Another good showing...

Well...it was another good showing last night!  Jim and I were a little apprehensive about this one - this realtor has sold some of the million dollar homes behind us and we were afraid she might have a snobby-type attitude about our humble home.  But...she brought in a young couple, no kids, and they all loved it!  The guy was funny - he kept saying, "I'm having heart palpitations!" when he was looking at things.  They seemed to love all the quality and details in the house, loved the kitchen and library, and seemed very excited.  Not sure if it will lead to anything, but it seemed a good fit and we were happy to have yet another good showing.  Really, we've had 3 serious people come through and all 3 have said nothing but glowing things.

They were here well over an hour last night - it was after 8:30 by the time they left.  So Jim and I headed to what is becoming our traditional debriefing place - the Mexican restaurant on the hill. 

Never did hear back from the guy who called and was going to have his realtor call.  And we're waiting to hear back from the guy who was here this weekend about when he wants to bring his wife through.  I'm assuming the realtor will call to set that up but not sure.

Meanwhile...door factory continues to be in full operation.  This is the little access door to the linen closet from the main bathroom.  Jim put this thumb pull in which I really like - plus it matches the pulls in the kitchen too.  His closet doors are all made and assembled - I just picked up some new hinges; he'll get those all mortised in and then start the staining process.

Bathroom access door - check out cool thumb pull!

Weekend update...

It was a busy weekend.  We had no choice but to regroup after the "no" on our house Thursday night, and regroup we did.  Jim is heavy into the door making business again - these are the closet doors for his office.



Door factory

Then Friday night I got a call that a realtor wanted to bring someone through on Sunday morning from 9:30-10:30.  After inwardly groaning at that time frame, I said sure.  I like to have everything spiffy before people come and Sunday morning is our down time - pecan pancakes, classical music, reading the paper, Jim works on his computer.  But this is business!  So I made sure that the house was clean Saturday and we kept with our routines as much as possible...spaghetti on Saturday night and pancakes in the morning.  Just maybe a little earlier and then scurrying to get everything cleaned up! 

The potential buyer was a gentleman who was relocating from Florida.  After our last interest, I told Jim that I thought the perfect buyer would have one high school student.  And that's what he has!  Well...he has an older one on his own and a daughter in college, but then a 16 year old.  Perfect!  The realtor told us ahead of time that they were kind of on a tight time schedule - in fact, she canceled one appointment while she was here.  But they still spent over a half hour here and both seemed to love it.  Said very nice things all the way through the tour.  The guy works on cars so was especially interested in the pole barn. 

We felt encouraged after he left.  I told Jim to savor all the wonderful comments people say about his craftsmanship, attention to detail, and what a gorgeous home this is.

About an hour later, I got a phone call from this guy that he was done with the realtor and wanted to know if he could come back and spend a little more time going through the house - sure!  This time, he looked at everything and Jim went over lots of details.  He opened every closet, went up in all the attics, asked lots of questions.  He told us that his wife had been up before and they hadn't found anything they like, so she wasn't coming until he found something good.  He said his wife was a quilter and told him she wanted a sewing room.  He also said that she didn't have as many books as I did but not too far off.  (Hmm...check and check!)  He stayed about an hour and a half.

Then it was back to work - Jim was back working on doors and getting the wood ready to start making the bi fold closet doors in my room.  I spent a little time in the afternoon power washing more of the driveway.  We're about 100' short of hose to finish the rest so we may have to hit up a neighbor to get the rest done.  This weekend felt more like fall...temps were in the high 60s.  Strange for late July but okay by me!  Maybe we can recoup some of the air conditioning bills back in June when it was 90 for days on end!

This morning, I got another call from the guy who came through the house yesterday.  He said his wife was coming up this weekend and he wanted to know if we would be available for them to see the house again.  Yes!  So that's exciting news.  We feel like he must be serious about the house in order to bring her up so we are cautiously optimistic.

While I was running errands today, I got a call from a guy who picked up a brochure.  He asked the price and then wanted to know if we would work with a realtor.  I told him yes and he said his realtor would call to make an appointment.  No one has called yet but still, that's encouraging also.

