Before & After Photos

There is still lots of work to do, but here's where we are at on the inside!

 

Dining Room

(someday we will have a real table and the dog crate and our tool cart will go away)

Spare room

(yes, that is my loom in front of the window)

 

Guest room

(no before picture- but it was similar to the spare room)

 

View from upstairs looking down

Living Room

(maybe we'll work on getting a real couch- but it's not high on the priority list)

Yard Work

     Some days I just want to cuss out the previous owners... why not just do some up keep on your home? Then I remind myself that the reason we got a great deal on this place is because it was poorly taken care of and foreclosed on.
    Over the last 3 weekends since we moved in we have been going hard on the yard! Trimming hedges, raking leaves (a half acre of leaves is more than I imagined!), and just clearing out random junk. We came across some awesome stuff while raking  today. I found the remnants of an aquarium and Husband found a PlayStation and a kitty litter pan... still full of litter. Yum. We also decided that the palm trees had to go... because this is Tennessee, not Florida!

 

The other, probably way more important, thing we (and by that I mean Husband) took care of was the tree branches growing on the roof. Apparently our Homeowner's insurance was scheduled to cancel in December if we didn't get that taken care of... eek!

Are you happy now, Allstate?

 

We have also been working hard to tame our unruly bush in the driveway over the last couple of weekends. It was growing over the cement by about three feet. I don't even know what kind it is but the neighbor said it blooms in the spring. Hopefully we didn't hack away too much that that we miss out on the flowers in the spring, but it had to happen!

 

    I was really cursing the previous owners over the "F---ing secret garden", as Husband refers to it. There is a gorgeous tree (bush?) that is very entwined in the privacy fence. We hated to butcher it, but the fence is priority for us.

 

Here's how nicely it had wedged itself in the fence!

 

But with a little help from the saw...

 

We got it out of the fence...

 

It had pulled the nails out as it grew. Nature was winning against this fence, but we had the last laugh...

Success!

 

    There is still so much that needs to be done, hopefully we can get the all the yard work knocked out over the next few weekends before it gets too cold! 

 

 

 

 

 

Carpet!

The carpet is in upstairs! Stacy and I cleaned the fridge, it was slightly moldy but I was pleasantly surprised to find that a) it works b) almost all the shelves are in it c) even the ice machine works! I rented a moving truck for tomorrow so we can finally move in :)

 Upstairs Bedroom 1

Upstairs Bedroom 2

Upstairs hallway/ office nook

The dogs were really sad that we wouldn't let them inside- but they are dirty and my house looks so new and clean!

Front porch: hopefully in the future I can sit here in the rocking chair and drink mint juleps.



Almost ready to move in!

Stopped by the house this evening, it's looking good! Hopefully I can at least move in our bedroom set this weekend ;)

Living room

Master bedroom

Entry way

The carpet is being installed right now in the bedrooms upstairs. Hopefully it looks as nice as the main floor! 

Fungal Invasion Eradication

Yeah, so the basement had a nasty bout of "fungal growth" aka it was moldy. Really moldy. The carpet, walls and ceiling tiles had to go. I figured the first thing to do to get rid of this nasty problem was to get a kick-butt team together. I enlisted the help of Sydney and Stacy- the most available hardcore girls I know!

You ladies have sledge-hammers and hatchets? You're hired! Look at those hardcore destruction faces!

Safety first in the Hatcher Household! We all wore super sweaty eye-pro and masks!

Stacy getting rid of the ceiling tiles.

 



Thumbs-up for mold!

The carpet is gross, too.

Who needs walls or closets? Not when they are full of fungus!

Looking good. The hardest part was getting the wallpaper paste off the cement wall.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL783wT8_gg

In this short video, Stacy kicks down the closet!

 

 

We had a great time. Tearing up floors and walls makes for good stress release. Maybe someday we will have a party where we re-finish the basement, but for now the Hatcher House is going to have an unfinished basement- which is fine by us. Thanks to these wonderful ladies for helping us get the house in livable condition!

DayTwo!

The walls are primed and ready to go! Can't wait to see how it looks painted Sherwin Williams "Agreeable Gray". I know, we're so boring, but keep in mind we are selling this house in a couple years!

Also, huge shout out to my FANTASTIC realtor, Sydney Williamson! She held my hand through the whole house searching/buying process! I couldn't have done any of it without her. Plus, she had this cute Edible Arrangement delivered to my work :) I ate it all for dinner. Oops. Working on a new house doesn't leave much time for cooking dinner!

Thanks, Sydney!

Day One!

Today feels a little like Christmas, with a 1,700 square foot present!

The guys working on our house are off to a great start! They were hitting it bright and early this morning, very impressed!

Living room- they're all set up!

   

Dining room. Maybe we should keep it gothic themed? J/K!

 

 

 

After I was out of work I started cleaning out the garage! I took a few things over to the house, and I found a few surprises! 

I cleaned out Husband's side of the garage. He'll be so happy his precious car is one of the first things in the new house!

I found approximately a MILLION of these super scary cave crickets (rhaphidophoridae - even the name sounds scary!). They are giant and jump out at your face. I used my shop-vac (aka the best present we ever got!) and sucked those bad boys up!

I got a little sentimental and put down the welcome mat! This is a housewarming present from our friends- thanks to the O'Rourkes! It's like every theme I love wrapped up into one item: birds, birdcage, bicycle, blue, and chevron!

 

After a few hours of cleaning I decided it was time to eat Mexican food for dinner  pick out the flooring and carpet. Luckily my pooch helped us make the decision easier. We decided that the lighter color flooring just blends in with her fur, so darker brown it is! Now she will "pop" anywhere she lays down :) 

She's tired after a long day playing in her new backyard, what a spoiled pup!

 

It's a relief to finally be working on the house. Today was so much fun, I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings!

The Hatchers are Homeowners!

The deed has been done, folks! We are homeowners! Of course we don't want to be like everyone else and buy a nice new house. Not the Hatchers! We like to make things a little complicated, so we bought a foreclosure: a run-down vacant moldy house. Now the challenge is to make this unloved house a home!

The whole process of buying the house has been a headache (see previous posts!) This morning before we closed was no exception! Our bank called and said because our down payment was more than $10,000, they wouldn’t wire it unless I was there in person (small geographical problem of 700 miles between me and the bank!). This was a huge fail on their part because I called for all the specifics of a wire transfer last week and the gentleman at the call center neglected to tell me that juicy tidbit (I’ve never wired money! I've only seen rich guys do it in movies!).  Luckily after a few hours (and a few tears on my end) the bank decided they could overnight a cashier’s check to the title company (how this is any different I still don’t know!). I have to give them props for owning up to their mistake.

Luckily this is all behind us now. What lies ahead? Some holey carpet, a broken window, a rusted water heater, a broken dishwasher, a falling off rotting deck, and whatever else we find along the way! Stay tuned as we blunder our way through homeownership!

Tomorrow's the Day!

I can't wait to finally make this house ours! Closing is still set for tomorrow. Here's a video tour of the house, please forgive the unsteady hand and expletives, I made this video for Husband (who has still never set eyes on the house!).
Hatcher House Video

Closing!

Closing has been scheduled for Monday (10/21/2013). After a few delays, it's finally happening! The latest stupidity had more to do with the government shutdown than anything else. We had to file exemptions because the mortgage company couldn't get our tax transcripts (IRS was closed!). We also had to make some minor repairs to bring the house up to "average" conditions, the only lenders open during the shutdown won't lend if the house is below average. I just wanted to slap my forehead and say, "Duh! It's a foreclosure, of course it's below average!" There were some holes in the carpet making it "below average". I went in there and did a half-assed job repairing the carpet with a 2' linear strip of cheap blue carpet from Lowe's. The guy in the carpet section judged me HARD. "What are you doing with 2 feet of carpet?" he said in a judgey-judge voice. I was having a stressful day and I thought of a couple different things I could tell him I was doing with the carpet, but I was cordial.
I must have done an ok job, because when the appraiser came back in she deemed it "average". Riiiight! But whatever makes these people happy. I need the loan so I'll just keep jumping through hoops!
My contractor has been as itchy as I have to get started on the house. He'll be in there Tuesday to start painting! This thing is finally getting started!

Delay

We were originally supposed to close on the house on 09/30/2013. That quickly changed to 10/07/2013 when some unexpected issues popped up. Apparently the appraiser didn't like our "fungal invasion". They wanted to send in an expert to check it out. Do we really need a health inspector?! I think the house did pretty well considering that it was shut up during the hot, humid months of a Tennessee summer with a broken window in the basement. I think a little bit of mildew is acceptable in this case! The mildew is all gone now. After knocking out a couple walls, all the ceiling tiles and carpet in the basement plus a gallon of bleach - it's as good as new!
Fingers crossed for closing on Monday!

No worries! It's all gone now ;)

Love is all you need!

Well, this house needs a little more than love. It needs some paint, some rotted wood replaced, all new flooring, and a new kitchen. Oh, and it needs all the fungal growth (dare I say, mold!) removed from the floors, walls, and ceiling in the basement. But I am getting ahead of myself.

I looked at this house with my realtor friend a day after it had been put on the market. It is so cute from the outside! It sits on 0.6 acres, 2 car garage and a back porch. The price tag was even better! Where do I sign?!! As you walk inside things get a bit scarier. You get hit with the dank unused smell. The carpets are atrocious and the basement door has been kicked in. My friend says this is great condition for a foreclosure. But to me it is scary. Oh so scary. Walking into the basement did nothing to settle my fears. Using the light on her iPhone she spins around and beams the light on the walls saying, "mold" to the floors, "mold", to the ceiling, "mold".

Despite it's ragged appearance I can't help but falling in love with this little cape cod style house on a quiet little street. I want it.

It wasn't hard to talk Husband into buying the house. He was sold when I said, "fenced in backyard for the dog". Three days later I was putting in an offer on the house. Apparently, so were two other people. This was only its fourth day on the market! I guess we weren't the only ones who thought this house was a great deal!

It took another five days to find out if we got the house or not. I got a call on Saturday afternoon that we had put in the best offer- the house was ours! I was so relieved and then instantly terrified. Husband was out of the country so I had to wait hours to get an email back from him, but his words made it all seem okay, "Omg Shayna, I am so ready to be with you in our house". OMG, I am so ready, too!