Remolding 101

We have done a lot of remolding over the years both on our own and by hiring someone so I though I would start offering some advice if you are looking to do some yourself.

So we have decided to do some remolding on our new place to make it fit our family better and make some improvements.

So how do we start all this....
1. Figure out what you need to do?
      To do this find the major problems in your house.  Do you have draft windows that are letting cold or warm air in around them?  Do you have any insulation in the walls or attic?  How do the pipes look?  Is there corrosion around them? How is your roof and siding?

These are some areas that should be address first. These are areas that will give the structure of your house the security and support that will allow you to make the cosmetic improvements that you want to make in the future.

2. Figure out what you want to do?
      How can you improve this house and make it your own?  Does the flooring need to be change?  Is the carpet or flooring bad?  Do the rooms need to be remodeled or repainted?  What else do you want to change?  Is there walls you want to remove or add? Is the kitchen or bathroom how you want it?

The second ones are all decisions that can be made to make your house your home.  Once you have the bones of your house secure you can change it and make cosmetic improvements.  This is when you get to play.

3. Once you have figured out what needs and what you want to do it's time to either figure out if you can do it yourself or if you need to hire someone to do it.

4. If you are going to hire someone to do it, it is best to find some people to interview and give you bids on the work that you want done.  When we have someone do work for us we usually get at least 3 different bids so we have a general idea of how much it will cost and what we can do for what price.  Usually we ask friends that have had work done and been happy with it to suggest someone.  Another good way to find someone to do the work for you is to stop by a lumberyard or hardware store and get some suggestions from them.  If they are a good one they will only suggest people that will do a good job and that they would personally use.

A new house and a plan to make it a home.

Now that we have a new house it's my job to make it our home.  I hope that this is something that I am able to do.  I also want to make a this home a nice organized place where things get put back where they belong.
We hope to be moved in soon before school starts.  But because of this I want to try to get my girls room done as much as possible. I think it would be the best thing for them to help them feel secure.  I'm not sure if this is going to be possible however.  We are planning on doing some remolding and I was hoping it was going to be done at least in their room before we got in.  But now it doesn't look like that is going to happen.  It looks like the remolding is going to be starting shortly after we get in.  At least I hope most of it can get done as soon as possible.

Thanks to Pinterest I hope to be able to get this house organized.  This site is a great place to get some really good ideas of organizing ideas that have worked for other people and that can be adapted to work for your family.

Since we hope to start our remolding upstairs first I hope to start my organizing in the kitchen.  This is a great place to start since it's one of the most used rooms in the house.  I hope to set up a launch pad for the family just inside of our door.  This will be a place where all the stuff that comes and goes with us everyday can be held.  A place for everything and everything in it's place right?  Well we'll see.  I'm going to try to take what we have and adapt it to our family.  I'll keep you up to date on how it looks and what is working and not working for us.

So now I ask you...where is your launch pad and how do you keep it organized so you don't lose the daily essentials for each day? Also please feel free to share your best organizing ideas for your kitchen.  As I get the kitchen done I will share what I have done.

A new home

Well on Friday we finally closed on our new house. Unfortunately we have not sold our current house yet. But we have had one showing a week since we released the past offer we had. So hopefully we will have a buyer sooner than later.
So now we need to decided when we are permanently going to move into our new place. Currently we are splitting our time between both houses. I laughingly like to say that I now have a summer home and a winter house. The funny part is our new house is only about 10 miles south west from our current house.
Another decision that we need to decide is if we are going to do any remodeling before we permanently move in. The house is live able but could definitely use some updates. It would be wonderful if we were able to do at least some of the fix ups before we were they full-time. If we are able to do any remodeling my plan would be to start in what will be our girls rooms. I would love to be able to get their new rooms done so that they can settle into their new rooms as soon as possible.
Wish us luck and I will keep you updated as we continue on this journey set before us.

Boot planters.

I love to garden and our potential move has put a damper on my gardening. So I decided to do some planting to spruce up our deck. We had some old boots laying in the woodshed so I decided to take advantage of them and put them to good use. I looked up how to make boots planters and used http://crafting.squidoo.com/how-to-make-boot-planters-flower-pots as a reference point.

To start you need a pair or two or three of old boots.

Old boots from woodshed.

