Posted by Matthew
Fri, 28 Apr 2006 15:27:00 GMT
Last night I watched an alarming program on global warming. I was already freaked about our potential gas bill after peeking at our neighbor’s bill in January. Having an old house is great but not if you’re paying to heat the outdoors. Our place didn’t have insulation but that’s been rectified. We still have a bunch of windows to replace once we get in there.
At any rate, electricity is another concern since I’ll be working at home all of the time and thus be home consuming electricity all of the time. The green electricity offerings in the area are encouraging
Pepco Energy Services offers 100% green electricity at $0.1147 /kWh for 12 months. Washington Gas offers a $0.1225 /kWh rate. Compare that with the $0.1143 /kWh that I pay to PG&E for baseline usage. This year and last we used over 400 kwh of power for 3/10-4/10. We went over the baseline usage and paid a more painful rate for a small portion of power. Seems like green electricity is competitive and there isn’t really a reason not to do it.
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Posted in Modern amenities, Purchase | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Matthew
Fri, 28 Apr 2006 07:17:00 GMT
I’ve started to look into fixing all of the modern appliances that regularly drive me bat shit.
First, connectivity to the Internet. I need to compare the evil Comcast with services from RCN (http://www.rcn.com/). At first glance RCN’s 20Mbps download with 2Mbps upload for $90/month seems like the fastest speed I can obtain for a reasonable rate. My employer pays for $50/month so it is not as outlandish as it might look at first glance. T1 service is around $300/month which is still out of reach for a single home (but several homes . . .hmm). Sadly, I couldn’t find a provider that offered it in 20011.
RCN offers phone services as well but it is not clear from their site if the service is over VoIP. The second things on the list to fix is removing all dependency on the PSTN.
Unfortunately, I think it may have already been wired into the house. The only equipment requiring a TDM line is the ancient Tivo that I hope to replace anyway and a possible security system already installed in the house (likely to be non-functional). Turns out ADT is on top of it and offers a cell based service. Interesting. Wires come into the basement and everything becomes wireless.
Posted in Modern amenities, Purchase | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Tue, 28 Feb 2006 20:00:00 GMT
It’s a miracle… the Longest Closing Ever (three months and a week, about) is over. We are closed. It is ours. Now the fun can really begin, if Chips gets back to us with an estimate and we figure out if we should change the locks now, later, or now AND later.
It feels weird.
Posted in Purchase | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Sat, 25 Feb 2006 16:55:00 GMT
So we now have yet another closing date… next Tuesday at 11.30 AM. I am mentally rolling my eyes and yawning at the thought, because I am jaded. Our agent assures us that “everyone is motivated” to have this happen, but I am not buying that, really. Why would everyone suddenly be motivated when for the last few months there has been little to no evidence of motivation? We are the only motivated people involved, it seems, and we are just about out of time before our loan extension ends and we get penalized, which is adding to our motivation. But I am not sure it is adding to anyone else’s.
Anyway, we will see. I was just looking at the contract, here, and I realized we signed it November 21. Over THREE MONTHS ago. It’s kind of insane if you think about it. It’s a good thing I mostly don’t. It’s also a good thing we are not in a hurry to move in, or have a lease ending here or something like that.
Posted in Purchase | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Mon, 20 Feb 2006 06:41:00 GMT
But don’t hold your breath. the latest news is that the court has lost the jacket for the closed estate in the dead files, and that if they can’t find it by Tuesday, they will probably maybe let us close Thursday. I guess this means Round Three of frantic document gathering on our end, and good god, I hope to remember to call USAA about the insurance this time around (last time we didn’t close, it was so last minute the insurance had actually kicked in by the time I remembered to call).
Anyway, I forgot, but I posted some pictures over at Flickr. These are the nice ones. (Ha.) I will post more later, when I get the nerve and we own the house and I can say mean things because I will be crying through my laughter. Or
laughing through my tears, whatever.
The latest in the Contractor Countdown is two bids in, waiting for the final one (since of course the two we have are many many dollars apart from each other).
I also think I spent my kitchen faucet money on a suit. I keep looking at it thinking it could be a faucet. I just don’t know.
Posted in Purchase | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Tue, 07 Feb 2006 03:17:00 GMT
Right now I am convinced that this house is never going to close, that the contractors are never going to look at it and/or give us bids (we are waiting on one of each of those situations right now), and that we are never going to actually move anywhere.
Posted in Purchase | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Sat, 28 Jan 2006 16:45:00 GMT
So we just got back from a trip to DC to see the house, meet with contractors, and, possibly, actually close on the house but that was once again delayed but should happen in another week or so.