We have another realtor bringing someone through tomorrow evening, so tomorrow I'll spend more time cleaning and getting things ready.  Fingers crossed!

Disappointment...

Life continues as normal around here...trying to work on that to do list, although it is getting smaller which is encouraging.  Yesterday, Jim got all the ductwork finished and all insulated in the attic for the venting he did a couple weeks ago.  Thankfully, the weather has been cooler these past couple days but still gets warm in the attic.

Ductwork for venting

Then in the afternoon, I got a voice mail on my cell phone about 5:00 from the couple that came through our house on Tuesday.  He didn't leave a message other than to say to call him back.  When Jim did (I was too nervous!), he just got his voice mail so then we had to play the waiting game.  We had convinced ourselves that he was calling to make an offer so our minds couldn't help but wander to even the next steps after that.  Waiting was torture...he didn't call back until after 7:00.  But then he said that as much as they liked it, with three kids they felt they needed more room.  So disappointing.  And I feel so bad for Jim - so much more so than with a normal house, this feels so much like rejection.  But as in everything else, we have no choice but to take a deep breath and move on.

 

This morning, I emailed the Akron Beacon Journal writer who came here and did the story about the building of this house a few years ago.  At that time, she had told me to let her know if we ever sold the house so I figured I would.  She was very kind and actually put a story about it up on her blog...you can read it here - http://www.ohio.com/blogs/mary-beth.  Or...here's the article...at this point, any publicity is good publicity and you never know where it may lead.

Extreme DIY house for sale

By Mary Beth Breckenridge

Published: July 26, 2013

You'd think building one house by yourself would be an accomplishment to last a lifetime.
Not for Jim May.
Back in 2010, I wrote about the house May built almost singlehandedly, right down to milling the woodwork and building the doors. The project took him more than a decade.
Now he's ready to do it again.
The four-bedroom saltbox house May built in Sharon Township is on the market for $395,000. You can see the listing here.
May and his wife, Sharon, have purchased property in upstate New York, where he plans to build again. The couple intends to blog about the process, which could make for some interesting reading.

 

 



House showing...

It was SO good to see Jim pull in yesterday afternoon - I had missed him terribly!  His trip was successful though, so that's what counts right now. 

The couple came over last night to see the house - they were a lot of fun!  Her husband and Jim were so much alike - he loved all the details that Jim loves to talk about so it was a good match.  They were here over 1-1/2 hours.  They didn't say anything negative at all and seemed to like everything - he especially like the pole barn because he is looking for a place where he can work on cars.  It's hard not to get your hopes up, but it was fun nonetheless.  We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

The realtor who was supposed to bring someone through tonight called and rescheduled until next Tuesday.  Which is okay - I think Jim and I need a recoup night.  I did have someone else call about the house today so at least there's still a little interest.

Yesterday, I ended up going back and forth with the realtor who put the house on the MLS.   A friend emailed me that there was a random kitchen picture in with ours - great.  So I emailed her and it took awhile before she got back to me and said it was fixed.  There are still duplicates of a couple pictures but that's better than random kitchens.  I guess that's what you get when you pay $400.

Jim went into work today to make a little money to pay off some of the trip and tool expenses!  And today feels like fall - yesterday was a weird mix of hot temps, sunshine, hail, torrential downpours - and it's only in the low 70s today.

Starting home...with a couple detours

It was an early morning for Jim.  He had to get up and get breakfast, himself and the apartment ready to leave, take some things to the Corinth storage unit, and then hit the road.  His first stop is to hopefully get the plate compactor - the guy is holding it for him.  He's in eastern PA and has to be at work early this afternoon, so Jim has to get there and be able to look it over and get it loaded before he has to leave. 

Then he'll travel to Altoona PA.  Kind of a nice stop for him because that's where Gram's family is from.  We took the kids there once to see the Horseshoe Curve and see the house where she grew up.  Altoona is fairly close to his next stop which is to look at the forks for the Bobcat.  They are in a shop so they have normal business hours and he'll have to do that Tuesday morning.  So we took advantage of one of our free nights and I got him a room at the Courtyard in Altoona for tonight.  That will delay his coming home until Tuesday, but that's a lot of traveling in the truck and I'll feel better that he'll have a good night's sleep and not quite so far to come back tomorrow.

