Visions of Springs Future

Today at 4pm, we had a landscape designer from the local nursery come over and look at our yard - she was great! The nursery has a great deal where you pay $60 for her to come consult for an hour, and you not only get the consultation, but you get a $60 voucher for supplies from the nursery, so it's basically free! 

Diana (the landscaper) got so excited with our big blank slate of a yard she was practically dancing around - she used hand motions and sound effects to describe different plants, like grasses that grow in mounds and lean to the side or oat grasses that have the little dangling seeds... What was great is I could tell she was seeing our garden finished, and it was beautiful. It will likely take years to get there, but having a vision is the first step. And she gave us some first steps - start some fruit trees, and where to plant them, start some vines on our sideyard fence (on wires or trellises) to hide a little more of the neighbors' houses and create a nice private space, and start planning our hardscape - she went farther than we had imagined with a patio area, and also had neat ideas for where to put raised beds... like herb garden along our patio wall, so if we are barbecuing, we'll be able to reach over the wall and grab a handful of rosemary for our steaks, or cilantro, etc. Doesn't that sound great?

Visions of a backyard oasis are dancing in my head!

Great Day for a Mow!

I mowed my first lawn today!!!!

I don't believe I've ever mowed a lawn before in my life, believe it or not. I haven't lived in a house with a lawn since I was a kid, and then it was my dad's job (I helped in other ways). So this is exciting! My first lawn!! awww :)

It wasn't so bad - but it got cold today! Spring is such a tease. This weekend it was balmy and nice, we barbecued, hung out on our patio, and left the sliding door open until 9 at night! Today, brrrrr! Ice in the morning, snow all the way down the mountains again, a brisk wind, making the 45 degrees out feel much colder with wind chill. I kept zipped up and wore wool gloves and a fleece headband.

As far as spring flowers, we seem to be in a pause between daffodils and the rest - our trees are still all bare, though some fruit trees were flowering earlier, and the only color is from dandelions, several of which, sadly, have now been decapitated by the mower :( I've always liked cheery little dandelions and don't understand why people hate them. I like them better than lawns, to be honest.

Beryl (our wonderful 84 year old neighbor who BAKED US AN ORANGE MERINGUE PIE - omg it was good) had her gardener mow both our lawns, which run together like one big lawn, last week, and this week, I borrowed her electric mower and mowed both lawns. The "ridge" between the two has been bothering her since her more recent neighbors haven't wanted to share mowing duty like that. :) I want to keep her very happy that we are her neighbors and keep those pies (and cookies and peanut brittle) coming! hee hee!

Our First Houseguests, Free Building Materials, and Demolition

Our friends Anita and Greg and their two teenage boys, Derek and Jacob, and their two large dogs, Rocky and the black dog they rescued and hope we will adopt when we are ready who doesn't yet have a name since we keep changing it and calling her different things all the time (Etta, Monster, Kirby, Zippy, etc). We had a great time and it was also an awesome way to "test" our new home – to find out how we use the house with guests and what works and what doesn't.

What works:

• It's great having a main bath for guests, and guest rooms, and the RV!


• The living room is a nice space and going to work fine, however we arrange it.


• The kitchen is sort of functional – the peninsula counter was good for setting up buffet style meals.


• The patio was nice for hanging out on and playing with the dogs in the yard.

What doesn't work (or could work better):

• We should really get furniture – like beds, for example, for guests!


• The main bath doesn't have a shower, so they had to use our tiny beat up shower in the master. Of course, these things are already in renovation plans.


• It would be nice to have the RV hooked up so guests could stay there and actually use the sink, shower and toilet as needed.


• More furniture in the living room will help – places to sit, and also a table and chairs for eating!


• I definitely don't like the wall, even though it's only a partial wall, between the living room and kitchen. I made French Toast for Easter Brunch and everyone was in the living room eating and talking and I was in the kitchen alone, "slaving away" (ha).  Being able to see and hear the action in the living room would be much better.


• Having an actual yard, or at least landscaping of some sort, in the back would make it much nicer! And also, nice comfy seating on the patio.

On Saturday, we went for a nice long walk – there are so many great places to walk nearby – I should really walk more. That's why I need a dog. Just 1/2 block away is open land with great views of the Sierra and White mountains, and a path along a canal. We saw ducks and fish and frogs and thoroughly tired the dogs out!

On Sunday, we drove up to a local canyon and checked out some old mines, and collected some free building materials! Nice flat "fieldstone" type rocks for walkways or walls – I am so excited to go back and get more! I laid them out in the front yard like a walkway, and they look great! We would need to set them in sand or something so that they are more even on top, and bigger ones would be better for patio or walkway, but there are LOTS of rocks up there. Very cool.

