which has no relation to the origin of the gladly paying taxes debate.....

1/28/2011 4:02:07 PM

1/28/2011 4:19:31 PM

builders would be affected in this situation in certain situations.

As a builder myself, i build, live in it two years then sell.

To profit $250k you would have to build a very large house in a very good area.

1/28/2011 9:06:47 PM

i got a Dremel MultiMax for xmas. i have to say, it is absolutely friggin awesome. i wanted to do some repair work in my shower tub, mainly re-caulking and removing old moldy crap, and holy shit...i found an attachment for $8 at Home Depot, popped it on the dremel, and took out all of the old caulk in literally 5 mins or so. very versatile, portable tool, with very nice torque on it.

highly recommend if anyone is looking for a good all around tool for around the house.

2/7/2011 4:24:09 PM

^ awesome man. I got one 6 months or so ago when I was trimming out some doorways in my house to make it easier to cut off the baseboard cleanly and I love it. I imagine I will get a lot more use out of it cutting old trim as needed when I install more trim and then hardwood floors around the house

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 8:03 AM. Reason : .]

2/8/2011 8:02:08 AM

looking to post in here legit within the month! making an offer on a condo on capitol hill

though hopefully not woes

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 9:04 AM. Reason : /]

2/8/2011 8:56:38 AM

6/15 houses on my street are for sale

the latest one is my neighbor that has only been in the house < 6 mo.

2/8/2011 9:43:41 AM

^ Ouch. Where are you? You plan on sticking around for a while?

2/8/2011 10:23:22 AM

yeah...i'm in Northeast Clayton (27527)

i guess i have to plan on being here a while.

2/8/2011 12:04:01 PM

no progress on laundry room and kitchen addition.

still have to finish trim around new french doors and window in den

have to finish siding

SDKLGJSLEKTUJL:WEUKLWHEGKHWEG

Pretty peeved it's taking this long, some of which is my fault, but only like 20%.

2/8/2011 12:27:02 PM

I have a two year warranty on my house.
They set up a "one year inspection" to come correct any problems that have appeared.

So far the list goes something like this:
Fix nail pops (about 50 of them)
Fix sliding door on closet so it moves freely
Fix tape seams on drywall that have separated
Fix stair trim that has separated
Fix 5 upstairs door that no longer close
Fix shower that randomly drips (second try)
Touch up paint problems

They start monday and say it may take a couple days.

[Edited on February 8, 2011 at 8:08 PM. Reason : .]

2/8/2011 8:03:01 PM

^ at least your builder didn't go out of business before your 1 year inspection was due, like mine did. Now I have 50 nail pops to fix myself

2/9/2011 9:53:14 AM

^My builder was bought out by another builder, but they are still honoring all contracts.

2/9/2011 9:59:25 AM

just had my offer accepted on the place!

great deal i think. you guys should have told me this was this exciting...

2/9/2011 11:42:56 AM

congrats!

2/9/2011 11:44:45 AM

congrats

I think back to a year ago when we were going through inspections and stuff on our house we live in and on one hand I can't believe it was that long ago and on the other it seems like this has been "our home" for a long time. I know that seems like contradictory statements but it made sense in my head haha. Owning a house has given me a place I feel the most "at home" at since moving out of my parents' house for college. Maybe part of that is just due to getting married not long before the house or maybe it is also that this is the first place that felt like it had some "permanence" to it. (As in, barring job loss or something big, I'm not always thinking about 6months out on whether I will be renewing a lease or moving apts or something).

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 11:50 AM. Reason : .]

2/9/2011 11:46:37 AM

^That is exactly how I feel.
I've been in MY house for 11 months.

2/9/2011 11:53:10 AM

its a 10 unit walk-up building in an older neighborhood right on the fringe of Capitol Hill. fully redone in 2008. mine is a 1 bd / 1 ba, includes off street parking and a separate personal storage closet in the building. im in a place in my life where i just need something cozy and simple, but near public transportation since i am hardly ever home to begin with. i ended up getting it about $15k below asking price (which was already low for the area) plus seller paying closing costs. its 650 sq ft total.

<3 city life.

exterior



kitchen



from kitchen looking toward living room (picture makes it look shallow but its actually both much wider and deeper than I thought it would be seeing it in person.)



bedroom looking down hallway toward bathroom/kitchen/living room.



bathroom



[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 12:25 PM. Reason : .]

