So, since the bed fiasco, I have expended very little in the blood/sweat/tears department of home decor.  For the few problems I’ve had (knock on drywall) it’s been appropriate for my home-repair-illerate self to hire a plumber or carpenter (sink leak and effed-up sliding glass doors).

When I decided I wanted to mount some shelves on the wall of my bedroom, I turned sheepishly back to Ikea.  I bought “floating shelves” before finding that there are no studs in at least one of my bedroom walls.  Home Depot tells me this is impossible, so my place was clearly built with witchcraft.  Regardless, the shelves were by no means staying in the wall on their own.

I went to Home Depot and picked up some attractive brackets, and 4 boxes of a very foreign object — the deadly Hollow Wall Mount.  These are screws, surrounded by metal, that you hammer into the wall, then remove the screw, then screw the screw back in — at least so I think.  I’m not sure if I used them right at all, but the shelves seem to be in now.

It took me forever to do the first shelf, and I realize the shelf is not flush with the bracket, so fuck you in advance if you’re about to critizcize me.  I AM DOING.  THE BEST.  I CAN. 

Having gotten one shelf up (2 hours labor, between figuring out how to use the hollow wall mounts, figuring out how to change the drill bit, and figuring out how to balance the shelf on my head while I measured for the screw placement and aligned the brackets, I was feeling cocky and moved on to the second shelf.

Now, there was already a crack in the wall, but of course it busted wide open, paint chips falling right off, as I hammered in the wall mount.  In an almost funny (but really not) display, the wall mount actually popped back out at me every time I pushed it into the wall.  It was like there was a little gremlin in there, popping it back out forcefully. 

Turns out there is some kind of plastic inside the wall.  Feels like a raft, or an inflatable mattress.  I guess it’s some sort of insulation, or a dead body, but either way, it’s less than 3 inches into the wall, and it’s bouyant, so it made my screw pop out.

Also, note that hole in the right of the picture above?  It’s way bigger than my finger.  As I hammered into the wall, it just basically exploded, creating this hole.  That was when I took the opportunity to finger it, and found the raft.  Fucker.  All, poppin’ out my wall mounts and shit.

Fangerin’ holes:

Fortunately, I was able to conceal the hole with the bracket, and also fortunately, the inflatable raft in the wall did not exist down where the bottom screw of the bracket goes, so the bracket is held by the bottom of those brackets and the ones screwed into the shelf itself.

Voila!

Just kidding; they’re not that crooked. 

I also brought in another little bookshelf my mom found for me (the black).  It provides much-needed storage and I think it actually makes the room look bigger by elongating the horizontal line.

Anyway, here’s what the update looks like.  I’m happy, and can honestly think of fewer times that I’ve felt more proud as when I stepped back, after about 4 hours of effort, and saw my mounted shelves.  Pathetic to some, perhaps, but an achievement for me!

On Sunday, I bought a bed from Ikea.  In packaged form, it consisted of two large, very heavy boxes, a bunch of metal hardware, and these completely retarded directions:

Please note that the upper left hand illustration in these directions “clearly” indicates that assembly of this bed is not a one man job.  But, after helping me heave the boxes into her van and into my house, dearest mother mine had to leave, and I was not deterred by “Sad Lone Builder” in Fig. 1.

I unpacked the boxes:

And arranged everything just so:

And things were moving along quite nicely, though my talking to myself was gratuitous:

Then, when attaching the metal rods pictured below, the directions indicated 4 different positions for rod to go in.  Because I like high beds, I chose the top hole and screwed the rod in manually.  The last screw didn’t want to go in all the way, however, and even though I know you shouldn’t force these things, Laurie left a power drill at my house and I was too tempted not to use it.

This was a mistake.

I got the screw in, but I totally stripped it:

Only to find that the “optional” positioning hole is just a farce.  The rest of the directions, and the rest of the hardware this bed comes with ONLY WORKS if you have the rod on the lowest hole.  So I had to take the rods off both sides, BUT I’d stripped the screw.

This was frustrating.  Things had been going so well!  I tried and tried to get the screw out.  I even tried my teeth.  Tears ensued.

Fortunately (cue the triumphant horn section) my new neighbors Larry and Jessie Kwong came to my rescue the following night.  Larry got the screw out in no time with a pair of vice grips Michael let us borrow.  I gave them dinner in return, which was another favor of theirs to me because I’d been hoping for some dinner guests.  

King and Queen Kwong: 

And just an hour ago, my incredibly amazing Sears-o-Pedic (firm with organic cotton pillowtop) hath been delivered unto me.  Just TELL me I don’t know what’s up when it comes to the comforts of sleep.

Oh you know how I do:

BAM!

I cannot wait to get in bed tonight!  FINALLY!!!!!

