All posts by Sarah @ 702 Park Project

Bathroom Trade-Off

March 12, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

As I mentioned yesterday, the master bathroom is a no-go for this first round of renovations. The trade-off is that we can renovate the smaller guest bathroom upstairs so that we have an actual bathroom to use in the meantime. If you need a refresher, here’s what the bathroom look like now:

As you can see, it’s a little bit cramped and not as functional as it could be. We love the tub, and are planning to use that in our master bathroom eventually. But for guests, we really felt like a shower would be much more practical. So here’s our plan…first, we will knock out the “water closet” wall that separates the toilet. Next, we will close up the door to the outside porch. Then, we will insert a porcelain tub into the space where the toilet is currently, and tile in a shower around the tub. We want to move the toilet to the far side of the room, and insert the awesome pedestal sink we found in the middle. Of course we will rip out the hideous vinyl and put down some sort of tile.

I’m thinking we should go with a black and white, clean, simple look for this bathroom. It isn’t very big, so we don’t want a whole lot of “fluff.” I love this inexpensive tile that we found at Home Depot:

And here are a few examples of my bathroom inspiration. I’d like to pull a little bit from each of them:

I love this tub and subway tile

Pedestal sink with cute medicine cabinet

I love the black border mixed in with the polka dot tile, and the sconces

Such a cute hexagonal floor pattern

All inspiration photos from Pinterest.

The Bidding War

March 11, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

As promised, we got our bids from our contractors over the weekend. And it wasn’t as bad as we thought…it was worse!! :( We knew that it was going to be an expensive reno, but we never guessed it would cost us so much just to get into the house, much less make it look pretty. To say the least, Charles and I were pretty bummed. I even had to cancel my chicken and waffles date with the girls because I was in such a horrible mood. (Did I mention NC State lost too? NOT a good day!) After a lot of discussion, Charles and I decided to step away from it for a bit and come back to it on Sunday.

Sunday rolled around, and we felt much calmer and rational about the whole thing. I created a spreadsheet (yes, I’m a nerd that loves spreadsheets and checklists) to compare the two bids. Each bid in and of itself was a little depressing. But we organized our list into the “musts” and the “wants,” then compared the two. It turns out that if we combine parts of each bid, it leaves us in a much better financial situation. I have come to terms with the fact that I’m not going to get my dream master bathroom this go-round, but that just means I get to use that entire room as my closet for a while!! Could be worse, right? This girl loves a big closet!

Basically, we are going to have one contractor do the woodwork around the house (including stabilizing the porches, reconstructing the eaves, and replacing the gutter system) and plaster work in the interior, and another do the exterior painting and HVAC work. There’s a lot more to it than that, but that’s the jist. When we combined what we want to do, we settled on a plan that leaves us about $10,000 under budget, which will give us a comfortable contingency fund.

So what’s the next step? We are setting up an appraisal for hopefully sometime this week. The appraiser will take our bid and go through the house, appraising it as if every item on the list was done….the floors, the walls, the bathrooms, the kitchen, the entire exterior, etc. That will give us the figure that we can borrow against. Just keep your fingers crossed that it’s enough!

Today Is The Day!

March 8, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

It’s Friday, and you know what that means…we will get our official bid in this afternoon!! I’m so nervous, which I realize is a little silly. We already know what some things are going to cost, and we already know we definitely won’t be able to do everything on the list, but I’m anxious to see just how bad the numbers are going to hurt. But I’m SUPER excited too! After we get our bid in from the contractor, we will be one step closer to owning our Barbie dream house. (Don’t tell Charles I called it that!)

As I get ready for the next step of the process, I can’t help but think back on all that I’ve learned so far. Let’s recap…Charles and I first found out that the house was on the market around September of last year. At that point, Charles had just started his final year of law school, I had just finished my first full year of work, we had only been married 2 months, and we had no idea where we wanted to go or what we wanted to do at the end of school. We put the house in the back of our minds until we were home for Thanksgiving. We decided “spur of the moment” that we wanted to check out the house. So we called the realtor, who happens to be a family friend, and she took us over there. I immediately loved it. It was incredibly intimidating because of all of the work, but I could instantly see the amazing potential. I could see Charles and I making a happy life there. I could see us raising our kids there. I could see us living there until we had to move our bedroom downstairs because we couldn’t climb the stairs anymore. I could see our “forever home.”

But again, we were stuck. We still felt that it was too soon and we didn’t even know if we wanted to move back there. We decided to mull it over for a while. But then, completely unexpectedly, someone came along and put an offer in on the house in early December…the bank accepted immediately. I remember when I got the call. I was in Charlotte for work and Charles called me at about 8 am. It definitely ruined my day. I think it took “losing” the house for Charles and I to realize how much it meant to us and how much we wanted it. Well the people who offered must not have been as crazy (er, adventurous?) as we are because they walked away after only 2 days. In the end, this was the best thing that could have happened. We realized how much we wanted the house, we had more time to think about it, and the failed offer forced the bank to lower the price! Funny how those things seem to just work out, huh?

