Good morning. This is
me. We are up early this morning because
someone’s cats think that 3:00AM is a fine hour for serving them breakfast … I
don’t know when this started, but it’s pretty terrible as to sleeping in. I waited for a while and when I do that I won’t
drink coffee either, but then one of them threw-up phlegm which told me that
their stomachs were pretty empty and I didn’t want to have them suffering
either, so we fed them. Boo-boo,
Hiss! Ok, enough with the sarcasm. We signed up for that stage coach,
right? *sigh*
We were a little too much on the excited side anyway so we
haven’t gone back to sleep even though they’ve now been fed. I might as well start off with the biggest
news. We saw the Plano house and we
loved it, and we went on as far as Rich now has his mother’s support … we might
as well call this her blessing, and so we went ahead yesterday, and Rich and I
put a bid for the full amount of the loan IN CASH! Ok, now stop and breathe a second. We are not going to know any more about
whether or not our bid has been accepted until Monday or Tuesday. It is a HUD distressed property which means
it has already gone through the foreclosure process and is now in the hands of
the bank, and in this situation that means the government. Does this mean that our house is in bad
shape? NOOOOOO! It’s in excellent shape!
From what we understand all bids are submitted online which
our Realtor did yesterday. They have to
be formally in by the end of the week (today), and then on Monday they are
reviewed and people are given 48 hours to solve any issues after being accepted
so that by Tuesday we have to submit our paperwork which would state that we
have as much money as we say we do. And,
then if they question our paperwork, we have one more 48 hours to fix the
problems, or it goes to the next people bidding on it the following week. I don’t know if there will be any
competition. I think our bid is
substantial and the fear would be that someone bid on the property for more
than the asking price. I think we are in
front of people looking to secure a mortgage.
But, it is pins and needles for a couple of days. I would love to say it is a done deal, but
until someone hands you the keys, it is just not that easy. This is the first time we tried to buy a HUD
house. By today it has been on the
market for 8 days, which means it’s on it’s second week where people could be
bidding. Yesterday there had been only
11 people to have looked at it from the pictures from a couple of Realtors
pages. Sometimes they get up to three or
four hundred so we’re hoping that this runs in our favor. Also, fewer people would look at the property
because of being WAY-OUT in Plano … it is still about 45 miles west of
Chicago. We’ll just have to see.
There is no way to speed up the process, and it is our
understanding that they generally take about 45 days to close, so we are
talking then about moving IF we get the house by about the middle of
March. That would really work out for
us, because we would then pay for March and have some time to do a few things
around the house like cleaning the carpets.
If our bid is accepted we have some time … maybe just 2-5 days to
inspect the house so we would have utilities turned back-on to do that. We would want to be sure of the water, gas,
and electricity working. Rich is hoping
to get a family member to do the inspecting, but we’re not sure of that, and we’re
not sure, but he might ask a fishy friend who is an attorney to close on the
house. If not, we know that our Realtor,
Charlie will have suggestions. He’s been
so excellent in his care and concern for us EVEN though the house we are buying
is not very expensive. He has earned our
trust.
As to the day yesterday, it was a bit of a whirlwind, but we
left at 8 AM and got there a few moments after 9 AM. Charlie was waiting and had already looked at
the house so could guide us through it.
By that I pretty much mean Rich, because he was taking it slow where we
were running through the house like a school girl on her first day of summer
vacation. You know how we get. We awed over the first impression, and were
soon upstairs checking that out as well.
You might guess that the sewing room was one of the most important rooms
to me. But, you can’t really get there
until noticing the beauty of the staircase system. Maybe a few pictures are in order Hehehe.
It is just so awesomely excellent AND the colors match what
we’ve been looking for in the olive green, pale yellow and deep red. I’d have to say those are OUR colors, though
they seem to be other peoples as well.
The entire house is painted so well, it just can’t hardly be
imagined. We would have to fix a small
door/hole in the front hall closet going under the stairs, but other than that
we didn’t see too many problems. There
is a crack in the ceramic tile by the door and there are some picture holes,
but other than that it just has to be given a good cleaning and the floors (carpet/tile)
need to be washed. Given a choice, I
might have picked out the same flooring, though perhaps we would have gone with
wooden floors on the first floor dining/living rooms. We are by no means complaining.
Rich said that he would like to take the bathtub out right
away and get one of those where you can one of those walk-in bathtubs. Just for the tub though, it is about $2-4,000
minimum. He’ll have to figure out if he
wants to handle that kind of cost, plus there is installation. He’d really have to weigh it out and it isn’t
a particularly large space. He might
have to pay closer to $6,000 to get one with all the jets if that is what he
has in mind. Too soon to tell, and
Please … we won’t say this as often, but it’s all contingent on getting the
house.
