Friesians & Fried Kool-aid

Hello all,

So I know I've disappeared for a while. With Andrew losing his job and us pulling out of the house deal I've kind of shifted my focus to family and supporting my husband in this difficult time. We were able to get out of the contract on the house with most of our money. The only money we were unable to get back was the $395 that was paid for the appraisal done by our lender. Having Andrew home a lot more has been good in some ways. I think this is the most caught up on dirty dishes we have ever been. Every dish gets washed daily. It is fantastic! Andrew has also been listing items on craigslist and going through stuff to see what we can get rid of. He has also cleaned up a lot of other places that get overlooked during the day to day cleaning, like the top of the fridge or the nook where we store extra toilet paper, Kleenex and paper towels.

So this post is a little late but we had planned prior to Andrew losing his job for us to make the trip up to The Big E in Massachusetts. Well that trip was planned for the day after we received the bad news. We decided to go ahead with our plan since we had already paid for the tickets. For those of you who don't know what the Big E is, I'll fill you in. It is a whole lot of Awesome!! The Big E is a large fair that is for all of New England. There are rides, 4H competitions, tons of booths with home products for sale, a horse show, FOOD and of course the State Houses. There is one State House for each of the states in New England. Each building is full of items that come from that state.

Every year we try to go when the Friesian horses are at the horse show. My horse Rhia's daddy was a Friesian. I never got to meet him but I bet he was as beautiful as this one.

Rhia's tail can get this long if I keep it braided up when she is outside, but for some reason I have never been able to get her mane to grow any longer. I love watching the Friesians, Morgans and Saddlebreds. The horses that compete at the Big E are some of the nicest I've ever seen in person.

They also have two sets of Clydesdales. One the traditional Budweiser Clydesdales and the other set is the Halmore Clydesdales. I didn't get any pictures of the Budweiser horses but Andrew took some of the Halmores. Here they are getting hooked up for the daily Mardi Gras parade.

And now for a few pictures of the the parade floats.

Yes the people on the floats are throwing beads. No you don't have to flash them. Let's move on to the yummiest part of the Big E. The FOOD!! We have our usual stops. Corn on the cob in New Hampshire, baked potatoes in Maine, whoopie pies in Maine. Then there is this one food truck that sells yummy chicken pitas. This year we decided to try something new - fried pickles. They were so yummy. Andrew was skeptical but he like them too.

 Last year the new item we tried was fried kool-aid. It is like fried dough with cherry kool-aid mixed in. They are the best when they are fresh and still warm, Delicious!!!

We decided to get the fried kool-aid just be for we left for the night. A great way to end the night. I can't wait to go again next year.

Life's Little Surprises - The Bad Kind

So just when everything seems to be going our way - Life decides to throw a few wrenches into the plans.

We were originally under contract to close on the Pearl on October 5th. However, the appraiser was taking his sweet time getting the appraisal to us. Well the appraiser got back to us and as you know from this post we had a little issue with a leaky roof.

Well right before we heard from the appraiser, my husband called me with some super sucky news. He lost his job!



That's right. His company had decided to change some things up and they were eliminating some positions. Lucky us, his position was one of them. So now we had to figure out what to do. We knew the bank wouldn't lend us the money without both of us having a job. There was a slight chance that if he found a new job that paid the same or more that we could still get the loan, but then he had to have 30 days of pay stubs for the bank to approve the loan.

Then the seller's agent said we could bring out a licensed roofer to get the roof certified. Yeah so I called a roofer - they wanted $250 to come out and certify the roof. Well the problem with that is we didn't want to spend anymore money on a house we might not end up being able to buy. We had no idea how long it was going to take to find my husband a job. Since the roof had already leaked once it was unlikely the roofer would certify it, which means the roof would need to be fixed. From what we know about the roof it would probably end up being a totally strip and re-roof job. We can't afford to add that onto the purchase price and we highly doubted that the bank would pay for it.