2/9/2011 12:23:59 PM

looks great. now get some paint on those walls

2/9/2011 3:38:12 PM

closing is a month away.

ive got time to do all the ground work, measuring/color exploring to figure that out. want to get paint on the walls the first weekend i can get in to do work, knock it out all at once before there's furniture around to deal with.

2/9/2011 3:41:13 PM

Definitely. That's always a great thing with smaller places like that; they get fully painted and furnished faster We're still painting and furnishing 11 months later (mainly because I set a strict monthly budget though but partly because it was a good size house). It's fun because I enjoy the process but it can take forever hah.

Definitely helps that the place you are moving into is a little updated as well in regards to hardware and finishes. We've taken our time doing a lot of that ourselves which slows the process down a little.

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 3:53 PM. Reason : .]

2/9/2011 3:47:31 PM

+1 for the basin sink

-1 for track lighting + louvre door

Nice looking place

[Edited on February 9, 2011 at 4:31 PM. Reason : k=t]

2/9/2011 4:30:41 PM

yeah I don't mind the lighting at the moment, but I agree about the door. going to think about a solution to that

also thinking about doing some work to the "cubby" area where the TV is. it's recessed enough that if i built it correctly, I could have a desk/work area at sitting height and then a shelf higher up for TV/cable box, to view from the couch further back. I currently run my MacBook through my TV with a wireless mouse/keyboard so I could, in theory, build in the desk/working surface for working/studying but run the Mac->TV cord up to the TV in case I wanted to sit back by the couch and use the computer from the TV with the wireless mouse. we'll see once I actually get in there.

2/9/2011 4:40:09 PM

^^I think you meant louver door. If it had a Louvre door, I'd think it'd be much more expensive.... and probably located in Paris.

^One thing you might want to consider if you do the desk thing is putting up a curtain rod below the TV, that way if you entertain you can close a curtain or sheer panel to hide the desk and don't have to worry about your desk being messy or distracting from the ambiance of the living room.

[Edited on February 10, 2011 at 8:53 AM. Reason : .]

2/10/2011 8:50:56 AM

yeah i understand your point but that sounds really nubbs. im a pretty neat person, and it doesn't bother me if i have stuff on a desk like that out where people can see it.

2/10/2011 10:30:46 AM

^^ apparently its spelled both ways although when typing it, i just sounded it out until it wasn't underlined in red anymore

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/louvre

2/10/2011 10:57:01 AM

^well played.... that's what i get for being a smart ass

2/10/2011 1:13:49 PM

ill be sure to come back and post pics of what i did with the place. all the stuff currently in there is the furniture from using it as a model for a few months.

2/10/2011 2:03:13 PM

nice!

2/10/2011 4:39:22 PM

^^ does it have any "regular" windows?

2/10/2011 5:13:59 PM

looks like it's one of the basement level units

2/10/2011 5:15:41 PM

pilgrimshoes is correct. it's on the first level and its a sunken unit. which is great because i could give a fuck about all kinds of sunlight. im never there to begin with.

2/10/2011 10:40:16 PM

We, too, just had our offer accepted.

Front o' house


Living room


Kitchen (DON'T WORRY. We're redecorating.)


[Edited on February 11, 2011 at 9:38 AM. Reason : pics]

2/11/2011 9:20:46 AM

nice looking place. definitely could use paint like my place

2/11/2011 12:24:17 PM

^^ I would love to build a kitchen island/overhead set up like you've got there. Will be really nice once you get some paint on those walls! haha

2/11/2011 5:11:18 PM

yeah, we're excited about the kitchen...big plans in store, lol

we're thinking of painting the cabinets an antique white, putting some of these on:



paint the island a really dark brown, throw a tile backsplash on the wall.

we don't really know what color to go with on the walls yet though.

2/11/2011 9:07:08 PM

^I'm going to guess the antique white would probably go well with that color...but I don't know exactly what shade antique white is. I will say that its closer to a pure shade of white, you might want to look at brushed nickle. I looked at the color you posted and brushed nickle, and my cabinets are a lot closer to white, and the brushed nickle looked a lot better with my cabinets and stainless steal appliances. Just something to think about. I do like that color knob.

I also went with all pulls and no knobs. That's definitely a preference, but I think it turned out well.


Also...VERY SMALL home ownership woe, but....