As to our home improvement, we would be looking for two
things, really. We would like the
sofa-sleeper for the guest room and we would like new roller/swivel cushioned
chairs for the kitchen. I do have to say
that as much as we thought the extra bedroom would be a guest room, Rich is
looking to make it his office too with a real desk, where we had thought we’d
put in the drafting table. He says he
would want something more substantial.
Maybe we could get something from Ashley’s because that is where we have
furniture credit. I looked there for my
chairs too (online), but didn’t see immediately what we’d been looking
for. We might have to look for office
furniture chairs. Who knows … sometime
in the future? I think the stuff we wanted could get eaten up in the cost of
the tub. YEEKS! We looked online for the chairs and thought
we could get something pretty nice for $2-300 a chair, but not sure if Rich is
looking for that much. According to the
price of a tub? Maybe so. He’d have 100% control over what he would get
as a desk.
The room is only 11’ x 10’ (132” x 120”) and the couch … ok,
I know we’ve gone over this before, but the couch fully extended is 90” x 90”
(38” when closed). That means to me the
desk (approximately 60” x 24” can fit on the side wall a desk that is 24” wide
and have only 18” clearance, but this might be ok because usually the bed
wouldn’t be used at the same time as the sleeper. We also both had in mind of putting the TV
console in the room too for a spare TV, but that would mean another piece of
furniture 60” x 20”. I don’t know … I’m
thinking the couch has to be smaller.
Ok, I’ve been putzing around the Internet and we’re thinking
that we’re going to turn the 2nd bedroom into Rich’s room to worry
about. That seems fair. That’s one of the things that became
prominent yesterday with Rich. He wanted
to be given the option of designing rooms too.
Since we have the sewing room, and the master bedroom is already done,
we could just hand him the side room and let him figure out how to make an
office AND guest room, AND as a bonus be able to use the TV thingy at 60” x 20”. My only job then would be to figure out how
to use our drafting table.
Good-good. We’re back
again and it’s about 7:36 AM. Rich and
us have talked for over an hour. You
might guess on what Hehehe. He liked
that we abdicated a room for him to control at 100%, so he’s now in control of
the kitchen, “HIS” room (study), and the Garage. Then he has 49% control of the dining room,
living room, and bedroom, and I’ve got 100% over the sewing room. GOOD STUFF!
We haven’t discussed bathrooms and halls. Maybe we’ll have to think of that … I might
give him 51% of the bathrooms and halls.
A couple new things were decided in that he showed me he could get both
couches (matching set) back together again in the living room. That’s a GREAT Think, and in replacement he
said he could get me a cushy chair for the sewing room to replace the
couch. YAY!!! And, in the mix, I inherited the TV cabinet. I have to think that through, because I just
recalled that I hadn’t thought about the sewing room. We might end up putting it next to the rails
in the hallway. U am going to need
letting go of the fireplace mantel if he doesn’t want it in the garage. AND we were talking about putting the wicker
shelving in the hall too for bathroom towels and such though that also might go
in the bedroom walk-in closet. I think
we are ready to give up the lower end of the study closet, but we still want
the top half, and an underneath part of the bedroom closet. Hmm, Rich just said that he would rather have
towels in bedroom closet so that wicker shelves get designated to fishy stuff
in the garage.
Ok, it’s now 9:02 AM and we’ve done some research. This is where we lay
Sewing World
East Window Wall – 132” (2’ wall, 6’ window, 3’wall)
South Shelf Wall – 156” (10’ wall with 3’ opening)
West Spindle Wall – 132” (11’ wall)
North Long Wall – 156”
(13’ wall)
West Spindle Wall – North Wall to South Wall – Sewing machine
table 96” x 30”
North Long Wall – West Wall to East Wall (west side) Sewing/cutting
table 60” x 30”
North Long Wall – West Wall to East Wall (east side) TV
cabinet 60” x 36” (60” x 20” with door shut)
East Window Wall – North Wall to South Wall (north side)
Drafting table w/o attachments 40” x 28”
East Window Wall – North Wall to South Wall (south side)
Swivel/Rocker/Recliner 40” x 39”
South Shelf Wall – East Wall to West wall (east side) 4
bookshelves 120” x 12”
West Spindle Wall attached to Sewing machine table –
Portable sewing table (mid-room) 20” x 40”
Space between Sewing/cutting table to Portable sewing table
36”
Space between Sewing machine table to drafting table 86”
Space between TV cabinet to Bookshelves 108”
Space between Portable sewing table to bookshelves 34”
Space between Portable sewing table to
Swivel/Rocker/Recliner 47” (36” front/11” back)
Space for entranceway to the room (south wall) 36”
Portable sewing Table from North wall 66” to 86” leaving 10”
L-shaped indent from end of Sewing Machine Table
Ok-ok, this is going to work! I’ve allowed at least 36” x 86” (so about 3’
x 7’or 21 square feet) for sewing chair and a 34”-36” L walkway from entrance,
in front of swivel/rocker/recliner to sewing chair. The recliner has 36” in front and 11” in back
to recline and it will be in front of the shelves. There is also 6” space on each side of TV cabinet.