Last I heard from him, he already had about 120 miles behind him.  Hopefully he'll like the compactor when he gets there and all of that will go well.

Well...here's the first new toy...or tool, I mean!  This is the plate compactor.  Jim said it is a highly desirable model and he could easily sell it now and make money.  But he'll put it to good use meanwhile!  After he worked out this deal, he got back on the road and headed towards the next stop.

Plate compactor in the truck

Jim said the trip to where the Bobcat forks were was crazy.  He said the small, winding, steep mountains were really tough - but the truck did great.  He said one road was about a 12% grade for 2 miles!  Most of the afternoon, he didn't have cell service so we didn't talk too much.  But he made it to this place and spent about an hour and half with this guy and his son.  Jim said they had some good stuff and it might be worth a trip back.  But he got the forks and they are on the truck too.  That's good because as of this morning, this guy hadn't returned any emails or calls so Jim wasn't sure what he would find when he got there.

Bobcat forks

So after that, he headed to Altoona and the hotel.  He called me from there and said everything was good.  I know he's beat - hopefully he'll find somewhere good to eat and be able to relax knowing that he accomplished everything he wanted to today!  I'll be glad to see him tomorrow for sure!

Did get another house call - a realtor is bringing someone through on Wednesday night and Nicole called and confirmed that her and her husband would come tomorrow evening.  So fingers crossed!

 

Sunday musings...

It's strange to be home by myself on a Sunday morning - no classical Sunday music playing, no pancakes...no Jim!  I just talked to him and he was heading to Molly's Mason Jar for his cranberry nut pancakes.  He plans on going to the lot today to do some work with the machines.  Sounds like the temps and the humidity have dropped so that's good.

I did have some house news - on my way home from church, a woman called who had just picked up the brochure.  She said they live in Copley but want more room...her husband is into working on cars (hmm...pole barn would be perfect for that!) and they were looking for some place that has a big garage.  They have 3 kids though so we'll see if the house is big enough for them.  She was very nice and said she wanted to get a sitter for the kids so they could look better.  She called me a couple hours later and said they would wait till Jim got home so tentatively Tuesday night.

I think I forgot to mention April...she was the woman who was a "serious buyer" and who came out during the monsoon weather.  She had said she would call and of course never did.  But she had to move that next week so I thought still maybe.  Jim thought I should call and she what she said...so I did - and she hung up on me!  I called back thinking - ha! - maybe we got cut off since we were both on cellphones but it went straight to voicemail.  So much for her Catholic signs and prayers in practically every room!

Jim sent these pictures this afternoon from Angel.  He is working with the Bobcat getting the area ready for the transformer and doing some cleaning.  Guess the undergrowth has really gotten long! He was disappointed though because the battery in the excavator was dead...and of course he left the jumper cables here.  That's what's becoming a difficult part of this process...things are in too many places and sometimes not where you need them!

Gate all delivered!

Getting ready for transformer

Jim plan on starting home tomorrow but is working with a couple people for tools he wants that were advertised on Craig's List.  He found forks he wants for the Bobcat as well as a plate compactor that he's been looking for.  They are both in eastern PA so he may stop to look at both on his way home tomorrow...which may cause a delay in him getting here til Tuesday.

Jim worked on grading the area around the well that he had to notch out for the well drilling equipment.  This first picture is one I took when we were there in June...and the second is the one that Jim just sent me.  Looks beautiful!

 

Before....and after!

 

 

Unloading Day

Jim got into Corinth last night with no issues.  I had gotten an alert on my phone that there was a severe thunderstorm warning in the area.  I talked to him when he had just gotten off the highway and on to Route 29.  He was it was all fine.  But when I talked to him later that evening, he said it started raining not too long after we talked.  When he came into Corinth, he could see lightning above the mountains.  We really have almost mirror weather - we started getting rainy/stormy weather early this morning and it rained for a good part of the morning here.  It cooled things off here but it sounds like it just kind of made things more humid there.