 Next you need to remove the insoles from the boots. After the insoles have been removed you need to take a drill and drill through the soles of the boots to make drain holes. Once that is done start adding dirt to the boots. Make sure you get it all the way down into the toe of the boots.

Adding soil into boot.

Once you have the boot mostly filled insert plant to check the height of the plant in the boot. Water the dirt to help it settle. Check the depth again and place plant in boot. Fill dirt around your plant.  And your boot is done repeat with the other boot.

Below you can see the three pairs of boots that I have made. I added my favorite flowers New Guinea Impatients.

Cowboy boots

Short work boots

Tall work boots

House drama, the good,bad and ugly.

So as you all know we have had our house on the market since about September of 2012, in October we accepted an offer. Well we kept our house on the market and had a few more showings but never received another offer as we hoped we would.
In April we heard from our buyers that they had accepted an offer on their house, so we got pretty excited and started the wheels moving on our end with our new house. We had a contract with them to close on June 28th but they were confident that it would happen sooner as in the end of May.
Well as we made it into the middle of May without hearing from them we knew the end of May was no longer going to happen. So we started packing for the end of June and so did they.  At the beginning of June we started to push to see what this were at. Only to find out that their buyer's bank screwed up and never scheduled an assessment. So they pushed and rushed one done. All this while we both were still planning on closing at the end of June. On June 6th we received some bad news.Their assessment had come in under the asking price and the owners dropped the price 3 grand under the assessed value only to have their buyer's pull out of the deal.
So this left us in a tight spot what we're we going to do? And what we're they going to do? We had them check into a bridge loan or other financing but they were unable to secure anything. Because we have held this contract for almost 9 months and could no longer afford to keep it we told them that the contract will express at the end of the month.
We did give them the option of extending the contract till the end of July with no contingencies. They did not accept it.
So now we on still on the market without any offers. So if anyone you know is interested in a six acres hobby farm north of Milwaukee, Wi let me know.
Now the time comes for us to decide what we are going to do about our new house. Do we purchase it and pay that this house sells sooner than later or do we pass on this huge opportunity? Another option would be to rent this house out month by month till it sells. Time will tell.

Sorry for the Long Break.

Sorry for the long break but let me explain why I have been away and not posted in  while.

So here goes at the beginning of April we heard from the people that they finally had an accepted offer on their house. So that got the ball rolling on the sale of our house. We still are not sure on our closing date, it could be as early as the end of May or as late as the end of June. They also asked if we would let them rent our current house two weeks before the closing date so they can paint. We decided that we would consider it once we had a closing date. I am not real interested in renting our house out but we will see.

Well that was at the end of April. At the middle of May we called our realtor to see what was going on since we hadn't heard from our buyers. They were in the process of getting a loan commitment. Well we finally got that from them only to find out that their buyer's bank screwed up and didn't get an appraisal ordered. So they put a rush on an appraisal and had one done the end of last week and were still pushing for closing at the end of June.

We received a note from our realtor yesterday saying that the appraisal was at the bank and we should hear back yesterday. So we called today only to find out that their appraisal came back a little lower than the offer price so our buyers dropped their price lower than the appraisal and then some. Unfortunately their buyer's decided to walk away.

So now we are waiting till the end of the week to see what our buyers are going to do. They can either get a bridge loan or carry two mortgages till theirs sells. We have already told them that we are not going to extend the contract that we have had with them since October.

Once we hear from them we will have to figure out what we are going to do. It is so frustrating because we could have moved into our new house anytime since August. Since things were moving forward we have really started packing and moved more stuff over. This coming weekend we had planned on moving our hay, tractors, farm stuff and large swing set. Now we once again are in holding.

So please send out a prayer to have this all move in the right direction! I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason but this one is hard to deal with at the moment.

Welcome to spring in WI!

We had a beautiful warm spring weekend here this past weekend it was up into the upper 50's and then there was tonight. I was putting my girls to bed and heard a loud rushing sound, So I ran to the window and peeked out to see a windy blowing snowstorm. What! It didn't last long and didn't drop much other than  temperature. But it did confirm that I am ready for spring. I even saw our first crocus  this afternoon. Someday Spring will come. I well post soon about our St. Patrick's day and Easter fun.