So, I had a great time at my housewarming/bday party, but sadly I wasn’t in a photo mood (I couldn’t even keep track of my drink, nevermind my camera) so I can’t post pics of that fun.  I do have some pics from those who stopped by during the day, and have photograpphed some furnished rooms.  Here goes.

Mom and Kathy:

Jay, Laurie, Cath, and Sue:

Leah, Sandra, and Tim:

Jay Jay in my beloved office:

The walls of my office are definitely green, but choose to look pretty much white in these pictures.  Anyway, these are a few of my favorite things:

This paint in the kitchen rocks my face off:

Love love love:

 I’m looking for a taller/bigger table to go under this mirror… preferably semi-circular, or with a side I can drop by the wall:

I’m also looking to stop sleeping in the livingroom by this weekend if possible:

And constantly looking forward to sleep as of late:

So, things are coming together quite nicely.  I’ve finished painting, the carpets were cleaned this morning, a new terrace fence was put up and painted, so I figured I should provide some new pics.

“Swimming” on the big blue tarp, painting day one:

Leah thought I could be serious when photographed, but this is untrue.  Getting started with the first wall in the living room:

More livingroom.  My posture clearly says, “I’m tired mang”:

Livingroom painted with clean carpets:

Dining room all painted and clean:

Pretty green bedroom, and the window where I’m going to make a window seat.. always wanted one of those:

My green bedroom:

Office:

I love how this color looks in the kitchen.  The kitchen became the major brain of the operation, here it is overrun with stuff.  Note the heineken bottle acting as a vase for the flowers Nicole brought me:

Bathroom:

Bathroom, not too shabby on the trim, eh?  I’m good:

New painted fence says “welcome”:

I was going for “chillax” — do you see “chillax”?:

Hey, take a load off, recline:

But keep your sense of humor about it.  This guy deserves a close-up:

So, in a last minute turn of events, I decided to go with Radius Financial.  In doing so, I locked in at the same rate, but will pay fewer points (paid upfront at the closing) for that rate. 

An annoying hassle has transpired as a result of getting involved with Bank of America in the first place.  Large beast of a corporation that it is, it takes 2 different departments to release my case number with the federal housing administration… the first has a turnaround time of 48 hours and the second 72, and considering we’re supposed to close in 3 business days, this is somewhat disheartening.

Of course, when we close is not as important to me as it would be to some.  Though I’ll pay about $22 a day (in my case, based on the loan amount) this is actually the interest-only portion of your mortgage payment.  So, you’d be paying this amount added to the principal in your regular mortgage payment if you had closed and were actually living there.  Since I don’t have to be out of my current place, it’s basically heads or tails to me. 

But I so want to have my housewarming/birthday party on my actual bday, since it just so happens to fall on a Saturday (Oct 11).  It’ll be a mad dash to get at least some of the painting done before the housewarming, and move what little furniture I have in, just so the place will look nice when I have people over.  Must steam clean carpets, Oxiclean the wood on the terrace, and buy some lamps.

Even if I don’t have the housewarming on the 11th, it’s going to be fantastic to be able to go over there/be in there on my 25th birthday this year.  I can still have a bday dinner party, even if I don’t have a table or any chairs, right?  You certainly don’t need colorful walls to eat pizza.

<3 Happy Girl

Today is a Tom Waits day.  I feel agitated. 

Bank of America approved me for the loan, which should make me happy, but the person I’m working with there fails to call me back to schedule an appointment.

Additionally, this guy at Radius Financial is doing cartwheels with flaming batons in his teeth trying to get my business.  He says he can save me 3K up front, which is basically the difference between my having some furniture or no furniture at all.  However, the application fee to even see if he can secure financing is $1,111.  This shit is fucking expensive.

I drew and photographed the tattoo drawing I came up with last night.  Forgot digital camera, will upload tomorrow.  Open wrought iron gate with climbing roses on it, and a hovering bright heart with a key in it.  Plan to send it to Mike Lussier at Art Freek to much-better-ify it, but not yet, cuz it’s fairly large and now is definitely not the time to pay for it.

Got good news yesterday — Laura’s most likely going to be in Boston for my housewarming party!  She and I have painted eachother’s bedrooms throughout the years.  Even though Laura lives in LA now, her presence still makes any place feel like home.  ”Real talk.”  =)

Just one “point” of knowledge today, on the subject of “points”:

• You’ll get a certain interest rate on your loan based on your credit score, everyone knows this… but what I just learned is you can actually pay down the interest rate by giving money up front in exchange for “points”.  This is my current problem with the B of A loan — the 5.5% insterest rate they’ve offered me is based on my paying 2 points (or $3,000).  This is why Radius claims they can save me $3,000 — because they’re offering me a loan at 5.5% with zero points paid.