So we had a big decision to make. Keep fighting to buy this house or walk away due to job loss and get our deposit back. We chose the later. I won't lie, I was really upset but it is probably for the best. There is a chance that Andrew will find a job in the complete opposite direction from where his old job was located, which would then make it pointless to buy this house. Also, Andrew may find a job that pays better, which then means we could buy a nicer house that would need less work.

For now we're staying in our current apartment and maybe if we are lucky we can start house hunting again next year. Hopefully the market will still be buyer friendly and the rates will still be low.

I really wanted to make sure we take a moment to thank all our friends and family who have been very supportive in this tough time. You all have been great and we don't know what we would do without you.

September Showers & September Flowers

So sometimes things work out the way you want and then other times things start to fall apart.

We have run into a bit of a problem with the house purchase. We finally got our appraisal report that our lender ordered. There are a few issues that the lender wants fixed before closing. However, because of the possible scope of the issues I have a feeling that the seller won't want to pay to fix them and we can't afford to raise our purchase price.

The issues are Chipped Paint and Roof Issues. The chipped paint is spread out all over the exterior of the house. I knew the property was going to need to be painted but I was thinking it was something we could either just touch-up for now or do a complete paint job next year. Check out the chippy goodness on the front of the garage.

But the lender requires the chippyness be taken care of prior to closing. I'm not sure to what extent this needs to be repaired maybe the seller can just hit the spots with a power washer and then touch-up the paint. If that is the case then it the seller may agree.

The roof issues are a totally different problem. We knew the roof was old but we were hoping that we could put off replacing it for a few years.

Totally not the case. It has been something like 3 weeks since the last time we walked through the house and it appears there has been some damage. The appraiser found water damage on the ceiling in one of the rooms on the 2nd floor. It seems that the roof has either just started leaking or has been leaking and has traveled from the attic through the insulation and ruined the ceiling. Our lender is requiring that a licensed roofer come in and certify the roof (it can't be in fair condition) and any water damage from the leak must be repaired. Since the roof was leaking I find it unlikely that a licensed roofer will certify that roof. I would think that it is going to need some repairs if not a complete overhaul. This is the situation that the hubby and I don't think that the seller will agree to. But maybe we'll get lucky and get an all new roof. More than likely I would think that no matter who buys this house that the seller would have to make the same repairs. The only way around it might be if they get a cash buyer or someone with renovation loan.


On a much happier note tomorrow is my birthday! And my sweet husband bought me some flowers today.

He was going to wait until tomorrow but he was afraid that they would die if we didn't put them into water today. Instead of going with the usual roses; he decided to get me green hydrangea, which were one of the flowers we used in our wedding.

It was such a surprise and super sweet. I love him so much. I have another post that will be coming up in the next few days hopefully. I'm writing a list of 30 things we'd like to do before we turn 30. I'm turning 27 this month and Andrew will be 27 in December. We thought about each doing our on lists but figured if we wanted to list things that we felt were actually attainable, so we decided to do a combined list.

Blog Re-Design

Soooooo, I liked my green and brown layout but it just didn't seem very professional and looked messy. For some reason it just seemed kind of cheap looking. So after putting it off for several months I finally decided to do something about it. I decided to switch to a white background for the main part of the blog to give it a cleaner look. The biggest change other than the color palette is the new header. I wanted to make it more personal and not just a line of text.

I am in love with this new look. The scrolling pattern in the header is almost identical to the pattern we had on our wedding invites and our wedding cake. I've also finally added an About Us tab. I hope you love the new design as much as I do.

OMG! Who puts that in a bathroom?

So you have seen the outside of The Pearl, our house-to-be. Now let's discuss the first room that we will have to remodel, the full bathroom. We have two bathrooms - the first floor full bath and the second floor half bath. Well the first floor bath needs some lovin'. I don't know what the previous owners were thinking when they did this bathroom. There are a few things that tell me that it was most likely an older person or couple who lived here. The 50's tile and there are a couple of safety bars to help you get in and out of the tub and off the toilet. Please prepare yourself this is about to get weird and ugly.




