Month: June 2018

Internet, Laundromats, and the Electric Company

I’m at the laundromat, someplace I haven’t been in years! Mike is off getting coffee and breakfast with the kids. Tons of people have offered to let us come use their washer and dryer, but I’ll be honest with two little kids we have a TON of laundry and it’s nice to use the super enormous and fast washers and do 6 loads at once. Plus, I’m here alone and that’s always nice.

Last weekend we took a little break from trailer living and headed up to Mike’s parents lake house. It was nice to have some space and do some laundry there. Plus, I didn’t have to pack much since I took all the laundry.

Late last week and this week, they’ve only worked on the house a couple of days, but it’s coming along. Below are some pictures. You probably aren’t sure what you are looking at, but all that matters is that it’s progress. And I have no idea why we have a dumpster if it’s apparently too far away to bother putting anything in it.

The delay has really been caused by what is pictured below. Most of you don’t know what you are even looking at, but that’s a temporary power pedestal without power. Somehow the work orders to get it power and get the meter pulled from the house so they can finish demo and dig haven’t been linked together and it’s led to some inefficiency that is holding up the project. Good news is that late Friday afternoon they finally pulled the meter, so a hole should appear in the yard on Tuesday.

Our internet company came out and moved our router so we have wi-fi. The solution involved duct tape and running the line through a hole that the previous owners left in the detached garage. It’s the perfect solution for anyone living in a trailer. The problem is that the garage is metal, so you have to open the garage door to get internet.

Some people have asked me about our animals. The cats are all living in the tack room and they sit at the house door trying to get it sometimes. They are starving for attention, but we try to pet them in the evenings when we’re outside. Lola desperately wants in the trailer and Darwin doesn’t understand why they can’t come in. They are doing as well as can be expected.

Luna spends her nights outside just the way she likes it and then we kennel her in the barn so she doesn’t bark at the workers all day. We put her in the backyard still because she seems to stay away from all the piles of tile and boards for the most part.

The electrician is coming out today to finally run the proper power for the trailer. Mike and I think this will be a game changer for us because we can finally run the fridge, water heater and microwave without turning the AC off first. We will also finally have a place to plug in a fridge that won’t be occasionally losing power which means we can grocery shop again. I am so sick of fast food and take out!

 

When The Walls Came Down

We don’t have wifi right now so I have to post from my phone which for some reason results in tiny and sometimes sideways pictures. I’ll fix them when I’m near a real computer.

Thursday the walls started coming down. I thought when they started it might be a little sad for me. Even though we are staying here, this house feels like the house we started our family in and now we are leaving it, but I was surprisingly indifferent to see it when I got home. Mike is excited, of course, because he is a much better person than I am and far more optimistic. I don’t think my excitement will kick in until they can prove to me that they can take an entire wall of the house out without collapsing the rest of the house. Each time I ask how they are going to do it, I get a “that’s the million dollar question” or “we’re still figuring that one out.”

In other news, I just got off the phone with the most delightful man regarding waste pumping the RV. My life’s to-do list has gotten pretty weird lately.

The Kids Don’t Care

The first lesson I’ve learned from this adventure is that the kids don’t care that we live in a trailer. It turns out they really like their family and it doesn’t matter where we live. Darwin tried to talk me out of taking him to school today because he needed to stay home in his trailer. Trixie’s hobby of finding things she shouldn’t be playing with also does not require a specific venue- she is just happy all. the. time.

Yesterday morning we went through the house and marked up all the walls to show which stay, which get removed, and what happens to all the doors and fixtures that are left. Since then, nothing has happened as far as demolition or excavation. There has been a lot of coordination happening around moving and disconnecting utilities.

I’m a little terrified for when we can start to SEE the progress. I feel like some day this week I am going to come home and the house will literally be half gone. Hopefully it’s the right half that is gone.

First Trailer Night

We all slept in the trailer and the kids did amazingly well! Trixie was up her usual two times and even fell back asleep after the sun was up. Darwin slept until a little after 7 and didn’t wake up at all. He seems to really like his room. I got a call at 2am that my mom was in the hospital (she is doing better now, but will be there for a few days) and I really must be exhausted because I still managed to get some sleep. Mike seemed to also be in the absolutely exhausted camp.

Today is the final day we could be in the house so now everything is moved out. Our detached garage and house garage are packed to the brim! It just became chaotic at the end and stuff is everywhere, but we are out and that is all that matters.

Turns out the easiest way to get a bigger house is to just move out all your stuff. Our house feels huge when empty!

The excavators and demolition crews are supposed to be here tomorrow. One of two things will happen. They won’t do anything tomorrow and we could have stayed in the house longer. Or I will come home to a house that is missing all sorts of walls (and hopefully a TON of mismatched tile).