But today was truck unloading day.  I have been really worried about this - he had so much heavy steel, the giant gate, big tools - along with a multitude of misc boxes to unload by himself.  But it sounds like he made really good time.  He just called me about 3:30 and was totally done and heading back to the apartment - that's amazing!  He had to unload at the apartment, the Corinth storage unit, the lot and then drive out to the barn.  So that's a lot of stops and a lot of unloading.  Thankfully it all went well and he doesn't seem worse for the wear.

Meanwhile, I spent part of the morning going back/forth with the realtor who was putting this house on the MLS.  There were some things that I didn't understand - computation of square footage - as well as we wanted the workshop dimensions annotated.  Plus she wanted us to change the amount we would pay a realtor who brought a buyer to us.  So we got all that worked out and hopefully it will be up soon.  She said MLS happens pretty quickly but it takes a little longer to hit some of the other real estate sites like realtor.com.  In the last day, probably 6 brochures have disappeared too.  So that's all good but the phone still isn't ringing!

We did get some good news - we got a document in the mail from National Grid.  We had already filled out and had notarized our easement application paperwork and this was the next step.  They gave us a proposal for what work had to be done and told us how much our portion would be - about $8600.  While that sounds like a lot, we were expecting more in the $11,000 range so we are happy about that.  Once we sign this paper and get it back to them, they'll send us a bill, we'll pay it and then they'll put us on the construction schedule - which will take 4-6 weeks!  Ugh...nothing moves quickly with a big corporation.

I hate going to church separately - as I'm sure Jim does - but we'll both be doing that this evening, so I best get ready.  I'm definitely thankful that all went well for Jim today!

Off to New York!

As is usual, things have been busy around here.  Jim is busy making closet doors.  I feel bad for him - he's constantly going from one job to the next.  The door factory hasn't been operational in awhile, so he has to get up to speed on making them again.  Meanwhile, he's busy sorting and packing things in the pole barn and then packing up the truck.

Door beginnings

Door panels are all stained

Last night, we had a pow wow/strategy session over dinner and a beer.  Although we tell ourselves to not get discouraged about selling the house, it's hard not to.  We decided to take the next step, which was to list it on owners.com.  They have a package where you can put it on the MLS - which hopefully will draw more people than just Zillow has done.  But that process is similar to what a realtor would do for you - without the luxury of a realtor explaining everything to you.  Owners.com connects you with a broker who is your MLS contact person.  She emailed me 16 pages of paperwork that we had to complete.  So we spread all our notes and paperwork out at the restaurant and got most of it figured out.  Jim signed a "good copy" of everything this morning, and then I emailed her and got some answers to a few questions.  Then I copied everything over to our good copy, faxed it all to her, as well as pictures to put in the listing.  Since all that happened late this afternoon, Friday, I'm betting that it won't get up til Monday.

We actually did a little clean up on the truck yesterday.  It was so disgustingly coated with bugs on the front - some were prehistoric, I think.  We had to use chemicals to try and get them off.  But then we washed the front and put a little coat of wax to help with less bugs sticking and maybe get a little more aerodynamic action going.  Jim said they used to have to wax their planes at WPAFB so maybe the truck will be flying along the highway.

Jim hit the road to go to New York a little before noon today.  I hate that I can't go with him and that no one is going to be there to help him unload, but we felt that I should stay here because of the house being on the market.

 

 

Jim hopes to get everything unloaded tomorrow and everything put where it needs to go - land, barn, Corinth storage or apartment - and then have Sunday to do a little work on the lot.  We are still waiting for National Grid to contact us as to when they will put the pole up and need Jim to trench the line.  He's probably going to work on a little trenching - can't do too much or it will fill up with water.

 

On that same note, I spent another hour of my life trying to contact Time Warner.  Last episode of this story, a supervisor was supposed to have someone from the engineering department call Jim and talk to him about the possibilities.  They of course don't like the fact that we are going to be 800 feet off the road.  But no one ever called.  I finally got someone today to say that the order was written up wrong.  He supposedly fixed it and put in an order to have someone from the survey department go to the land and see the possibilities.  They said we don't have to be there but they won't know what we want unless we are there.  But he said that they'll call Jim when that's done and see what needs to be done.  Nothing's easy.

 

As I'm writing this now, it's about 5:30 and Jim is past Rochester so he's making good time.

Gate's done!

