September is our month for change...

In September, of 2010, three years ago, we broke ground on our land.  It was scheduled for August, but construction was delayed, and they started in September.  See where the guy in the orange shirt is standing talking to the other guy?

















That is where we are living now!
And funny thing is, we moved in September of 2012.  September seems to be our  month. Our  month for change. Maybe in September of next year we can be moving upstairs. 

And since this is September....I was just looking at some old blog posts....looking from where we've come.  Building a house, on our own, has been a huge undertaking.  And it's moving along slower than we wanted, but we've ran into several set backs we never planned on.  My husband used to work in construction and he said the one thing you can count on in construction is it is going to take longer than planned and cost more than planned! 

That was not a planned blog post, I just am feeling a bit sentimental....and a lot blessed.

Here is the story about our house in town....the latest story....
On Monday evening we got a call from our realtor, the new guy we just hired. The converstaion went like this....
Paul, "Can you and Dave come into town tomorrow and look over an offer?"
Me, "already?"
Paul, chuckles..."yes already."
Me, "wow!"
Paul, "can you come tomorrow?"
Me, "yes"

Long story short....we went.  During the discussion of a counter offer, we were interrupted by his assistant.  She said there is another showing on our house, at 5:30pm (it was 5:00pm)  and they are very interested.  Around 7:00 that evening Paul called and said we have another offer on our house!  It was a better offer.  I said we'd take it.  He said the only fair thing to do is to contact the people that made the first offer and let them know.   That night around 10:00, another call from Paul.  The first offer people offered MORE than we were asking,and no assistance with closing costs.  So we went with it.  I told our realtor I thought this only happened on tv.  We've been praying that someone will buy our house that will love it as much as we did. I think if you are willing to pay more than asking, you love it.  When I looked at that house, I knew....Immediately...I knew.  I loved it.
 We have about 45 days to see if it all goes through. Inspections, appraisals, loans.  In the meantime, someone stopped by while Dave was at the house doing some yardwork, asking if he could see the house.  He showed them and they said, "if something falls through with your offer, please call me."  And the people that were in the bidding war, are considering a back up offer.  I just pray our house sells to someone that loves it. 
September seems to be our  month for changes.

Cindy

Porches and Columns

 Front view of the East end porches.  Still need to do ceilings and paint decking, but columns are up and it's looking good!

The columns tend to look like they are centered, depending on where you stand.  We've decided not to make an issue out of it.  It is what it is....the window is not centered on the wall.

 

 Standing inside the kitchen looking out was my main concern.  I didn't want to look through a window and see a column when I have this gorgeous view!  No problem.

 I finished painting the last column yesterday!!! YAAAAAY!!!

We'll be working on the ceilings next!  The closer these porches are to being finished, the more anxious I am to move upstairs!  Haven't even started on it!

Cindy

More Porch drama

Work continues on the porches...

 The decking on the upper porch is now finished.

 We decided to finish the deck portion on all of the porches (three in all), then go back and finish the ceilings and wrapping the wood with aluminum.  Mainly because the temporary osb has been on the porch for two years now and is rotting, and we need structure to hold up the end of the house!  Hence..temporary.

We used treated wood and apparently you aren't supposed to paint the wood for a year!  They said it needs to dry completely out.  Really?  I'm thinking a couple of months...anyone had any experience painting deck wood?  Did you wait a year?

  So anyway, Dave started working on the biggest porch.  And he could only bring a small portion of the wood home at a time.  But he paid for it all at once because it was on sale. It saves money and time doing it this way. You just take your receipt to the lumber yard and they mark down how much you picked up each time, and they keep track of it in their computer. You don't have to go back inside the store every time, go through the register, purchase the wood, then go out to the lumber yard.   I think he made four trips in all, and not in the same day.  When you are doing something this size, by yourself, you get what you think you will use in a day, so it doesn't warp.  

On Dave's third trip to get wood, they told him he got it all on the last trip!  He didn't.  On that trip he only had the truck with him and he picked up four pieces.  Enough to do in an evening after work.  So they had to look at a security camera on the day he picked it up, and find him...on film...picking up the wood...and count the pieces of wood in the truck.  I'm serious.