Today I have a bit of advice to anyone going through the real estate purchase process.  People told me that finding people (buyer’s agents, a lawyer, a loan officer) that were readily available and able to answer your questions was of supreme importance.  Going on referrals (another way to prescreen), I found people in each of those categories, and when they were on their cell and always available and helpful to me, I decided to give them my business loyalty.

My warning is that, if you’re smart, there should be no loyalty in business unless you’ve signed a contract.  To be more to the point, if you get preapproved from a bank, go ahead and get preapproved by 3 more, find someone good to work with at each of them, and inform all of them of your purchase decision if and when you make one.

I did get preapproval from 3 banks, and when they were all for the same amount, I decided to continue to work with the individual agent that had been most helpful.  I contacted only him when I decided to put in an offer (in order to get a revised preapproval letter to give to the seller with my offer… this is so they don’t see your max amount, but only approval for you to get financing for the price of their sale).  I went along with Citizen’s Bank all the way until the mortgage paperwork (application, estimates) were mailed to my house.

On Tuesday, I walked in from work to find a large manilla envelope containing these documents.  I sat down to review them only to find they were figuratively in Chinese.  I hunkered down, intent on getting through them, and lo and behold, when reviewing the numbers I found an error.  The loan officer had either believed you could add rental income to the buyer’s gross income on a single family (dead wrong) or just randomly decided that I should be paid $850 more a month than I actually make.

I called him, and yes, he was accessible at 7pm — answered his cell — but when someone’s always accessible TO APOLOGIZE for making egregious errors that change all of your numbers, you don’t necessarily even want to be able to talk to them.  In the end Citizen’s denied me the loan… and I had been “banking” on them………  I love cheap jokes. 

With 48 hours before the scheduled signing of the purchase and sale agreement, I had to try to find financing with another lender, and let me not keep you in suspense, I DID.  I’m working with someone at Bank of America, and I have another agent at a well known lending institution in my pocket just incase B of A drops the ball.

Another thing to know is that by the signing of the purchase and sale agreement, you must have a very reasonable belief that you will obtain the financing you need with a specific lender.  However, your commitment date is later, so even if you believe you’ll get financing at the time of the purchase and sale, if you withdraw before the commitment date you won’t lose your deposit.

So today is September 12, 2008 and I am going to get a bank check for the total of my down payment (that alone is scary) and then I’m driving it (seatbelted) to my buyer’s agent’s office in Weymouth where I will sign the purchase and sale agreement.  Steps that come after that are as follows:

• The bank waits for a reply from the underwriter, who may have further questions on the application, or who may immediately approve the application.
• The bank sends out an appraiser to the property to confirm that it’s worth at least what you’re paying for it.
• If your financing is a go, you attend the closing as scheduled (in the time frame decided upon at the offer (by you and your agent, and agreed to by the seller and seller’s agent)
• The closing is a conference room type deal, with the seller, buyer, seller’s agent, buyer’s agent — though if the seller (as in my case) is out of state, they can give their agent Power of Attorney, meaning the agent can sign their own signature in place of the seller’s signature)
• The closing is when you officially sign a hundred thousand documents and leave the meeting with the keys to your new place!!!!!

I’m working on sketching a tattoo as this is a very momentous happening.  An open gate and a heart with a key inside it… but believe you me, I will not be getting inked any time before I have the keys physically in hand.  Speedbumps are part of the process!!!!!

Love,

Your very happy friend

So, I have neglected to post about the house hunt lately for the very best of reasons… I finally found it!!!  After family friend Evie the real estate agent showed me the itsy-bitsy townhouse below, she told me there may be a unit in my price range in the desireable Arbor Hill condo community, also in Weymouth. 

I saw unit T5, a 1300 sq ft 2bdrm 2ba +den, open living and dining room, laundry room in unit, and lovely private terrace, last Saturday, August 30th, and I put in an offer this past Monday, August 1st around noontime.  At 8pm that night, I heard that my offer had been accepted.  The seller even agreed to refund $5,000 of the purchase price to me at the closing, to pay for closing costs, per my request.

With the offer accepted, and the home inspection having gone smoothly today, here’s what’s left in the process:

• Review of the condo docs (rules and regulations set by the condo association that all unit owners must comply with).  I have these in hand and will review this weekend.
• Review of the condo association’s financial statements.  I will receive these early next week and send them directly to the lawyer I’ve hired, Ms. Nicole Cox.
• Nicole will complete review of the purchase and sale agreement, add any potential contingencies or corrections, and the purchase and sale agreement will be signed by myself and the seller.
• I’ll give a 3% deposit to the seller at the signing of the purchase and sale to be held in escrow (which means held but not cashed –given back to either me or the bank at closing, depending on the loan I go for)
• The bank sends out the full loan application for underwriting (approval and drawing up of exact loan terms) based on all my financial records (which they already have in hand).
• Once the bank gets back to us (and they’re aiming for Sept 30) we’ll have the closing, which is when I’ll officially sign my life away and get the keys!  Both brokers (real estate agents) and my lawyer (since the seller doesn’t have a lawyer, heh heh heh) will be present at the closing.

