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House Journal – Plumbing Fun
Buying a house that is well into middle age is always a challenge. Appliances are old, electrics are often ancient, and not up to current code, and of course there is plumbing from the dark ages. Not that in the mid 1960’s was bad for plumbing, but back then a lot of sketchy piping was…
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House Painting – DONE
For the first time EVER, we have had the time (and enough, barely, money) to spruce up a house before we move in. We have a long list of things to accomplish, first and foremost was the interior painting. Our Real Estate agent recommended a painter and a color consultant that he had used often.…
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House – Painting part 2 the Woo-merchant
The painters are half done. The popcorn is off the ceiling, the walls have been repaired and textured, and the real work will begin on Monday. Today, we had the Color Expert in to advise us. I wasn’t sure what a color consultant did, and how it would be better than looking on Sherwin Williams…
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House – Interior Painting
While the outside of the house has pretty decent paint, the inside was a bit, uh, hideous. Nothing too awful, but it clearly hadn’t been painted in a long time. The bedrooms had some odd paint colors on some walls, and one was obviously a child’s room with some odd trim. Add to that the…
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The Kitchen
Before moving into our new house, we are having a lot of work done. While the “bones” of the house are in good condition, it is clear that some of the extremities were in need of some massive overhaul. The Kitchen Appliances are one of the worst offenders. As a former professional chef, I am…
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House Hunting Journal – Mortgage Companies Suck
I wrote this a couple weeks ago, before we closed so I wouldn’t jinx the process. The process of mortgage underwriting is completely f*cked up at this point. This post is some of the zaniness I had to endure. The last house I bought, in Chandler Arizona was a breeze. We bought it in 2012…
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House Hunting Journal – looking forward to moving
We have found a home we liked, placed an offer, and to our surprise, won the bidding. Woot. Now closing day is 10 days away, and it is time to reflect on how nice it will be to have a house again. Some of the downsides to apartment living will be lifted. Having a pantry…
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I am not cut out to be a landlord
Our house in Tucson, which we rented for 2 years before we desperately needed the cash to buy a house in San Jose, is under contract. The “buyers” are doing their due diligence and part of that is a home inspection. We got the results of the inspection. Holy fucking shit Batman, our tenants over…
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House Hunting Journal – hidden meaning in real estate listings
Any serious time spent looking for homes for sale in the Bay Area, and you begin to learn some key codewords. You begin to think like Alan Turing deciphering the Enigma. In the way back time, when I was first hunting, in the pre-internet era, the code words were clumsy. For example, “A Mountain View”…