When our guests left and we walked back into the house, we knew we would miss all the action and it would be TOO quiet. So we started our first demolition project – ha. We successfully pulled out two of the three cabinets on the back patio! It wasn’t that hard, either. The third cabinet has some plumbing that was installed through it after it was built, so we need a Sawzall to get it out, but that shouldn't be hard. We will be giving away the cabinets - they are good quality and we already have lots of takers, so they should be gone soon.

We already like it better on the patio – it feels more open, more light gets into the living room, and when we get the third one out and the plywood off the ends of the patio, the guest room will also be a lot brighter. Apparently, the house used to be green! We like the green better than the ultra boring beige it is painted, so maybe we’ll paint the back of the house green just for fun.

As an added bonus, when we pulled out one of the cabinets, we found hidden treasure! (just like an Easter Egg hunt!) There was ART on the wall behind one of the cabinets! I am pretty sure it is from the 70’s or even late 60’s – it looks like tin can art – they took cans and cut them up, curled the ends, painted and stuck them together – and the colors are totally 70’s: avocado green, and that orange-red color of the washing machine my sister used to have back then... :)

Here are more photos: Cabinet demolition!

First Month

Our first month in our new house has flown by... mainly because we haven't been here all that much. Last weekend was our first weekend here, and we enjoyed working on projects and unpacking more and cleaning and organizing.

My mother passed away the week we moved into the house, and so that has taken up much of our energy this month, as we have spent time down south to help plan her funeral and take care of business. It's been quite the roller coaster - I wrote about my mother elsewhere, though, and probably won't write much here. She was a wonderful woman and I am proud to be her daughter. She also lived a long and full life, and eased out gracefully, so while the final goodbye is always sharper than expected, it isn't as painful.

I still feel like I'm in recovery, though.

Spring has started to show up here - some daffodils showing their yellow heads, and some other invisible denizens of spring are killing my allergies! The emotional roller coaster, all the changes, the work, and the cherry on top (almost literally, with how much I have to blow my nose - ha) of the allergies are all taking their toll and I would rather be eating bon bons in bed watching some sappy movie than fixing up the house sometimes.

Our lawn is not looking too great - are we supposed to water it or something? ha. I put a sprinkler out the other day and forgot it so we have a well soaked yellowing lawn now. The pride of the neighborhood, I'm sure!

So much to do - we'll get it figured out eventually.

I realized recently, though, that this is the first time in adulthood where I've lived in a house with a yard, and also a garage, and also one that has mail delivery - every day the mail fairies come right to our house and deliver mail and take it away if we want to mail something! Imagine!! And don't get me started on the trash fairies!

What a world!

Home Ownership Changes Everything

Escrow finally closed and we got the keys on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 - and now we are home owners!!

It's been over a week, and I haven't had time to write any blog updates, but oh, there are so many things to write about. And so far, all good.

I'll just say this for now - all my doubts from before escrow closed have dissipated like morning fog on a warm, sunny day. We love our new home! It really feels like home, already, too. Oh sure, there are lots of projects, but they seem less daunting than fun, at least at the moment. :)

Discoveries

Neighborhood! We have been so amazed at the neighborhood - everyone we meet is so nice, and they all say "it's a great neighborhood" - we feel like we've moved to Pleasantville (in a good way). More on the specific neighbors later...

Views! We didn't really notice that there were any views from this house when we looked at it before, but there ARE! From the master bedroom, we can see the Sierra over the houses across the street - it is so wonderful to wake up and sit up in bed and see Humphrey's and Basin Peaks glowing in the sunrise light - Mount Tom is also there, but a little hidden by our tree. And I love my "sewing room" (I put it in quotes because I don't know how to sew - yet) - it may become my office and work room - it has views of the White Mountains and is sunny and bright - the brightest room in the house.

Security. There is something safe and wonderful about owning a home - the saying "safe as houses" didn't come out of nowhere, I guess. We are comfortable with our mortgage and feel like it's a decent investment (at least in the long term, since who knows when the housing market is going to stop its downward slide?). But it's our HOME, and we are not paying off someone else's mortgage in rent payments, but are building equity in something solid and real. I guess that's why they call it "real estate" isn't it?

Belonging. I feel a sense of belonging that I haven't felt yet in Bishop - it wasn't there at all in the RV Park, that's for sure. Now I feel like part of the community, and part of the neighborhood, and like we've started to sink roots. It is a wonderful feeling that is hard to express without sounding sappy, but there it is.

Who knew that buying a house would bring us that joy?