Ok … I know we’ve been here before figuring and figuring …
it’s that part of us that’s obsessive. I’d
like to think we are just hyper-organized, or would like to be. It’s a chore to think of moving, but the
worst room in the house is my sewing room – OH LORD has it been a day. We can’t spend too much more time on this
though because I told Rich I’d help him with a piece-rate job that he has to
get out. I canceled both Joe and Maury
this weekend, because between the house and the job, I’m just way so much
overboard. What we’ve been doing for the
entire afternoon after we got done with the drawing was to start organizing all
the rest of our sewing life. Rich seems
to think we can cut-down on the sewing stuff all over the house, but I don’t
see that happening. I haven’t yet
started placing quilts, but that is coming too.
We’ve got quite a few walls to fill, and I’d like to think that we have
enough and there would be a variety, but most of the quilts we give away, so we
have to attune ourselves to making them for the home. SCRAPPING!!!
Now for the order.
Four Bookcases (left
to right)
3a – 3d, and 4a – 4d each get
two pink plastic shoebox trays to help stack and ten pink dividers to support stacks
1a) First double basket
1b) Gramma’s things
1c) Second double basket
1d) Paper rolls
1e) Top-shelve Grammas sheet backings
2a) Decorative shelf items incl. fabrics
2b) Single basket
2c) Magazines
2d) Books
2e) Batting
3a) White scrap fabrics
3b) Pink/purple scrap fabrics
3c) Yellow/gold/orange scrap fabrics
3d) Green scrap fabrics
3e) Black/Grey scrap fabrics
4a) Beige scrap fabrics
4b) Red scrap fabrics
4c) Brown scrap fabrics
4d) Blue scrap fabrics
4e) Miscellaneous (mixed-colored) scrap fabrics
TV cabinet (Left to
Right)
1a) Three trays of rulers
1b) Cups of writing utensils
2a) Thread
2b) First continuing projects
2c) Second continuing projects
3a) 1 ½” x 1 ½” (1 ½” misc. pieces) cut scraps
3b) 2 ½” x 2 ½” (2 ½” misc. pieces) cut scraps
3c) 2 ½” x LOF (40”-42”) strips
4a) Radio
4b) Two plastic 4-drawer storage
5a) 3” x 3” (3” misc. pieces) cut scraps
5b) 4 ½” x 4 ½” (4 ½” misc. pieces) cut scraps
5c) 5” and up (5-6” misc. pieces) cut scraps
Sewing Room
1a) First Design wall on north wall
1b) Second Design wall on north wall
1c) medium to big cases under corner of L tables
1d) 6 – small plastic trays from CS under the sewing machine
table
1e) 3-drawer plastic cabinet under the sewing machine table
1f) Loose bags on top of under bed organizers under cutting
table
1g) ALL kits need to be wrapped and either on top of the
bookshelves with CS other kits, or in-line in the TV cabinet
Master Bedroom (4
Drawers)
1a) Beige Fat Quarters
1b) Red Fat Quarters
1c) Blue/green Fat Quarters
1d) Black, purple and flannel Fat Quarters
Under bed organizers
1a) 3 under the cutting board table/move to same – fabric containers
1b) 4 in the closet/move to master closet – pre-ironing
scrap containers
1c) 2 under the bed/move to same – one scrap and one
backings
Study
4 – 12” x 48” (40 hanging cubbies) in the sewing room closet/move to Study closet for 6” fabrics
Living Room
1a) hand sewing thread bag and hand sewing materials
1b) Iron and ironing table
1c) 10 Drawer Plastic trays
Lights
1a) Tall Ott over large ironing table
1b) Tall Ott over Ann’s couch corner
1c) Tall Ott over drafting table – need to get
2a) Round tall – over Ann’s couch corner
2b) Round tall – over Ann’s computer desk
2c) Round tall – over 2nd couch corner – need to
get
2d) Round tall – over 3rd couch corner – need to
get
3a) Small Ott – on sewing machine table
3b) Small Ott – on cutting board
3c) Small Ott – on small ironing/tracing table
(12,846/2,400)
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