happy thanksgiving!

WEAR SUNSCREEN!!!!!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! Please be careful traveling and be sure to take a minute to think about the troops overseas who are defending our freedom to have these special days with our loved ones.

xoxo
E

patience is a ______

someecards always know how to say exactly what I'm thinking

My dad said it perfectly, "first comes love, then comes a lot of waiting". So that's what we're doing, We're waiting. We're STILL waiting on the foundation people. Yesterday (Tuesday) we received this update from our contractor: "He (foundation dude)just called and asked me to meet him at the house in the morning (weds) with the paperwork he needs to get started. Sorry its taking a while, but this guy is the best at structural work and its the most important part." how can you argue with that? On one hand, great I like people that are the best at their jobs but on the other hand, come on, man! We didn't make it over to the house today but are hoping to get over there bright and early tomorrow to check on the progress! Let's hope the basement is being dug out another few feet! *fingers crossed* 

In our construction/blogging downtime RC and I decided to start being proactive and start researching and pricing cabinets/granite/etc.  We previously went to Home Depot where they gave us a 3D design of the kitchen and prices for both granite and cabinets. Then just this last weekend we went to a granite outlet store out "in the county". We found this place from a recommendation of a friend. She re-did her kitchen with this place and it looks amazing! She also did a lot of shopping around as well so it's good to know these guys were on the low end of her options as well. The place is called, "The Granite Outlet"...to the point! We met with a designer but since it was Saturday and a busy day they don't do the designs on the spot, we just had to give her all of our must-haves and she'll come back to us with designs. 

Now here is where it gets tricky, RC and I don't necessarily see eye to eye on most design ideas. We have two different schools of thought on what your kitchen and house should look like. If he had it his way our house would look like this:



how are these chairs even comfortable?!




nothing says inviting like a glass table with sharp edges

  

It's just one water bed and fur rug short of being the stereotypical bachelor pad. If I had it my way our house would look like this:



did you just get goosebumps too?! just me?



don't you want to just take a nap here? maybe a little?

sigh. it's amazing.

Aaaahhhh compromising, what a bitch. You see, RC likes more modern looks. Clean, straight lines, dark colors and shiney. I like rustic-chic, round edges, light colors and the worn look. That translates to cabinet preferences like this: RC likes dark cabinets and I like White-ish cabinets. PROBLEMO.  We currently have dark brown cabinets in our apartment and they're REALLY nice but our apartment is also very open and we have a humongous window and not to mention light floors. In our house it's going to be narrow and we won't have a ton of windows and are hoping for dark floors. Even though I really love the dark cabinet look I am trying to think of them in our future space and how practical it would be.

 I'm being subtle so I'll just say it,  I am campaigning for White-ish cabinets. I don't want stark white, I want antique white and I have a very good case behind it-they look bright, airy, fresh, never goes out of style, iamalwaysright, it's happy, warm, welcoming and we've had dark brown for 2+ years. RC hasn't come up with anything besides- "I like it and you're crazy" as his reasons for wanting dark brown cabinets in the  kitchen. Calling me crazy isn't helping his case AT ALL.

We still haven't decided what color (white) but once we see the designs the designer comes up with (she is coloring up both styles/colors)  I'll show you and we'll lean on you to decide (choose the white if you know whats good for you).

numbers, money and loans. oh my.

Aaaannnd I’m back in the game. Sorry for the lack of posts, I’ve had a busy week and there is NOTHING going on at the house. It still looks like this:

They should start digging out the basement and laying the new foundation this week buuut that’s also what they said last week! Everyone cross your fingers that dig outs starts this week and we get back on track for a March 30^th move in date otherwise we’ll be living on the street and Tucker is too much of a princess for that. Since I don’t have fancy pictures to show you I thought I would explain a little about the construction loan that we’re doing. Feel free to yawn, skim this post or go back to Facebook.

There are a few different types of loans when it comes to buying a house and I would be quoting Wikipedia word for word if I tried to explain them all..or even some of them. What I do know is that there is a “Traditional Mortgage” which is when you have 20% to use as a down payment and a FHA loan you only need 3.5% for the down payment.

Traditional Loan:

House Costs: $100,000

Down Payment: $20,000

FHA:

House Costs: $100,000

Down Payment: $3,500

So as you can see the FHA loan makes it a little more affordable for people to buy a house but on the flip side, it’s usually a little more difficult to qualify for the loan and you have a higher interest rate and need mortgage insurance (more money out of your pocket every month. Woof).

