Paint Makes Such A Huge Difference

Before

After

Before

After

Hazardous Weather Outlook

This isn't what you want to see when you are 7000 miles away and the furnace in your house is broken! It's also quite unusual for the area. Everything turned out fine. My Realtor set up an electric heater in the basement to keep the pipes from freezing and the repair man came today to fix the furnace.

Monday November 22, 2010 9:11 AM PST

LIGHT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS UP TO 2 INCHES LATER THIS AFTERNOON & EVENING WHEN SNOW LEVELS FALL TO SEA LEVEL

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PORTLAND OR
555 AM PST MON NOV 22 2010

NORTH OREGON COAST-CENTRAL OREGON COAST-CENTRAL WILLAMETTE VALLEY-
SOUTH WILLAMETTE VALLEY-SOUTH WASHINGTON COAST-
555 AM PST MON NOV 22 2010

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR PORTIONS OF NORTHWEST
OREGON AND SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON.

.DAY ONE...TODAY AND TONIGHT

A COLD SYSTEM FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA WILL BRING THE POTENTIAL FOR
LIGHT SNOW ACCUMULATIONS UP TO 2 INCHES LATER THIS AFTERNOON AND
EVENING WHEN SNOW LEVELS FALL TO SEA LEVEL.

.DAYS TWO THROUGH SEVEN...TUESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY

MODIFIED ARCTIC AIR WILL BRING COLD TEMPERATURES TUESDAY THROUGH
WEDNESDAY WITH LOW TEMPERATURES BELOW FREEZING AT THE COAST...
AND IN THE 20S AND LOCALLY UPPER TEENS INLAND VALLEYS.

Furniture Delivery

When I moved to the island, the stuff that I didn't sell, ended up in storage. I didn't keep much. The most valuable of the items was a bed and dresser. It turned out that the shipping costs were less than replacing these two items so the arrangements were made.

So, at least the other people that get to stay in our house (cause we won't get to for awhile) will have a place to sleep and a place for their clothes.

I can't wait until it's our turn!

Master Bedroom

This is our new bedroom set. My Mom found it at JC Penney and we both liked it. In fact, we are basing the paint scheme in the bedroom around it. The walls are going to be brown, the ceiling and trim will be the white color and there will be green accents that match the sage color as well.

We haven't decided on the carpet yet, some things we'll just need to be there to decide. Plus we're considering some renovations that may change the layout of the bedroom too so that should be completed before the carpeting gets done. Most of the house has beautiful hardwood floors that we plan to restore but we both agree the bedroom should be a carpeted area.

The Real Cost of A Project

Of all the projects to pick, siding is probably one of the most likely to run into unforeseen issues and extra costs. You never really know what's under that top layer that you can see. Sometimes, as in our case, there is no history whatsoever provided to help you even guess.

The existing siding in our case was easily recognizable to the home inspector and even the Realtor as L-P siding. Right off the bat we knew it had a reputation and it wasn't a good one.

The biggest and most frustrating problem and one that added considerable extra expense was the fact that there was not only one, but two, and in some areas three layers of siding on the house! Whoever installed the L-P siding installed it over the top of shingles! This resulted in many unexpected labor hours as well as the need for a second dumpster for all the extra waste. You know how shingles are angled? This person went so far as to add shims to counter the shingle angles to make the L-P siding level but in the process created large gaps of air that bugs, plants and mold were growing in. Pretty much defeating the purpose of installing new siding. You can be sure that they never considered the impact of this decision on future homeowners or contractors.

As a result of the decision to add the L-P siding to the existing layer of siding, the 12 new vinyl windows that we installed at roughly the same time, were mounted so that when the old siding was removed, they were sticking out about two inches and would not be flush with the new siding until they were reseated. That was an expense of about an hour and a half per window that we had not expected. The contractor offered us a less expensive alternative but we wanted it done right. No sense in putting on siding with a 50 year warranty and jimmy-rigging the windows in the process.

Additionally, there were several areas of dry rot that needed repairing. It really was a great thing that we decided to do the siding first, it needed it!

The last item that caught us off guard was the back door. When we inspected the house, the glass in the back door had been broken, it was very thin single pane window glass. It appeared as though someone may have tried to break in. Not only that but the back porch was level with the door so when it rained (all of the weather comes from that side of the house) it leaked under the door. We had intended to replace it at some point but the contractor pointed out that it would be best to do it before the siding was complete as the whole casing had to be removed. I had no idea how much doors cost! It is nice to know that we don't have to worry about any more problems with that now either.

Its hard not being on site during a project like this to make the split decisions needed by projects that are derailed by the realities of life. The contractor said this was the first time he had ever done a project like this via email. I'm appreciative of his cooperation. The new siding is completed, and feedback from my family and neighbors is good. We are dying to see it for ourselves!