It all went pretty well, other than the moments of abject terror I was having randomly, thinking “what in the hell are we doing” and being convinced that we are insane. Which we probably are, doing all this (all the housebuying things say to not buy a house that needs extensive work as a first time buyer) but most of the time I am okay with the insanity and the vodka I consumed each night helped me be okay with things.
Anyway, there were a lot of good things and some bad.
Good:
- structural elements willing, I solved the kitchen dilemma and know almost exactly what to do there
- The old house numbers on the front transom are still there (yes, it is the small things) and we can restore them
- there is a cool old medicine cabinet that needs to be stripped of about 3853 layers of varnish and paint in the bathroom, but it is probably original and very cool
- the contact paper used on parts of the walls will come off easily (it is contact paper over paint over wallpaper over paint over plaster and it is all just falling right off the plaster)
- the original skylight is there, hidden under the drop ceiling, and appears to be intact and in okay shape except for the green paint
- the second floor floors are in pretty good shape. we don’t know about the first floor because of an overlay that was put on top of them and we are not sure what to do about that (try to restore the overlay, which will be hard, or remove it and hope for the best underneath)
- all the original transoms above the doors are intact
- almost all the stair newels are intact and not even painted over and we can have the three broken ones replaced or remade
- we found a great place (hi, Brass Knob Warehouse!) for fixtures, radiators, and stair newels and there is an adorable kitten who lives there who will play with you while you look around
- the tin ceiling in the bathroom might be salvageable
- the front door which is an unusual width (40”) is solid and can be kept once we do some cosmetic things
- there is a huge window in the kitchen that is hidden behind cabinets we are going to reclaim
Bad:
- there is a huge window in the kitchen that is hidden behind cabinets that we are going to reclaim and it will take up approximately 55 inches of precious wall space horizontally and approximately 32 inches vertically
- the dining room floor where the joists below are sistered poorly looks scary but we knew that already
- oh, the green paint. everywhere. except for the pink in the basement
- all the nice transoms are painted over and I forsee a lot of razor blades and Peel Away in our future
- the tile in the basement might be asbestos but we are not sure. I took a tiny sample (and later found out I need a much bigger sample for testing, sigh)
- the floor in the bathroom (which is, under the linoleum, goregous and messed up circular white tile that I would love to keep but it just can’t happen) feels a little sketchy so the joists under there probably have to be sorted out but we kind of guessed that might be the case
We met with a bunch of contractors who ran the gamut insofar as type, from design firm types to local guys who did contracting work, and they were all interesting and had interesting things to say. There are three front runners right now:
J – has a lot of experience (and prices that reflect that, from what we were told: he used to be cheaper but grew) and does nice work (we saw two places he worked on) and has good references. Very thorough and professional and we have estimates from him already. He could probably do this with his eyes closed, and had no problem with sending us pictures and is email savvy and would do well.
CJ – somewhat less experience but had some good recommendations and seemed thorough and knew what he was talking about. We are waiting on his estimate and need to call some of his references. Also says he can communicate with us via email no problem, etc.
Chips – similar to CJ… less experience but very thorough and meticulous and knew what he was talking about. Recently went off on his own to start doing this kind of work, even though he has been in the business a long time. We met with him and need to give him contact info so he can get back in the house next week and do a thorough walk through and take notes and give us an estimate. Also need to get references so we can talk to some people directly and remember how he felt about email and phone communication.
Then we have heart attacks over the prices, but that is how these things go.
Next: update our to-do list. Post pictures.
Posted in Remodeling: General, Purchase | 2 comments | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:54:00 GMT
When you fax the loan officer the 29432 pages of documentation he needs, try to not forget the actual signed and initialed application for the loan. That is sort of important.
Posted in Purchase | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by Matthew
Sun, 04 Dec 2005 20:52:00 GMT
Time for a change of scenery. K. and I are picking up and moving back to Washington, DC. As I write this I can hardly believe it myself but, it is the truth. Apologies if you are a friend and this is news. We want to tell every friend directly but, perhaps this is better than finding out secondhand.
We hope to keep track of the first-time homeowner experience. Our new place needs a lot of renovations and we’ll be moving across the country for the second time in our lives. Therefore I suspect there will be plenty to share, discuss, and organize.
To that end you’ll find pictures and bookmarks that will soon enough be mostly house related in the sidebar.
With the physical change I’ve made a virtual change as well giving the Rails-based Typo blog software a try. We hope to use Ruby on Rails at work and this will give me some experience with it. More on that in a separate place soon (likely design.abarrelofthis.com or something similar).
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Posted in Moving cross-country, Purchase | 3 comments | no trackbacks