With that in mind, in order to fully rehab a house you either need to have a ton of cash lying around or you need to take out a construction loan.  We opted for the later. We had two choices of loans, an FHA 203k loan or a Carrolton Construction Loan and in my brain these are basically the same things. The general idea is that you can take out a certain amount of money over the cost of the house to make improvements to the house. Here is some easy math for you:

House Costs $100,000

You also need to make $100,000 in improvements, say you want a new kitchen, and you want to get rid of the formstone, add a roof top deck, maybe put hardwoods down, who knows if you’ll have enough time but let’s hypothetically plan on spending all of that money. Your total loan then comes to $200,000. You have to have a contractor submit an outline of the work that’s going to be done so the bank knows that you’re not just asking for the extra money to buy a car or clothes. So you sign your life away about 100x times over and get a mortgage loan for $200,000. Easy, right? So congrats, you’re a homeowner! Let’s get this construction going!

Day 1- you have a loan for $100,000 since you haven’t even started construction yet. Life is good.

Day 4- the formstone guys come and expose that pretty brick. That costs $25,000 (that’s a lie, I’m just making this easy.. roll with it)

Day 5- an inspector comes out and sees the ugly formstone is removed and calls the bank “yo bank lady, release the $25,000 to the homeowners. The formstone is gone. Holla”. …

Day 6- You pay the contactor and you, the homeowner, now have a loan for $125,000.

Day 10- It happens to be the time of the month when the mortgage is due, so you only pay INTEREST on the $125,000. That other $75,000 isn’t really yours yet so you don’t have to pay against it. you win!

Day 15- the hardwoods are put down, which again costs $25,000. The kitchen is remodeled, which oddly enough costs $25,000 and finally you put a SICK roof top deck on your crib and that ALSO costs $25,000.

Day 16- inspector comes out. “yo bank lady, it’s all done. give them the 75k

Day 17: You pay the contractor and now have a full $200,000 loan. At this point some mortgage magic happens and you convert over to a conventional loan/mortgage and you pay both principal and interest and also have a lower interest rate. In my mind I think of it as a second closing but I don’t think that’s the technical term for it but it helps my blonde head work through it. You may need to bring extra money to the table at this point but if your house appraises for a certain amount higher than the loan amount, you don’t! Let’s all hope for a good appraisal when that time comes!

Now, this is the cliff notes version and if Michelle, our mortgage lady, read this she would be shaking her head.  There is a lot more that goes in to it and a little more information that I probably should have given you but I didn’t want to put you to sleep. If you have other questions and are thinking about doing a construction loan let me know. We originally wanted to do the 203K loan but found that the Carrolton Construction Loan had additional benefits that the 203K loan didn’t, like converting to a traditional mortgage after construction was finished which in turn lowers your interest rate.

Don’t worry, I’m not quitting my day job and thinking about becoming a teacher or a mortgage lady but I hope that somewhat made sense!

keep it real.

xoxo
E

pinching my pennies

I’ve never been good at managing money. Even when I was getting paid to manage other people’s money (I was a retirement specialist- helping people with their 401ks), I wasn’t very good at it. I was the definition of a poser. I was 22 years old, getting paid in smiles and pizza, chained to a phone, had scheduled bathroom breaks and often had to put people on hold to ask my cube mate questions. There I was helping people plan for their futures and I couldn’t even get a handle on my present and the thought of taking money out of my own paycheck to plan for my retirement was horrifying. “What do you mean contribute 4% to a 401k that I can’t touch for another 40+ years?!” AS IF. That’s at least 2 drinks at Claddaghs on Friday or Saturday, 4 drinks on a Thursday night. Priorities people! I have another 40+ years to figure out retirement and only about 10 minutes to figure out how to eat AND drink in the same night.

Needless to say, I’ve figured out a few things since then. I learned how to save, mostly by working a second job (it’s easier to save when you have extra money. Mind blowing.), learned how to prioritize my “needs” and save money where I can. I’ve cut back on some things, I only get a professional manicure once a month (IF THAT!) and I paint my nails myself in between, I don’t buy Starbucks every day and keep that as a weekend treat, I only go out once a weekend and stay in the other night when I can, stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong, if I want to go out on Fridays and Saturday, I go out. I just have a hangover for 5 days and cut back somewhere else.