That's right - we have wood shingles on the walls surrounding our bathtub. We have the lovely 50's pink and black tile. And we have floral wall paper on the upper half of the bathroom walls. The floors were originally a lovely yellowy green color. Who in the world thought that these were good color combinations?! Thankfully the bank laid new linoleum so that at least is in good shape and is pretty neutral so we'll keep it for now.

Let's not forget the brown trim. I didn't get a good picture of the vanity and mirror & light setup but let me tell you that needs work too. So our first thing that needs to be looked at is the bathtub surround. It's grosssssss! Sure people put wood shingles on the outside of the house but that doesn't mean they are a good idea for the shower.

We have no idea what is behind them. I'm pretty sure some water has gotten back there so when we open it up we'll probably find some mold. Wes, our contractor said he wants to pull everything out of there but I want to see how much we can keep until we save up a bit of money. The only thing that we will probably keep permanently is the actual tub. It seems to be in good shape so there is no reason to replace it even if it is an off-white almondy color and I would prefer white. Maybe we will consider refinishing it one day. The vanity may stay too and I can just paint the base a chocolate brown or something. The toilet seems to run a little every so often so we'll need to take a look at that to see if it can be fixed or if we need to buy a new one. I'd like to put off tearing out all the walls down to the studs but if water has gotten behind the pink tile that meets the tub, then the plaster or sheetrock behind there will probably have a mold issue. Now let's talk about some of the things I would love to see in here.

The Shower/Tub
Buy a prefab surround from somewhere like Home Depot or Lowes.

Aqua Glass 60 in. x 32 in . Eleganza Bathtub Wall Set in White - $198

A tiled shower wall would look great but I have a feeling it might just not bee in the budget. The prefab surrounds usually come in three pieces and can either be applied directly to the studs or to cement board. And they can be pretty cheap. I've seen some as low as $50. They have some fancier ones that will run you $1,300+. But who really wants to pay that much for a prefab wall when you could probably do tile for that.

The Walls
For the walls I'm thinking I'd love to get rid of all the pink and black tile & floral wallpaper and replace it with beadboard & paint. I've seen a less expensive option with that same look floating around the blogosphere - beadboard wall paper. It has all the texture of true beadboard but it is so much cheaper. I love to see it around the lower half of the bathroom and painted bright white.

Martha Stewart Living 1 Double Roll (Covers 56 square ft.) Beadboard Paintable Wallpaper - $24.98

I think I'm leaning toward a green color for the upper part of the walls. I want something that is kind of sagey green but still light and bright. So we'll probably go with something like this.

Sherwin Williams - Cascade Green

We won't be able to do all of these things right away. We'll have to slowly work our way through it when we have the money. The only reason things would get pushed quicker than anticipated is if we find some major water/mold damage behind the walls of the tub and the tile. One other thing that will need to be considered is ventilation. There is no fan currently in this bathroom. Because of the moisture build-up we definitely have some surface mold on the ceiling that will need to be cleaned up. So now I'll have to do some research to see what our options are.

We're Buying a House

That's right. The secret I've been talking about is us buying our first house. I've been afraid to tell too many people and end up having us not get it. Well.... We are under contract for this beauty!!!! From now on I'm going to refer to her as the Pearl. I have two reasons for this. One she is on Pearl Street and two even though she is a bit rough and ugly on the surface I feel there is something beautiful inside, just like an oyster. We just have to take the time to polish her and make the home she can really be.

She isn't the most updated of homes. Yes, there is wood paneling and pink bathroom tile but hey that just means more projects for my to blog about and that is part of the reason why we are getting such a good deal. Of course those projects are going to be slow going since the house will be monopolizing most of our money.