Still in Escrow

We won't close until next week now. That's okay, though - it's not like we are homeless or staying in a motel or something. We have been living in our RV for 2 years and a few more days won't kill us (I'm pretty sure). We are all paid up here at the RV Park through the end of the month, and our storage is paid through March 11th, so we have plenty of time to close next Tuesday (or Monday if they push it - but the funds have to be here before 10am for that to happen). Everything is there and in place, ready to go, though, and the realtors are paying interest on the short sale loans until we close, so you can bet they are putting pressure on the lenders to get it funded asap!

I guess we are lucky, though - ours is the ONLY short sale in Bishop that has gone through at all - there are several offers in on others (and there are quite a few houses out there that are listed as short sales) and none of the banks have moved on them. I think it's a combination of our realtors and our situation. Our realtors were also the seller's agents for this house, and they worked their butts off, calling the banks every day to bug them about it, and working with them on the terms, being go-between between the first and second mortgage holders until they had a deal. The house was also offered at a reasonable price and our offer was full price. It was appraised at $5,000 above our offer, which is good for us, but also appealing to banks that it wasn't far off the mark.

Even though it's not our dream house, I'm glad we went with this house, for the most part - we can easily afford the payments, and have a little left over for fixing it up. I like the neighborhood more the more I find out about it, and I love how close it is to great walking and biking trails. I should take up fishing, since I could bike out to a great fishing spot pretty easily!

I do have doubts and misgivings, though, because we did settle. I think settling was the smart move, in our situation and with the economy, but I think about the other place for the same price with the view and open land behind it and get a little wistful. Then I remember how it smelled and what a wreck it was, and the mice and filth, and how we'd need to do so much just to move in, and how it was a foreclosure and by buying it, we'd be "helping" to evict the previous owners, and how, based on how neglected and run-down it felt, there were probably a lot more unpleasant surprises (and expenses) waiting to be uncovered.

Still...

It helps to think of this as our "starter home" which of course, it is. We'll learn all about remodeling and home ownership, and when the time is right, maybe we'll find something closer to our dream and sell or rent this one out. We jokingly refer to it as the start of our Bishop "real estate empire"! The idea of having income property is pretty appealing, for sure!

And, then again, maybe we'll end up loving it, and making into our perfect dream home, and never moving.

You know what? Either way, we win! We live "happily ever after," and isn't that the dream, after all?

Things they don't tell you to do during escrow

As first-time home-buyers, we waited to be told what to do each step of the way, but now that it looks like escrow is not going to close on time, here are some things they didn't tell us that may have made the process go smoother:

• Loan Documents: I had expected them to come through the realtors, since everything else was coming through them, but the mortgage broker mailed them to us and didn't think to ask if we'd received them until after they were due. I was able to get everything back to him the same day, or the next day, after I picked up the package, but we have a UPS Store mail box and don't check it every day, so it had sat there for about a week before he asked about it. I wish he had asked sooner!
• Home Owner's Insurance: I called around, got the best estimate on the phone, then gave the agents name and number to our realtors and/or escrow. I wish I had contacted the insurer directly after that and told him to get started on the policy, but I assumed the escrow people were taking care of that, since I repeatedly asked during the process what else I should be doing and no one said that I should be the one contacting the insurer. I still think that is the way it works normally - that the escrow people contact them, but it happened late and now the insurance may be holding up the process further because there were 2 claims on the house previously that needed to be researched.
• Mortgage Rates: To Lock or Float? We chose to float our interest rate because it seemed like they were going down, but then they went up instead. We ended up losing $1000 on a gamble, basically, because we got the same rate we could have locked in the first day, but we had to pay another 1/2 point to get it. Also, our broker called daily with the rates, but he called at the end of the day. The Lending Tree broker said she would call when they got a notice that the rates were going up or down mid-day as well as at the end of the day. I sort of wish we'd gone with her at this point. One good thing about our loan, though, is that we are able to set up our own account for saving for taxes and insurance instead of having the lender create an impound account. We'll make a little interest on it and be in charge of our own money that way.
• Keys to the Castle: The realtors can't let you have the keys if you want to go over to the house and take measurements or photos or get an estimate - they'll only give the keys to a licensed contractor for those sorts of things, or they'll go out with you. Not a big deal, but there was a mix up with the keys when one contractor sent an assistant to get the keys and they wouldn't let him have them. So, call first to let them know!

I guess we'll use the delay in closing to get a few more (competing) estimates for work:

• Popcorn ceiling removal
• bathroom remodels
• kitchen remodel
• new doors
• new windows

Then we'll make a PLAN. Ideally, the plan will have us get the most for our money, and prioritize which renovations happen first, which can wait, and help us plan the budget to save for the later ones.

Okay, off to make some more phone calls!