When he went back for the last load the guy showed him why it was so easy to make a mistake.  Apparently the boxes you 'x' off on the computer are very small.  Whatev...

Back to the porch...the wood does not fit the length of the porch, so you have to lay it as though it were a floor.  Staggering joints and such.

And my man says to me, "See Cindy, you have to be a ballerina to build porches!"  As he walks along the structure...doing a balancing act.

Eyes off the butt....just showing you how you get a porch started with the decking.

On to problem three.....

this kitchen window is not centered....and we have four columns that go on the front of this porch.  If you space them evenly apart, from each end....the right-middle column will be in the middle of the third window....and the left middle column will be on the left side of the window.

There is about an eight inch difference.

to be continued......

The next person that asks me what is taking so long on these porches, or this house

....my facial expression will be nice and smiling....but in my head I will be thinking...

I want to bitch-slap you.

Then I will tell them, nicely, with a smile, "oh, you don't read my blog."  Or I might say, "I'm sure you don't understand, since you've never even built a bird house, let alone a real house."   

GASP!  Did I really just type that?

OTHER HOUSE STUFF...

  If you follow my other blog...the every day random stuff....I mentioned that I would tell you what happened with our house in town that we have for sale.  I get all confused as to which blog this kind of stuff belongs to...and really...does it matter?  Anyway,

As you might recall, I worked my butt off all winter long trying to get the house in town empty and ready to sell by spring.   We had it on the market by the first of May.  At the end of the June we had an accepted offer on the house, that I will admit I never felt good about and I told my husband and the realtor at the time I didn't feel good about it.  Our realtor reassured me that it was a good offer, and he was pre-approved.  She wouldn't believe it either, "but she heard the lender talk to the other realtor." The reason I didn't feel good about it, was because he was getting a government loan, in Texas, and we live in Indiana.  

Remember back in the spring we had a lot of flooding.....I copied this picture off of my other blog as a reminder of the flooding....and also, the buyer's house is down the side street in this area.

Apparently our government offers a loan to natural disaster victims of 1%, to help them get back on their feet.  But they have to use their insurance money for a down payment.  They don't have to get an appraisal or an inspection.  The only stipulation, it cannot be in flood zone.  So the first week in July we accepted his offer.  They never showed the house again.  Once you have an offer peeps, beware, realtors stop showing the house.

Now, I happened to see this guy pull out of our driveway with his realtor one day, and I told our realtor at that time I think the guy spent his insurance money because he wasn't driving the same old beat up truck.   Her comment, "he better not have."

What I did not know at that time, was that he was supposed to use that insurance money for a down payment on our house.  When it came time for the lender to cut the check, the guy told his realtor he "Spent the money fixing up his house" IN FLOOD ZONE.

Dave asked the realtor why didn't his realtor guide him a little better.  He said, "I thought it was a realtor's job to kind of guide and screen prospective buyers.  To help them along...."

No matter...We got a different realtor.  

Wish us luck.

Paint issue resolved

Here's the paint scoop...and surprisingly I didn't get all mad...or upset...or get my blood pressure up.  I have, however, lost a lot of faith in people actually doing their job. I don't even expect people to do a 'good' job, I just want them to do their job! Customer service is a thing of the past.

I went to the paint store first, with the peeling bases and caps.

I thought maybe it was a paint issue. 

While talking to the paint store manager, he actually peeled a cap almost clean.  He listened and he was the one that helped me in the first place, with the manufacturer's instructions in hand.  So, he called Menard's, where we bought the bases and caps, and got the name of someone to call at the manufacturing plant. 

After a week I went back to the paint store. 
The paint store manager (PSM) was told to call "Kent", at the manufacturing plant.  He did.  Three times in one week, and never received a return phone call. Ever.   Left three messages.  THEN, he called Menard's back to get another number.  He got a number for Kim, who transferred his call to Kent's voice mail, who never returns phone calls.

So the PSM advised me to go to Menards with the caps and bases and tell them that we cannot get a response from the manufacturer and ask them to exchange them.  I did.  They exchanged them. But they only had two pair in stock, so I had to drive to Carmel (about an hour) to get the other two pair.  I didn't want to put it off lest they change their minds.