The Pearl was built in 1882 and has 2-3 bedrooms and 1.5 bathrooms. There are 7 rooms total not counting the bathrooms. There are something like 8 closets in this house. For such an old house that is pretty amazing. The kitchen has so many cabinets, I'm not even sure we have enough stuff to fill them. Plus there is a big kitchen pantry cabinet. Another fabulous feature... The Laundry Room is on the first floor!!! The basement is made up of two rooms and is unfinished. One room has a work bench, some cabinets and a sink - All great for blog projects. The other room has the oil tank and a couple cabinets.
First Floor Rooms: Living Room, Dining Room, Office, Kitchen and Laundry Room/Full Bathroom.
Second Floor Rooms: 2 Bedrooms, another Bedroom or Family Room and Half Bath
Outside we have a 1 car detached garage and what the listing calls a shed. We are pretty sure that the shed was used as a chicken coop. We also have this beautiful brick fireplace/grill. I can just see some chairs set up around it and a nice fire going on a perfect Summer night.

The Pearl is a Fannie Mae Foreclosure and had been only on the market for like a week when we looked at it and made our first offer back on July 26th. I figured we would negotiate and offer and be able to have the inspector go through during that week we were on vacation. SO NOT THE CASE!

We went back and forth several times but were unable to reach an agreement. Part of the problem is we started quite low and it was new to the market. Fannie Mae has what they call their First Look program, which is where only Owner Occupants can bid on the house during the first 15 days that the property is listed. Well, Fannie Mae was reluctant to come so far down even though we were the only people who had shown any interest in the property. They seemed to believe that they would be able to sell it for more once the bidding was opened to investors who might want to buy the property and flip it. I thought this was unlikely because the amount of work an investor would need to do to this house in order to flip it would completely eat up their profits. So on August 3rd both the Fannie Mae and us said, "Hey these are our final offers." Neither of us liked the other's offer. So we decided to walk away. I stalked the house (yes my husband calls me a house stalker) for 2 weeks and our realtor reached out to their's to see if there had been any interest, especially now that it was open to investors. Nope nothing! So, on August 16th, the listing's 1 month mark, we resubmitted and offer lower than our final offer from the first set of negotiations. No response prior to the weekend, but I decided to go online on Sunday and look at the listing, I told you I'm a house stalker, and found out that Fannie Mae had dropped the price on the property by $13,000. The new list price was still higher than any of our offers. But were surprised they had dropped the price and not yet responded to our offer. Our realtor and their's figured we would have and answer on Monday. And we did. But not until like 5:30 pm. They countered with the same offer we had made as our final offer before, except they sweetened the deal by agreeing to close off the door to no where.

You see there is a door on the back of the house on the second floor that has a small deck but no railing or stairs. We have no need for the door and it is a major safety issue so something would have to be done prior to closing because the bank won't allow it. Fannie Mae has agreed to remove the door and close it off.

So needless to say we accepted their counter, signed the papers and now our next step is Inspection! Hopefully, the inspector doesn't find any major issues because we don't have extra money for major repairs and the bank won't fix anything unless we add the cost onto the purchase price. The only thing we are thinking might need to be done is the furnace. It is old and Andrew is pretty sure there was a crack across the top and a piece of metal missing. I'm a little worried about the roof because I've seen some spots that look kind of rough on the garage and the enclosed porch.

So I'll keep you guys updated. I'm expecting to have our inspection this coming week. We have a 10 day window once both us and Fannie Mae has signed the papers to do the inspection or we are in breach of the contract. We are also going to have my mom's contractor go through it so he and point out things too and give us an idea how much they will cost to fix/update when we have the money.

A Lighthouse and Pumpkins

Sometimes things can just be so frustrating. I really want to share with you all what has been going on in our life but I'm so afraid of jinxing things. I've had things that I've really wanted to go a certain way in the past and I went around telling everybody about it. But then big surprise things didn't work out. So this time I'm keeping it a secret.