I hate the tile in my upstairs bathroom so bad. I friggin love the downstairs tile, but the upstairs is like a marbled white tile with a faint cream color (the marbled part I guess)...if that makes any sense. Anyways...the cream part makes it look like it's constantly dirty and the white part of the tile really makes the lint from towels, hair, and other dirt just so much more clear. I could deep clean my bathroom once a week, and it will still look really dirty three days in. Extremely frustrating.

And then there's the grout. The grout just won't get clean. My last shot was getting a heavy duty grout brush and some concentrated grout cleaner. Spent 30 minutes on my hands and knees this morning and got nowhere. Definitely the next "big" project in this house will be to get rid of that fucking tile.

2/12/2011 3:19:17 PM

If you people think you have it bad you should watch Dream House on DIY channel. Holy cow they've had huge problems after problems building their house.

2/12/2011 3:25:51 PM

all closed and moved in.

now just waiting on new furniture to arrive my place looks like the sparsely decorated apartment where patrick bateman killed paul brown at the moment

2/28/2011 9:09:28 AM

thanks for the update!

2/28/2011 4:25:16 PM

^^ Haha I know how that feels. It's a fun process though. Moving into a place without any personal touch and then turning it into your home is rewarding.

2/28/2011 4:28:09 PM

So i am not a home owner but i live with my buddy who owns the house we live in.

3 bedroom and there is only two of us. its a nice house and plenty of room for the two of us. he got it from a foreclosure so he got it for a good price and being military, he gets a good rate. plus his dad basically set him up in the past to have some good credit which helps.

from his dads experience he has been able to figure out some ways to invest in the house.

such as we extended the back patio area by pouring concrete and putting in a lattice (so basically a wooden thing with slats running across the top with a screen) giving shade over the area and giving it a nicer area to relax and have fun. he also has just finished putting in this border area, some more plants and a rock layer inside the border. some extra small trees too. finally, a back splash (tile) over all the kitchen countertops and a sprinkler system in the yard.
hes trying to do more to help the value of the house.

he made it seem like he was going to keep this place and rent it out when we move to different military bases and then just use it as a vacation place if no one is in it. but i feel like he might change his mind and put it out for sale in some time.

i dont care what he does with it, we will only be here another 7 months. be nice if he was able to make a profit on it but i have this feeling that he wont be able make much of a profit till much later.

What bothers me is that he is gonna try and do a few things with this office space and trying to move my desk in there. living with him is about average cause he doesnt cause much issues but the past few months has been annoying and ive seen his character flaws.

i dont have a lease or anything with him cause hes a friend and its convenient for me to stay. however, it is definitely gonna be a thought about living with someone that owns the house we are in.

2/28/2011 5:11:22 PM

not to be a dick but,

Quote :

"..."

[Edited on March 1, 2011 at 9:11 AM. Reason : .]

3/1/2011 9:10:47 AM

tl;wishididntread

3/1/2011 9:56:44 AM

today i learned what a chimney chase cover is, and that they are about $600 to have replaced

3/1/2011 4:30:15 PM

I believe I have an issue with one of the automatic dampers in the attic that controls the flow of air to the 2nd floor.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I need to look for and how to manually actuate a damper so that at least I can get the air flowing to the upstairs?

3/2/2011 4:01:58 PM

So we had a guy come inspect the HVAC unit at the house we're trying to buy today. Apparently the thing is not even up to code it's so dilapidated. So now we get to try and get the seller to replace it, and to-date their realtor has been a major PITA. So we'll see.

FFFFUUUUUUUUUUU...

But I guess finding out about it now is better than potentially having it blow up in July.

3/4/2011 1:45:21 PM

definitely. and if it is in that bad of shape they would be stupid not to replace it because no one will buy their place with it in that condition.

They should either replace it (ideal) or knock the price down on the house to accommodate a decent unit for sure.

[Edited on March 4, 2011 at 1:54 PM. Reason : ]

3/4/2011 1:52:15 PM

My grass is literally 6 inches tall in some spots. Its going to suck cutting it tomorrow. Stupid rye grass.

3/4/2011 3:00:24 PM

the house i was moved into had a 26 y/o heat pump, and some of the ductwork was in rough shape (and the heat pump was 17 y/o but running like a champ), and we agreed that they would throw me $2k at closing for repairs

3/4/2011 3:37:33 PM