So we put an offer in on the house in late January and, after a week of countering, our offer was accepted. Since then, we’ve learned more than could ever be put into words. We have learned how the “purchase and restore” loan works. We’ve learned how contractors work (and sometimes don’t work). We’ve learned the realtor game. We’ve learned about tax credits and historic preservation. Most of all, we’ve learned patience. For those of you who know me, you know this isn’t my strong suit. But I’m becoming more and more patient. This is a slowwwww process and I’m learning to roll with the punches. It only took me 25 years and a falling-apart house to get here! Now I’m the one telling Charles, my always-patient, always-calm rock, that we need to wait and see. “We don’t need to rush the contractor decision….Let’s just wait till Friday…We don’t have to get this appliance now.” I’m learning that being patient gives me time to process it all. And this is A LOT to process! I’m avoiding rash decisions and making the best decisions for our home and our life. It’s quite liberating! Why didn’t I come to this realization earlier?? ;)

Keep your fingers crossed that the bid we get this afternoon isn’t TOO painful! I’m sure I’ll be letting you know…

Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to set your clocks forward tomorrow! Time to SPRING FORWARD! Spring…the perfect season for construction, right? :)

The “Before” Shots

March 4, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

Happy Monday, everyone! Charles and I made the trek again to meet with yet another contractor on Saturday. The meeting went really well and we were very impressed with the knowledge, experience, and honesty that this contractor possessed. Now let’s just hope his bid doesn’t break the bank!! We are hoping to have 2 bids in by Friday so that we can choose a contractor and move forward then. Keep your fingers crossed!

Thanks to my dad and his really nice camera, we now have a ton of “before” shots for the house. It’s a little scary to look through them now, but I can’t wait to compare them to the “after” shots! You can check them out here.

TGIF!

March 1, 2013Categories: UncategorizedSarah @ 702 Park Project

I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems like this week has dragged on and on! I am SO happy it is Friday!! I haven’t longed for Friday at 5:30 this bad in quite a while.

We’ve hit a few bumps in the road lately…some have been resolved and some are still looming. First, we had two contractors that we were talking with back out last Wednesday when we were supposed to have bids from then on Friday! Imagine my fury (I’m quite the red head). Luckily, we were able to meet with another contractor on Sunday that we absolutely loved and has done this type of project many times over. Second, we learned last week that it would take the bank 60 days, not the 30 that we originally thought, to close on the loan once we submitted our general contractor bids (which would now of course be coming in later). And our original contract stated that we would owe $100 per business day after March 27 that it took the loan. After some back and forth, and a very panicked day on Friday, we finally got the bank that owns the house to extend our closing date to May 10. So that takes some pressure off. Yesterday, we were informed that we actually are approved for a much higher loan amount than we were originally told, so at the last minute we have made the decision to add a few things to our first round of renovations. This is a good thing as far as the house, but it definitely puts us in even more of a time crunch than we were in before! I feel like my blood pressure has been elevated constantly for the past 10 days! I will be so glad when this bank business is over and we can start working.

Whew, ok! Sorry for my rant…I’m good now.

Since it’s Friday and I need some comedic relief, I figured the rest of yall could probably use some too. Enjoy, and have a fantastic weekend!

(^the cow in this picture just made me laugh for about an hour!)

Do It Yo’self

February 26, 2013Categories: RenoSarah @ 702 Park Project

As I mentioned before, Charles and I created a complete list of work we want done on the house, broken out into phases. Now we are trying to decide where we can cut costs and do things ourselves. In an ideal world, we would already be living close to the house and could be much more hands on. But that’s life, right? So we are working on putting together some weekend projects and other things that we can do ourselves. Here are a few things we have come up with.

1. Paint. Don’t worry; we aren’t crazy enough to try to do the exterior ourselves…although I do peel a little more paint off the house each time I’m there. Hey, every little bit helps! But we could definitely paint some of the inside. We know the painters will fix any plaster that needs fixing and coat the walls and trim with primer, so we would just have to do the paint. I think we can handle that! And who knows, maybe a few of our lucky friends and family will be recruited to help. I promise free pizza and beer. :)

2. Shutters. A lot of the exterior shutters are looking pretty rough, but several of them can be saved. Some just need a little wood glue and a good cleaning, and all need some paint. I see a massive sheet in the yard with tons of shutters and a paint spray-gun. And voila! Good-as-new shutters.

3. Demolition. Y’all know I can’t wait to rip out that green tub! And the entire upstairs bathroom. And the carpet. And the vinyl flooring. You see where I’m going with this…

4. Refinish the pedestal tub. We’d like to use the antique pedestal tub that’s currently in the guest bathroom upstairs. It’s in pretty good condition, just needs a good cleaning, a few rust stains rubbed out, and a little paint.

5. Furniture and fixtures. Once it comes time to decorate, I will DEFINITELY be doing some DIY-ing! Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to share it all with you.

Unfortunately, it’s not a time issue keeping us from being more hands-on with this project. It’s a distance issue. But that’s ok, because soon it will be time to move in and decorate!! And I really can’t wait for that part! Stay tuned…