Last summer it seemed like our AC unit struggled to keep the house cool. We thought the problem was the lack of insulation and unsealed duct work. It contributed to the problem, but in retrospect, the unit was dying a slow death.
When the first hot days this Spring were upon us, we turned on the AC. Listening to it run and run and run, we knew. An inspection by a local AC company confirmed my worst home owner fear - we needed a new unit.
After 4 bids, a week of sweltering and $6000 later, meet Frieda.
She is a thing of beauty. She's quiet, cools the house off and better last for 20 years. I'm still cringing over writing that check. I feel like she should be christened before she goes up on the roof.
Why the name Frieda? Because she's frigid. Get it? Yea, I know...blame the heat.
We've done some behind the scenes projects that, while making the house more comfortable, no one ever sees. New insulation and sealed duct work in the attic was a huge project, but fluffy cellulose fiber isn't something you blog about. I needed a new project.
Our laundry room is the first room you enter the house through the garage and it needed some decorating love.
This laundry room also had an odd nook that held our water heater. Built in the early 80's, these little houses all had the water heaters indoors - something that builders no longer do. Our house inspector suggested we move it to the garage. All I could see was closet potential for the nook. $350 later, the water heater was in the garage and I got a weird closet.
See how boring? My daughter and I painted the entire room the color Spiced Squash and I made curtains for the closet and window.
I love how it turned out! A few tips on painting a laundry room:
Go bright and cheerful! You spend a lot of time in this room, why not make it pretty?
Move the washer and dryer to the garage, it would have been a lot easier if we'd done this.
Replace dated switches and outlets. They were all that ugly cream color. Changing them all to white make a huge difference. We liked it so much that we will be doing this slowly throughout the house.
When hanging curtains over a small window, put the bar 6 or so inches higher than the top of the window. It makes the window look larger. We also took the time to put a shade screen on that window, as it faces east.
Fortunately, the house was in move-in-ready condition. There were projects that needed to be done, but we could take our time. What better project than painting something the color I choose? I may have gotten teary eyed when we bought the paint. The people at Lowes probably thought I was nuts.
Our front and back gates were in bad shape. The wood needed painting, the metal was rusted.
What better time for a project than in July? Surely this will only take a few hours. Noticing a theme here of me underestimating things?
2 metal gate frames, 22 slats of wood, 66 bolts,
1/2 gallon of primer, 2 coats of cobalt blue paint + 6 hours = gorgeous new
gates that really gave the backyard some color. We loved it!! Finishing when it
was 108? Not so much.
Our joy was short lived when later that evening, one of the Valley's famous haboobs hit Chandler.
Yikes! Fortunately, the paint was dry enough that the sand didn't stick to it. First project, done!
Now that we'd found our house, the rest should be simple, right? Wrong again! Little did I know that pre-approvals don't mean much. It is nothing more than a credit check - the real fun begins when you want the mortgage. Despite working for my employer for 7 years, the mortgage company required 5 different documents proving my salary, employment and future employment. This was getting ridiculous! At one point, I asked our lender if he was going to require blood samples. I don't think he was amused.
Finally, at 4:58 pm the evening before closing, the loan funded. Now, just the recording of documents stood between us and our new house. The rest of the night was spent finishing up packing - we were too excited to sleep!
At 12:30 the next day, the call came we'd been waiting so long to receive - the documents were recorded. We were homeowners! While tapping my fingers at my desk, waiting to get off work, my husband posted this on my Facebook page:
I sobbed. Put my head on my desk and just sobbed. This was something I'd dreamed of since I was a little girl. When I couldn't sleep at night, I'd think of redecorating the homes of my friends in my head. 20 years is a long time to wait for something you want so badly.
My boss, who was out of the country, called in to see how things were going and if I'd heard anything yet. I could barely talk, I was crying so hard. He laughed and told me to go home and take off Monday as well.
After racing to our rental, we threw some boxes into our car and drove to our new house. As we stood on the front porch, I pointed to the door.
"Babe, do you know what that is?" My poor husband, long used to my craziness, responded with, "...ummmm, a door?". I started to cry again and shook my head.
In February of 2011 I'd finally had enough. 20 years of living in rentals and this last argument with my landlord of 7 years was my breaking point. I'm arguing with her over painting the house she owned? She wants me to pay for new carpet to replace the 20 year old, country blue, contractors carpet? No. We'd never paid rent a single day late and the entire time getting them to fix/update anything was a fight.
A friend had just bought a fixer-upper for $80,000 in Tempe. 80k? Heck, we could afford that! We'd built up a little nest egg for a down payment and home prices were hitting historic lows. Maybe it was finally time that we could buy a house?
A few phone calls later and we were pre-approved for a mortgage and the hunt was on! This was going to be easy, right? Wrong! In 3 months, we looked at over 75 homes. I can't tell you how many homes we looked at that were so disgusting, I had to shower when we'd come home from house hunting. Or, they needed far more work than we were willing to do. I didn't want move-in-ready, but I didn't want to be replacing a roof the first week. And holy cow, did we see some doozies! There was the "movie star" house with a living room floor that had been painted, glitter (yes, glitter!) sprinkled over it and sealed with shiny sealant. Same house had a bedroom with a faux paint treatment meant to make it look like the interior of a castle, complete with a "window" that overlooked a meadow with a unicorn in it. To this day, we still laugh about that house.
And then, just when I didn't think I could look at another house without screaming, we found our house.
That's when our adventure really began - turning our house into a home.