Bryan got the gate for the new property back from the powder coating company and we went over to pick it up.  It looks great!  I can't wait to see what it will eventually look like installed.

Wrapping it up for the truck ride!

Jim has the steel forms and now the gate all loaded on the truck (thanks for helping, Mike!).  He's thinking about a trip back to NY at the end of this week.  Not sure how he's going to unload everything once he gets there.  I know he can do it by himself but I worry.  I'll probably have to stay here and see what happens with the house since it's on the market.  We're both getting itchy to just be up there.

 

Meanwhile, Jim has been working on making doors for his closet.  It's getting a little more difficult to do projects around here, because parts, pieces and tools are in NY now!  In fact, Jim had to borrow a router from Bryan to do some door work.



Starting to show the house...

So the first person called Monday and wanted to look at the house on Tuesday evening.  The downside was that she told me upfront that she was a realtor but was looking for a house for her family.  I knew going into it that it wouldn't work - she wanted to know if she could have horses here!  But you never know where it will lead, so we set up a time for her to come.

Which of course threw Jim and I into panic mode.  It's been raining every day for over 2 weeks - broke a record - so lawn work was sorely needed.  He cut the grass, he brought out dirt from the woods and I transplanted some pachysandra by the porch walkway, and he did a ton of cleaning of the pole barn.  By the time she came (late, but she called to say she would be late at least!), we thought everything looked great.  She seemed very impressed, took a page worth of notes and stayed an hour.  We were kind of wiped after she left.  Jim said he needed a beer, and since it was after 8:00 when she left, we headed up the street to the Mexican place.

While we were there, I got a phone call from a woman who sounded perfect.  First - her name was April - how cool is that with our last name?  :o)  She asked about the price, taxes, heating and then proceeded to tell me that she was a serious buyer.  They had just sold their house, had to move Monday, and wanted to stay in the area.  She wanted to come see it right away, so we said Tuesday evening.  We were really excited!

Jim went to work on Tuesday and I got everything spiffy, even though it was fine since we just showed it the night before!  But then the monsoons came.  It started really raining hard and there were severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings everywhere.  Jim said the rain was horrible on the highway and that parts of Ridgewood had water coming over the road from the ditches.  Great.  But all of a sudden, we hear knocking on our door and it was April - early and with her mom in the car.  She said that she had lost power at her house, her mom's basement where they were storing some of their stuff had flooded and they were on their way to clean things up.  She still wanted to see the house.  But she was literally there 10 minutes - ran from room to room with us following and trying to point out things to her.  It was fairly comical.  She said wonderful things, was really funny, and we were optimistic.  Until she was leaving and she said her husband might want more land.  So now Jim isn't feeling so optimistic.  We'll just have to wait and see.

Meanwhile...work continues.  Jim is doing some ductwork in the basement and then is going to start making the closet doors...obviously quite the project.

Fingers crossed for the right buyer!!!

More cleaning...

We buried St. Joseph today (well, his statue!).  We said the prayer and will continue to do so!

Besides me giving the house a good cleaning today, Jim continued his cleaning duties and power washed all the cobblestones on the front porch and walkway.  They look beautiful!

Beautiful porch!

Then we pulled everything off the landing and the first garage bay and scrubbed all that down too. Jim put up all the trim rings in the lights and spiffied everything up out there too.  

Even the garage looks nice!

 

A red letter day!

Today was another day with more chores to check off.  Jim started the day by redoing the one area in the floor that now looked worse.  He put two coats on it and let it dry.  Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick and that spot looks nice now.  Whew...I felt bad since we probably should have just left it alone in the first place!

Jim got the rest of the scaffolding down, the back porch all power washed and the table back in place. Looks beautiful!

Backyard oasis

We washed the rest of the driveway and Jim even cleaned the roofs of the pole barn.  I washed the basement slate again after Jim had taken all his tools out - things are looking awfully spiffy!

Check out the before and after!

Cleaning the driveway
 

Does anyone else clean their roof like this?

 

Which leads us to the big news...the sign went in the yard this afternoon right before we got cleaned up for church!  Again it's a lot of mixed emotions, but this was a big step!  We decided to bury St. Joseph tomorrow on Sunday and that will help for sure!