Pictures!  I have new found appreciation for people who have to photograph properties.  It’s incredibly hard to find a decent angle to photograph a room with a regular camera.  I should have used the landscape feature on my digital, but I didn’t think of it until it was too late.

Click for larger views.

Living room, sliding doors to terrace

A sub-par picture of the dining area/front hall closet/door to master

Master bedroomMaster bedroom

Master bedroom

Master bath

Master bath

Laundry room!

Kitchen

Kitchen

My office

My bedroom

  That funky silver stuff in the closet is insulation — I’ll need to put in some cedar paneling, not too hard.

Guest bathroom

Guest bathroom

Private terraceTotally fenced in

 

Yay!

I’m a very happy girl.  The master suite will be rented for $800-$900+utils.  Please let me know if you’re interested.  Will continue to post about the rest of the process… and furniture and design!  I’m becoming a feng-shui master, with all the reading I’ve been doing.

I figure I owe an update on the Proctor sisters.  Miss 17 Proctor actually got me to ask for a second date (showing).  It has definite potential, but needs a few major jobs.  The majorest is moving the bathroom out of the kitchen, and then repairing what’s left behind in the kitchen.  The second majorest would be to bust through the wall that separates the two tiny rooms they call bedrooms.  (None of the “3″ bedrooms in this house is anywhere near normal size, which I’d guess is the primary reason this house hasn’t sold.) 

There are other smaller, but not entirely small must-dos, including the professional “trimming” of an extremely tall, extremely overgrown oak that’s leaning on power lines and close to the house.  That’s actually not a very cheap job.  Additionally, the front steps absolutely have to be redone — that one I could probably do if I put my mind to it.

So to get into that house, I’d have to get a rehab loan, which typically only funds you for a percentage (example 90%) of the new total, meaning you have to have the rest in cash at the outset of the project (in the form of a down payment).  It comes out to about 18K, which would be very funny if it wasn’t so sad.

So, our 3rd date is on Sunday at 11am.  You may have just guessed that she was off the list, but there is a very remote chance that my grandparents may see the potential here and wish to get in on the investment.  After all, the location is excellent and the house would be worth twice as much if it had a normal layout.  If I was thinking really long term, the house should have a second floor, but I may not be the gal for such an endeavor any time too soon.

So tonight I’m seeing a townhouse-style condo in Weymouth.  I’ve actually seen another unit in this complex, but the one I’m seeing today is an end unit, making it ever so slightly larger than the other one, as well as quieter, and with a fireplace.  Guess what the square footage is on this one, and assume that it’s bad…

600 sq ft.

Yeah, stop laughing, it’s not easy being green.

If you recall from a previous lesson on real estate terms, this one would be “cute”, meaning nice but small.  I’ll give you a walk through.

Here she is from the outside… in winter:

This is what you’d see if a ghost had just opened the front door while you were standing just about in the kitchen, or on the other end of the room pictured here.

This is the right side of the kitchen.  The refrigerator would go on the other side of the stove there.  Notice the stove is electric and there’s no dishwasher, yech.  But yes, that there is a little bit of granite counter.

Here’s the fireplace, in the main room which must serve as living and dining.  Right now, I think the brick and brass are very ugly, but with a little money, wood, and marbe tile, this could be a nice focal point.  Hope it works!

This is the second floor.  You’d see this from right in front of the bathroom.  To the left is the linen closet and in front of you is one of the two bedrooms.

The other bedroom, or inside the one we just peered in.  They’re about the same size.

Bedroom or office for me.

Mama like hardwoods and fireplace, and fortuantely yellow walls as well.  The fireplace could be rehabbed, and the kitchen is small and needs some careful strategizing to add a dishwasher and some built in seating.

So I’ll see that tonight at 7.  It’s listed at 120K, and Christina gave me the inside scoop that this was bought for 102K by a contractor who put in the shiny amenities, and they tried to resell it for 137K, but it didn’t.  This is certainly not the boom, but years ago this townhouse sold for around 160K, so the thought with buying this would be to make improvements to the kitchen, bath, and fireplace, and then wait for a good time to sell.

In totally unrelated news (well, related to the Subject, which I have plagiarized) you should listen to Jake La Botz.