In all it was $4,500 more than our original quote but considering all of the surprises, we're lucky it wasn't more. The good news is, everything after this will seem cheap and easy and the new siding will prevent further damage from causing us more problems in the future.

Progress!

Look at this! What a difference!

The green really makes the white trim pop! If you notice, there is a large plant missing. The plant was causing water to pool next to the house, as well as being extremely difficult for the contractor to work around because it was sharp. 

There have been issues, for sure. But we won't talk about those right now. We'll just bask in the beauty of our new siding. OK?

Getting A Facelift

One of the factors in our push to make sure we got the best financing deal possible and the reason we put our foot down on having to make a 20% down payment was the fact that the house needs work; more than just a little. This is pretty typical in this location. The weather is harsh. If you want a nice house in good condition, it is going to be very expensive and probably quite small. Our house is 1500+ square feet and sits on a double lot. We had to sacrifice nice for size, location and the extra large lot. Fortunately most of our projects will be cosmetic, but not all of them.

When we were inspecting the home before we made the offer, the Realtor mentioned the siding needed looking at. My husband walked up to look at it and put his finger right through it! The siding it came with is called LP siding. Here is a quote from an article that gives you an idea of what we were looking at: "The L-P siding, a concoction of wood scraps and resins, was installed on about 800,000 homes around the country from 1985 to 1995. It warped prematurely, rotted in wet weather and sprouted mushrooms and other fungus. Lawsuits sprouted as well, although L-P contended the problems stemmed mostly from faulty installation. ~Richard B. Schmitt, Wall Street Journal".

Well, the Oregon Coast is about as wet as you can get and from what we know now, faulty installation was a huge part of the problem. Our fist order of business; the siding.

Vinyl siding is obviously usually the cheapest alternative but neither of us were interested in that and after researching it, it's not the best choice for the area. If I were made of money, I would have had the house shingled with cedar but that was the most expensive of all the options I looked into. We ended up deciding on HardiePlank or fiber-cement siding. This siding comes with a 50 year warranty and we also opted for the ColorPlus Technology which means we never have to paint it!

The siding contractor just started the project a couple of days ago and we've run into a few issues already.



There is some dry rot on the corner of the house. At least that's all they found so far....and if you look closely in the window picture, you can see where the LP installer left the old shingles in place, shimmed it out to make a flat surface to install the LP siding and then someone (not sure if it was the same person or not) mounted the new windows over that. So there was a big air/water/critter gap between the two layers of siding. Nice. Now the siding contractor is going to have to re-seat the windows for us so that they will sit flush with the new siding.

We'll continue to post the progress as it unfolds.

Key In Hand!

Our house key arrived today!
We closed 10 days ago and are just now getting the key. Our Realtor sent it in the mail for us. He's keeping a key, my Mom has one, and now us! Yay!

I Couldn't Pass These Up!

These are not the ugliest curtains in the world!

I found these at anthropologie.com and they are so cool I bought them on impulse! Well, the main reason I bought them immediately is they have a limited number in stock and they are on sale. They are so awesome in fact that the color of the living room is now going to be based on them!

Out With The Old...

The first order of business is to get rid of everything we just don't want.

First on the list; the bugs and mice/rats. The house has been empty for over a year now so the critters have claimed it as their own. Mom already started by putting out some d-CON bait to start deterring the rodents from hanging out. Next week the plan is to bomb for insects. That's one advantage to the house being empty for now.

Next, all of the ugly, nasty curtains are coming down and any random hardware that doesn't seem to have any purpose.

The ugliest curtains in the world

I don't expect Mom to get too crazy with this activity, we will give it another once over when we are there. There are a lot of decisions that are going to be hard to make without actually being there.

The Papers Are Signed!

This has been a long hard battle.

In June, my husband and I looked at a house while we were on vacation at the Oregon Coast. It was sort of a fluke, we didn't really think we would be purchasing a home anytime soon but it was a foreclosure and seemed to be quite a good deal, especially considering it had an ocean view. The house is located in Lincoln City, just a 5 block walk from the beach.

View From Upstairs Window

We are currently living in the Marshall Islands doing contract work for the Government so the logistics have been very challenging.

After three months of offers, counter-offers, multiple extensions, three different lenders, two appraisals, and hundreds and hundreds of emails; we finally got it done!

Part of the difficulty was the fact that we are living outside of the United States. That fact alone causes our home purchase to be considered a "second home" even though this is now our only home. The main difference between a first and second home loan is the down payment and depending on the lender some of the requirements. Unfortunately for us, none of the lenders seemed to know what these stipulations might be until we got most of the way through the process.

Since we aren't going to be moving back to the States anytime soon, my family will be helping us get some of the cleaning and painting taken care of in exchange for a place to stay at the beach. We'll be taking our vacations there until we move back permanently. The sad part is, our next vacation isn't for another 9 months! This blog will monitor the progress we make and document the changes as we go along.