In the meantime, the PSM gave me a gallon of paint, because now I have to re-prime and paint them.

I told Menard's to get in touch with the manufacturer and let them know about this problem...which I doubt they do. 

I'm ok with the way it turned out.  It's more work for me.  But I didn't have to re-buy the product at $50.00 a pair. 

Cindy

Painting issue

 After painting these porch columns and bases and caps in place, we decided the best thing to do was to paint all of the columns on the unfinished porch we have left.  And put all of the bases and caps on a table and paint them, then touch up any scratches.  It's just too hard painting them in place, and covering everything, to make sure we don't get paint on cement or wood. 

 So Dave braces them to the porch so they won't fall over,

 and roughs them up with a palm sander.

 Then I clean them with a vinegar and water solution,

 and paint them with Latex paint.

   Deeeeep......cleansing.....breaths....because we are so tired of  these things.

 And remember the oil based paint I returned?  Because I didn't like the way the paint looked on the bases and caps...Well here you go.



What do you think...would you be happy with this?  They all turned out this way, and that's not the worst of it.  Dave had a couple of the posts set, and he called me to the porch.
 
 Yup, it's already peeling off.  SO...AFTER MUCH DISCUSSION...because I didn't want to leave it that way and as you can imagine, he's tired of re-doing everything....
 
 he took the oil painted bases and caps off of the porch. 

 

 

 I've been peeling the paint off of all of these so I can re-clean, prime, and paint them. 

 But I am visiting the paint store this afternoon.  This is ridiculous.  I e-mailed them and their response was to call or come in.  I'll be nice, but I want some sort of compensation.
 
What do you think would be fair?

  My first inclination was to have them replace the bases and caps which would be $350.00.  These things cost $50 a pair and I painted 7 pair with their paint.  I already removed the paint from some of them, so my second thought was to have them remove the paint from the rest of them and re-clean, prime and paint them.  But the truth is, they probably won't do either.  What are your thoughts.

 I used this primer that is recommended in the manufacturer's instructions and is expensive.  $20 bills for that little can.  And all of the latex painted bases turned out perfect.

 So he is working on the upper balcony as much as he can, and trying to work around the painting issue

 and I'm trying to get stuff painted so he can get these porches finished. 

 
Someone asked me what our time deadline was to get moved in.  We are moved in!
Our time deadline....to get these porches finished before snow hits!

Cindy

Still working on porches....still

 So here's where we are on the porches. 

 He got all of the ends reinforced....

 And most of the wood decking has been laid.

 Now read carefully.....

first of all.....go to THIS POST about 7-8 pictures down and read the part where it starts out...."The other thing we have actually lost sleep over....."  

Then you will understand this part.

 So, if you look directly down at the corner of the deck in the above pic

 or on the end here, or look in the below pic, you see these three cement beam thingys (pylons?) that go into the ground.  I was here the day they were pouring these.  They are HUGE and long.

 And they are holding this up. 

 That, and these beams which are about to bust...

 If you look closely you can see the cracks and bends in them.  Yes, it is past time to get these porches done. 

 

If the porches go down, this entire end of the house goes down.  

And back to the big beam thingys, well one end settled 3/4 of an inch, as we suspected.  

Did you read the other post mentioned above? It explains it.

 That 3/4 of an inch probably explains this.....

And I've been priming and painting these bases and caps for columns.  One coat of prime, two coats of paint.  I had to move them all inside, because you are supposed to use oil based paint on them.  Well, the paint doesn't dry before the bugs and such get all over them and stick to the paint.  So after the second coat of paint, I had to sand all the bugs off.  Then apply the third coat.  I don't like the way they've turned out, and since I have this many more to go, I took the paint back (the unopened paint) and bought latex.  It's very complicated with the whole column thing. You have to prime the caps with XIM ($20.00 a quart) and then paint them, because they are plastic.  The columns are fiberglass, which require a different primer (cheaper) or you can sand them down.  If you sand the columns down, you can use latex.  If you don't sand them, you have to use oil.  Oil paint sucks.  (that is the blog authors opinion, and not necessarily the opinion of others!)  

Cindy