When we walked out of church, I jokingly pulled out my phone and said...wonder if anyone called - and someone had!  I was nervous but I called her back when we got home. Unfortunately, she said she lived on our same street so no doubt she was just curious about price.  Oh well, it's a start!

It's official!!

 

 

 

One of those days...

Okay, so yesterday was one of those days where everything was either hard or didn't work out.  It didn't help that both Jim and I must have gotten up on the wrong sides of the bed either.

When I got up, the floors looked absolutely gorgeous!  They looked brand new.  Of course, I happened to notice one spot in the shadows that Jim had missed.  Later in the day, he tried taping that area off and putting another coat on.  But when it dried, it looked worse - very dull in that area.  Great.

Then Jim was looking for some specific type of caulk - he had a tube of if and wanted more. He got on the company website and they named a few local companies.  One if which I had already been to and they looked at me like I was crazy.  After way too long on the phone, we found a place in Cleveland that said their Canton office had it - she even read me the info on the tube.  When we called the Canton office, we again got the"never heard of it" line.  They finally checked with the Cleveland office and called Jim back...they had found it, but it expired so he threw it away.  Jim said he would still take it but the guy said no, it was already in the trash.  They could order it for us but we wold have to order a case and they didn't know when it would be in.  So after all that time - back to square one and still no caulk.

We needed just a tad of touch up paint in the library...I even found the paint card from way back when. So off to Sherwin Williams I went.  I just told the lady I wanted a sample - she gave me a quart and said that was their sample. But when I got home, I saw it was satin finish and we needed flat.  She never asked and I didn't think about it.  So back I went.  She told me that their samples only come in satin.  I told her that I needed a quart of it in flat...then she said that instead of $5.00 for the sample, I would have to pay $21.00 for a quart!  And she couldn't take my sample back because it was custom tinted.  Grrr...  Then it was off to Home Depot who said their little samples only came in flat - and it was their same top quality paint where Sherwin Williams said it was a cheap quality just to test color.  Note to self... No more Sherwin Williams!

Jim wanted to get the scaffolding down in the back yard but then noticed that he never fastened the gutters back after painting so instead had to do that.

So while it was certainly nothing earth-shattering, it seemed like a day of nothing being easy.

But we did work on power spraying the driveway. Jim hated the way it looked - the trees we have here are gorgeous, but  they are messy.

However - what a difference it makes!!!  We still have more to do tomorrow but it looks great!

Wow - quite a difference!

Happy 4th of July - in many ways!

This has been a busy, busy week leading up to this nation's holiday.  Last weekend, we did our "walk through" to update Jim's giant to do list in order to get the house listed for sale.  We have decided to try and sell it ourselves...so - drumroll, please - we put it on Zillow this morning!!!  We'll put signs with our brochures in the yard soon.  Then we'll sit back and wait for the phone calls to come in!  We hope to be able to do it by appointment and still let Jim have time to continue working on that to do list in between.  So we'll see how it goes.

It's crazy - so many mixed emotions.  We have moved on in our minds to New York and that can't be done until this house sells.  But I can't focus on selling it in my mind because this house is just every square inch US.

But fingers crossed for a quick sale!  Now it's back to that to do list!!

Jim has been working like crazy around here - totally cleaned out the attic and even scrubbed the chimney brick!  He repainted his bathroom (needed it after an unfortunate Oust experience a couple years ago!), did touch-up in a few other rooms, got his tools out of the basement, started loading up the truck again, installed my stovetop fan (so cool!) - the list just goes on and on.

A couple of big items got checked off today.  Jim wanted to repaint the ceiling in the kitchen as well as the attic door.  I kind of like the pink - I told Jim he was getting jn touch with his feminine side!



Pink ceilings, anyone?

I also wanted him to refinish the kitchen floors with a coat of Fresh Finish - recommended by Bruce Flooring but we had kind of been scared to do it and risk messing them up. But they just looked tired after all these years.  So he did it as his last job today...then we had to leave for a few hours to let it dry. We decided to use that excuse for a date night and headed to Texas Roadhouse.  It was a well-needed break and gave us a few minutes to sit and strategize too.