I really can’t believe we are going through with this. My inner control freak (that finds math errors at closings) is having a hard time, but Mike just keeps telling me this will all be worth it.

So It Begins

We closed on Friday. I’m writing this on my phone so sorry about the lack of details and real sentences.

I found a math error at closing so it took more than 2 hours to close. I really should have take my TI-83  calculator not just my iPhone.

My mom asked if the neighbors knew work was starting. I’m guessing they do now that there is a dumpster in my yard. This is the view from my (old) living room.

Today we busted ass finishing up the packing and moving out. We’re also taking out the current kitchen because we want to keep the cabinets for the basement. Darwin wanted to know why the water wasn’t working- he suggested Mike try changing the batteries. That’s the toddler solution to everything!  Krystal saved the day by taking the kids for a few hours.

We moved into the trailer and had our first picnic dinner outside under the awning. The stair rail isn’t done, but having real stairs instead of RV stairs is so nice.

We are staying in the trailer tonight even though we don’t have to be out of the house until 8am Monday because if something goes horribly wrong I’d rather it not be on a work night. We only have some A/C, we can’t run it all the time because of the way it’s all set-up right now with the wiring. Wish us luck!

Grab Another (Cold) Beer

I meant to post this days ago, but it seems like the days are getting away from me. This process has been really involved every emotion you can think of and unfortunately this week there was a lot of sadness, angst, stress and anger.

I won’t go into all the details, but we decided to put one of our feral cats down after he started becoming increasingly aggressive. It’s something that has been a problem for a while now and all the activity and strangers in and out of our house were causing a real problem for him. It was a very hard decision because he was a good cat when no one else was around and it makes me feel guilty and selfish that our decision to do this project contributed to his behavior.

Mike buried him near the barn and I had a little talk with him that night when I got home from work (Read: I bawled my eyes out while no one else was there to watch). I then spent the rest of my night burning off my sadness and anxious energy by hauling boxes into the garage. I went to get myself a beer and the fridge as a reward, but it wasn’t cold. The fridge was busted. At 10pm I was off to the Maverick to buy ice so we can save our food. Fortunately, it was pretty slimmed down because we are expecting to be without power for a (hopefully short) period of time next week between when they turn off utilities to dig and when they get temporary utilities in place. We replaced the motherboard in the fridge about a year ago– lesson here is that I am never buying LG appliances again. A dryer, fridge and crappy dishwasher later.

We were hoping to have this fridge in the garage so we weren’t stuck with a tiny trailer fridge the whole time, but we’ll have to figure out something else. I literally cannot spend brain energy on this right now if I am going to keep functioning and get us moved out of the house on time.

This all happened on Wednesday. I had no idea that Thursday would get worse. We were back and forth with the loan company about the construction loan and the insurance that was needed and who talked to who and blah blah blah. We NEED to close by the end of the week because heavy machinery will be at my house Monday at 8am to dig a giant hole. If we don’t close and they dig, we’re spending money that we don’t actually have. That’s a problem! No one was actually willing to commit that we would close Friday so that was pretty stressful.

Then, I got a call about 3pm Thursday that they miscalculated the loan amount. They forgot to adjust the payoff amount on our HELOC to the correct number from our last meeting. We had to choose whether or not to fix it and delay closing or bring $4,500 to closing. We decided to find the money (I just added a money tree to the plans!) and continue with the closing Friday since the ramifications could be even more costly if we don’t close.

Early on in this process I was reading some posts on reddit that talked about keeping as much of your cash liquid as possible going into a home renovation and I’m really thankful for that right now. I changed the way I managed our money in the last 6 months knowing that this project was coming and it really saved me this week, even if it doesn’t make it sting any less.

I watch all those shows on HGTV and think that home renovations seem really stressful and they must just be editing it for added drama. Nope, it’s really just that stressful and the project hasn’t actually started.

I hope Boggle has found a spot in the sun to warm his giant belly.

Movin’ On Out

Today our wonderful friends and family helped us move out furniture and take down some cabinets we’ll be reusing in the basement. Going from a house where everything had a place and was appropriately baby proofed to a house that is completely torn apart is just the first step in living conditions getting very uncomfortable. We’re lucky, however, to have a roof over our head and even be on this journey. It’s all about perspective.

Our stuff is all going in our detached garage for the duration of the project. We’ll have access to everything we can get to -which has required some very complicated planning. This will help make up for how little we can fit in the trailer. It’s not a weekend camping trip, it’s 6-9 months.

Construction Start Date

We met with the contractor and the lender last week to approve budgets. Our dig date is set for June 18th, so this whole project is getting very real.

I’ve had a few people ask me exactly what we are doing and why we can’t live in the house while it’s being renovated. Here is a high-level picture of the before and after, as you can see the changes are pretty major and it will move much faster and smoother if we aren’t in the house.

Before:

After: