I've Got Carpet!!!

The house is starting to look like a home!!!  Well, sort of...

I have flooring in two rooms out of the 10 or so to do!!!  But, hey, it's a step in the right direction!  The carpet guys came yesterday, so the first thing I had to do, of course, was check out their work when I got home!

It looks great!  I like the color.  It's neutral but trendy.  And it's dark enough to hide any stains that may appear!

The bedroom as I bought the house.





And After!  New paint and carpet!



The bedroom as I bought the house.

And After!  New paint and carpet!

Little by little!

I swung by the house to check out the new carpet once I landed from work, and I decided to fix the unlit light bulb in my garage door opener.  I had installed one a little over a week ago, and I remember a "fizzing" sound upon installation, but it lit up and worked fine.  Well, the bulb was pulsating today, so I decided to get up there and take a look.  Agh!!!  The socket was fried!  As in charred!  It had obviously been arcing (hence the sound from when I installed it) for some time, and it was just fried.  I unhooked the charred black wire and removed the socket.  I'm not sure if I can find a replacement part for this or not, but it's no good as-is!  It's a small problem...but yet another in the list of foreclosure repair!  Yikes!

I also received my first bid from a contractor today for the work on the subfloors.  He came in surprisingly low at $2250, but he made it abundantly clear that this is a "base bid" and does not include any surprises they may find.  I hate the idea of that..."$2250 is the lowest and infinity is the highest," but I get what he is saying.  He simply won't know what he is dealing with until  he takes out the doors.

The good news is that DOES include two new doors (one for the upstairs Master Bedroom, one for the garage), but it does not include a new patio door or front door (the two most expensive).  But I like the fact that he is trying to salvage them and use them again.  It's much appreciated!

So let's say the doors both need replaced.  Then I'm looking at closer to $4000.  It's still a number I am "pleased" with.  I don't like spending money, but, wow, this house is in some need of some work!

As if to encourage me to get the job done right, I walked by my French doors while we had a light rain this morning, and I saw this:

An active water leak from a very light rain this morning.

Yes, I get it.  I need the doors and floors replaced!

I asked for references, and I literally spent over 29 minutes on the phone with a gentleman who just had similar work completed for him by this contractor.  He rated him an A- to B+ on quality and an A on value.  He says the contractor is a hard worker, though better at rough construction than finish construction (he is a go-getter and works too fast for the tedious and patience-required finish work), and that he would definitely use him again.  But he told me to make absolutely sure that I laid everything out in writing up front (a request from the contractor, too).  Frankly, I am shocked at the price (and very relieved), but the gentleman asked me what I was quoted at, and he said he had a similar price of $2800 for the work done on his home.  And he said that in his shopping around, the prices ranged from $2800 to $3450 to $5600 for the same work from three different contractors!  Being pleased with the work, he said one would just be paying for the fancy truck you see drive up with other contractors.  (I chuckled, because I took note of the 1989 Chevrolet 1500 that the contractor drove up in...it's almost identical to my 1991...down to the two-tone colors!).  Don't judge a book by its cover!

I am definitely going to wait for one last contractor (the one I like the most) to made a bid, too, but I think he is going to come in significantly higher.  This contractor that I am waiting on has certainly shown the most interest (he has visited the home three times), and I like the fact that he is not wanting to make a "guesstimate" bid.  But I just get the hunch that he might be the "$5600" bid.  I'll just have to make that decision when it comes.

In some other news, I had the home inspection done on my house this morning.  So I am eager to see what they found (and how much I will have to fix or credit towards the new owner).  And I went shopping for more hardwood floors today.  Dad and I talked extensively about hardwood vs. carpet again, and I have concluded that hardwood is going to be the best for resale.  Carpet makes the house look nice, but hardwood actually increases the value of your home (think higher appraisal).  I like it, too.  And with the first bid coming in, I can put hardwood floors in under budget again!  (I spent my first flight this morning updating my spreadsheet to see where I stood with various bid-range possibilities!).

But I also realized that the flooring I chose was cheaply made!  I walked into a flooring store in New York this past week and said, "Hi, guys.  I'm from Illinois, so I'm just going to start out by saying you are not going to sell me anything.  Now, with that said, can I ask you some very specific questions about what to look for when choosing hardwood or engineered hardwood"?  And the sales reps did not disappoint!  As a matter of fact, after overhearing my conversation, the owner of 35 years came out and showed me the "secrets" when choosing what to buy!  Once they realized they had nothing to gain from me, they could have shooed me out the door, but instead they divulged everything!  I actually couldn't get the guy to shut up!  It was great!  To keep it simple, it all comes down to the "wear layer" on top of your engineered flooring.



It's all about the wear layer.  My piece I had chosen last week was definitely like the bottom!!!

So I brought that knowledge back to my house here, and I checked out the "wear layer" on the piece of engineered hardwood that I had chosen.  Sure enough, it was razor thin (think cheap).  Basically, your wear layer is the thickness of the wood (the non-plywood-portion) of your floor.  It tells you how much it can be sanded before getting down to the support wood.  Solid floors can be sanded 5-7 times in their life (think 100 year flooring) vs. engineered which is 3-5 times for high-quality and 1-3 times for low-quality.

So with renewed vigor, Mom and I went hardwood shopping and Thanksgiving Day food shopping, and I quickly learned the difference between cheap and quality.  It's quite simply the difference between cheap and expensive!  By asking for a better wear layer piece, the prices more than doubled!  No joke!  My floor went from $2.99/square foot to $6.12/square foot with the thicker layer!  Ouch!

So then I started thinking:  How long would a wood floor go before you sanded?  And I'm thinking at least 25 years.  So even though I chose the lower-quality floor, I'm not so sure it really matters.  I'm not going to be sanding anyway!  And if it looks the same?  Why pay double?!

Maybe that thin wear layer isn't so bad after all...

Who knew shopping for floors could be so complex?!

In other news, I had a minor setback on the paint.  Mom had sent me a picture of the upstairs hallway bathroom showing me the color I had picked out.  In my mind, the color was "sky blue."  But once on the walls...ouch!  It was horrendously ugly!  It was a mix of sky blue and Miami Dolphins teal!  It was gross!  I'll have to kindly ask my painter to repaint!  agh!

The picture doesn't do it justice...but the color is actually disgusting!  It's gotta go before the second coat.

No work for a couple of days on the house!  It's time to celebrate Thanksgiving with family!!!

The plan is to start moving in most of my stuff on Friday and Saturday, though, now that I have two carpeted rooms to put stuff in!  It's exciting!