredibly ugly and stained, with random exposed pipes complete with shelves build around them. The walls are also in bad shape, and someone stuck white boards - like you see in classrooms - over the lower half of the walls, presumably to cover up water damage. And speaking of water damage, the floor is soggy in several places from years of unrepaired leaks, and after massive damage to the existing plaster ceiling, it was replaced with a hideous drop ceiling. And the wiring for the overhead light (of course there’s no fan) was done so poorly that I have the switch taped over. Our bathroom is a dump.
But on Saturday, Katie and I had a drastic change in plans. While our bathroom is in desperate need of work, it does function, and the same can’t really be said of the upstairs bathroom. When we bought the house, we didn’t realize that the upstairs shower didn’t work - it only has an incredibly ugly pink bath tub that sits at an odd angle. And lets just say the toilet and sink could use updating. Plus, the kids would probably appreciate some nice carpet in their rooms, and the third bedroom upstairs really needs to get turned into a bedroom instead of a massive closet. And tied into the project would be moving the outdated gas heat and air system upstairs, which will probably save us a fair amount of money per month. And while they’re doing that, they can figure out why J’s room gets so little air.
It should make for a fun project, and I’m definitely leaving some stuff out that needs to get done. But right now, we’re just waiting for the appraisal to come through and give us the go. We’re supposed to find out on Wednesday, and while I’m optimistic, I’m quite uncomfortable not knowing for sure what the appraiser will say (he inspected it this morning but gave no hints).
I’m crossing my fingers.
January 14th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Good luck. We did the refinance thing last year. Our big projects this year are new roof and get the house painted. I’m tired of living in the “Boo Radley” house, as our find Kim calls it.
It was nerve racking having the inspector in.
January 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
What makes it a Boo Radley house? It’s been a few years since I read that book.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
The Radley house was the house 3 doors down from Scout and Jem. No one was seen coming out of it for years after old Man Radley died (Boo’s dad.) Boo was called Boo because his father kept him locked in the house.
Boo was considered a powerful symbol of goodness swathed in an initial shroud of creepiness. Much like our house: quite creepy on the outside (due to poor paint job right before Scott bought it) but fairly nice on the inside.
That’s the To Kill a Mockingbird cliff’s notes explanation of the day.
January 14th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
So where does the powerful symbol of goodness come into play?
January 14th, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Goodness of Boo?
He saves the children from mortal harm near the end of the book.
Or do you mean the goodness of our house.
Our dog is very good. That must be it.
January 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Yeah, I was talking about your house.
Has your dog ever saved children from mortal harm?
January 15th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Not yet, but we’re still waiting.
There are a few kids in our neighborhood, so all is not lost yet.
Any word from the inspector.
January 15th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Not until tomorrow, although they bumped closing up to this Friday, so….
January 16th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Any news yet??
January 16th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Yep.
The house appraised for about 15k more than we needed (and about 35k more than we bought it for just over a year ago).
January 16th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
w00t.