In other news, I finally got our desktop computer set up while we were on vacation and have loaded Creative Suite 3 to it. Yes, I know it isn't the most up-to-date version of Adobe CS but it was free. I can always buy the upgrade package. Not cheap by any means but $600 for an upgrade is a whole lot cheaper than the $1,800 for buying it brand new. For those who might not know what Adobe CS is, it is the best program for a Graphic Artist. Mine is the Design Standard version which includes Photoshop, InDesign and Illustrator. Photoshop is one of the best programs for editing photos and can also be used to design ads. InDesign is a page layout program that is great for creating mutli-page files. Examples: Newsletters, Magazines and even proposals. The program I am least familiar with is Illustrator. I've used it to edit PDFs but you can't do that on every PDF. It only works on files that aren't locked. One of the main uses that I know of for Illustrator is creating logos. Illustrator can create vector art. What is the benefit of vector art? If you try making a logo in Photoshop and save it as a jpeg, you will only be able to resize the file so much before the image gets blurry and pixelated. With vector art you can blow the image up huge and not have to worry. I think that covers most of that without getting too technical.

While on vacation we decided to visit Block Island, RI. This is our second trip there. We went last year and rented bikes so we could visit the Southern lighthouse. However, after that exhausting trip we were too tired to head up to the Northern Light. So the plan this year was to visit Northern Light. Luckily, my Mother-in-Law and her boyfriend got a voucher for a 2 hour 2 person moped rental that they weren't going to use. We took pictures of us on the moped separately but I rode behind Andrew.

 

After making the trip on the moped I'm glad we had that instead of bikes. It was quite a ride and I don't think we could have handled pedalling all the way on bikes.

This is the view from the parking lot looking at Northern Light and the path we needed to walk.

The moped was a blast! The walk from the parking lot to the Northern Light was exhausting. It was all through sand and took probably a half hour one way. But it was so worth it.

Northern Light on Block Island

Front of Northern Light

Andrew & I - That's right my man has long arms and can take awesome photos of us!

On the ferry trip home, one of the water jets on the boat sucked up the buoy of a lobster pot and we were stuck for 20 minutes or so while we waited for them to clear the jet. But we didn't mind too much because we were watching the Olympics instead.


Then last weekend, Andrew and I decided to make a trip to HomeGoods to see what they had on Clearance for bedroom sheets. Why HomeGoods well that is where we got some of our other sheet sets came from. They were Andrew's before we moved in together. Something some of you may not know is Andrew's first job was at HomeGoods. He worked there for 5 years. Well while we were there I decided to take a few pictures of things I liked and wished we could have bought.

Beautiful Gray Cake Stand

I almost bought this cake stand. It was only $12.99. It was so pretty but I decided not to. Then I found these adorable pumpkins. The white crackle finish one was $12.99 and the ORB (Oil Rubbed Bronze) one was only like $9. Again I really wanted them but decided to pass. I loved how the leaf and stem on the white pumpkin matched the second one. The only thing that would have made it better was if the ORB'ed pumpkin was smaller than the white one.

The following pictures were from a HomeGoods trip a few months ago. I just never got around to downloading them off my phone.

I love almost anything with Giraffes. I considered buying this cute statue but I didn't like how the heads were made of plastic and just kind of stuck on there.

Who doesn't love a giant ceramic horse head that looks like the knight from a chess set? This guy was at least a foot tall, if not bigger.

And lastly, this cabinet was just gorgeous. The wood was nice and dark and looked slightly aged. Of course it would be way more than any shopping budget that we would ever have. I also like the trunks in front of it with burlap like material on them and leather handles.

Oh and half of the post had no pictures because blogger wouldn't load my files anymore for some reason. I tried following the troubleshooting suggestions but that didn't work so I switched browsers. I started writing this post in Internet Explorer because that was the only browser on our new desktop. But I prefer Google Chrome or FireFox, so I downloaded Chrome and now it works fine. Stupid Internet Explorer.

Anybody else take a great trip lately? Or maybe you have done some window shopping too.