There is something else that I’ve wanted to try, I’m nervous to even say it. AH! I wanted to go to a chop shop to get a haircut instead of going to a salon and getting a “hair design”. I don’t dye my hair (what can I say? I'm blessed with good DNA. Thanks Mom and Dad!) so I don’t need to go every few weeks like most other people. I only go every 6 months and even that feels like a lot. It adds up and it gets expensive! Check it out:

 $60    Hair Cut

 $15   Tip for Stylist

 $5     Tip for washer (why is it always another person!?!)                .  

$80 TOTAL

$80 for a haircut! I literally just get it trimmed and my bangs cut. My goal is to always leave looking like a better but same version of the Erin that went in. I don’t do anything crazy and when I get home RC always says “you didn’t do anything to it”. Which, is exactly the non-reaction I want but it still hurts a little. I spent $80, I want something to look different!

In reality, I’ve really never had a problem with paying $80 for a hair cut before being this grown up home owner that I am. I have no problem spending $80 on a shirt I like and only wear that once a month and I wear my hair every day so it practically pays for itself in a week.  BUT in an effort to be smarter with my money I went here today:

don't judge!

I was nervous, had a knot in my stomach and everything. Like I said, I wear my hair every day so if it was a bad cut I couldn’t just get changed and forget that it ever happened. So I went to Towson Town Center, walked into the Hair Cuttery and waited about 5 minutes for my “stylist”, Sarah, to greet me. She was really sweet but her hair cut was terrible. I felt better knowing that I at least didn’t have the person who cut her hair, unless she cut her own.. then I was SOL. I sat down in her chair, she put the cape around me, starting brushing and took out her scissors. WOAH WOAH WOAH. I felt light headed and must have been extremely pale because she asked if everything was okay. I said, yes (liar) and then I asked if she was going to shampoo my hair, wet it, spray it.. ANYTHING?! Her answer, “No”. Just “no”. crap. But I was already in the chair, the cape was on there was no turning back. When she finally asked what I wanted done I told her I only wanted an inch off, to not touch my bangs and that I didn’t want layers/textures/anything fancy. I think my heart was racing the entire time but Sarah was very nice and very quick. I was done within 10 minutes and it looked fine! They don’t blow dry your hair unless you ask and pay an extra $5 but since mine wasn’t even wet, it was a no brainer. I checked out and paid $15 for the cut and gave Sarah a $5 tip. $20 for a haircut and when I got home RC said “you didn’t do anything to it” which still isn’t true but this time I only paid $20!

I still have to blow dry and straighten my hair but I think it looks great and don’t think anything will be majorly wrong with it.. if anything is wrong with it at all. That money I saved will go to the house fund and I’ll spend it in a few months when we need curtains or something like that. A far cry from that 22 year old poser.

Happy almost Friday everyone! Hope your week has been all kinds of awesome. I’m not gonna lie, I’m both mentally and physically exhausted but RC and I ran over to the house to see what’s been going on and I really wanted to share with everyone! So this post will be laden with tons of pictures and minimal text, just like the books I would choose for book reports in school.

Our contractor had told us that they were going to be completing the demo this week and we wanted to get some "in-progress" pictures. The good thing is that we live less than ½ a mile away from our house so once we got home from work we rushed over to get in before the sun set! Note to self- next time you rip a house apart make sure you do it in the summer when you have more day light.

TAKE A LOOK!

...........

the stairs are gone! I'm standing in the living room to take this picture.

Just a reminder, it looked like this last week!

BANANAS, RIGHT!? Moving on..

all of the electrical and duct work. Some of the bathroom, plus part of the front window!

the ceilings are down too!

bath tub on the first floor and no stairs, ain't no thang.

gatorade. made for athletes and demo teams.

RC looks cool, calm and collected, I was a nervous/anxious nelly on the other side of the camera.

looks like a tub, molding, a drawer. what can you find in this picture?

all of the flooring is gone!

basement

not sure if this is important but it looks expensive to replace. Dad? do we need this? is it a structural thing? a joyce? joist? one of those things?

creepy toilet in the basement!

take note. this is the last time you'll see a toilet on the first floor.

I think this is his approval face

first floor ceiling/2nd floor floor

a view to the 2nd floor- see the barbie room?

That’s all of the pictures I could take. From what we can tell, the top floor and basement look just like the first floor. All of the plaster on the walls still need to come down but it’s a great start! I can’t wait for the plaster to come down and we can see the studs! I love studs.

For some reason, now that the stairs are gone it seems even smaller! Don’t you think? It’s so weird; you would think it would appear bigger. right?! Regardless, it validated our decision to extend the house another 20 feet! We’ll head back sometime this weekend when we have an abundant amount of sun and time to take pictures! Hopefully the plaster will be gone!!!!