The Gingerbread Diaries

Blood From a Stone, Funds From an Escrow Account–Same Difference?

The Gingerbread Diaries

“The time has come,” the Dollhouse said, “to talk of many things…

Like, namely, when’re we gonna get the contractor paid for the roof?!”

Good question, Dollhouse, good question indeed. Who knew our house was a fan of Alice in Wonderland?

How Draws Work in a 203(k) Renovation–A Worst Case Scenario Guide

Now, if you’ll think back to when we first went down the 203(k) road (back in January), you might remember that there are several moving parts to the renovation side of the mortgage loan. It’s not just the contractor’s numbers and a bump for just-in-case, there are fees for the draw center, the inspections, and all sorts of other things. And it’s not like, once you close on the mortgage they hand you a checkbook for the renovation escrow account and say ‘Have fun, send us your receipts!’ (Would that it were that easy, seriously, this post probably wouldn’t exist if the bank actually trusted homeowners enough to do that.)

Instead, we have the contractor who has to do the work, the HUD Consultant to verify the work, and the Draw Specialist at the bank who metes out the funds like a la Scrooge McDuck (withholding 10% of each request until the bitter end just in case someone places a lien on our property in the mean time–I mean, I get it, but you have to admit it’s a fair comparison). Oh, right, and I sign all the forms for good measure, too.

The contractor’s office billed us for the roof (which was almost half of the total renovation contract) which triggered our HUD guy to schedule a time to go up and view the house. Of course, when he got up there, they weren’t quite finished and, since pictures have to be submitted to the bank with the draw request, the request was adjusted to 95% of the roof expense, to allow for the portion yet to be completed. He had the contractor initial the changes, sign the pages, and then brought the paperwork to my office before sending it up to the bank.

Had this been any other renovation project, that would have been all it took.

Since when has this process been anything other than difficult?

It seemed simple enough: the bank kicked the forms back because they were signed by Contractor L (our original guy) and not Contractor S (the one with the license that came on as supervisor). But the the HUD-C acts like he doesn’t know who this Contractor S even is, when–hello!–he had to redo the paperwork to put S’s name on the work order. Sure, that was a couple months ago, but check your notes, dude! It felt like being in my gastro’s office when he asks who’s monitoring my A1AC deficiency and I have to tell him he is! Grr!

So we forward the paperwork to Contractor S, only somewhere in the preceding 24 hours one of the forms has changed and now requires Contractor S’s signature be notarized. Now, I ask you, what contractor has time to go hunt down a notary in the middle of a project?! One that wants to get paid, obviously, but still, it meant an additional delay. Then the forms come back to me to sign and I send them up to our Draw Specialist to meet up with the photos that were already there. Of course, that wasn’t enough, the HUD forgot to date one of his signatures.

All of this started on Wednesday, and by Monday I still hadn’t received confirmation that the check had been cut. Meanwhile, Contractor L let me know that he’d done all he could until he got paid, which meant nothing was getting done on the house. Which, you know, I can’t really fault him because expenses were incurred, crews have to get paid, etc.; but I was a little peeved at the same time that the time we were ahead (thanks to the rapid turn on the roof) was being frittered away.

By Tuesday I was placing yet another request for update, which did get an eventual reply that if she had the updated signature then she could conceivably process the payment. Which was confusing since she’s replied Monday that they did receive the corrected paperwork on Friday! Turns out the Draw Specialist was out on Monday, one of her team members had replied in her stead, but since they didn’t copy her on the reply she didn’t know what was said. Even though it came from her own email address!

There was one more wrinkle about to come into play: I was leaving town Thursday night to head to Mobile for MobiCon. If the check didn’t arrive at my office early enough for me to drive it up to Thomasville (which is a 2 hour round trip) then it would be the following Tuesday before I could get it to him and he could get his crew back to work, if even then, what with the holiday and all. Thankfully the check did arrive on Thursday morning and I did spend 2 hours on the road just to get things moving again.

All in all it took over a week to fully process this first draw request and 1 week of lost work on the house. And while they say it’s random, I just got word that our project was selected for a Disbursement Quality Assurance Inspection on our HUD Consultant. What are the freaking odds?!

But, hey, at least we have a pretty new roof to keep the rain out and the floors are close to being fixed, now, too.

Back to our usual video updates next week!

Old Habits, New Perspectives

The Gingerbread Diaries

The past two weekends were the annual Parade of Homes put on by the Tallahassee Builders Assn and it’s been our Mother’s Day tradition to take Mom out for browsing the homes and then to dinner. We were a week later than usual due to a sudden uptick in our social calendar, but this Sunday we trekked out to see about half of the 27 homes in this year’s showcase.

Now, in previous years there has been an element of ‘someday,’ a bit of aspiration to our browsing, but this year–with Mom having recently purchased property and us having just closed on the Dollhouse–I wondered if we’d actually have any fun with it.

Of course, early on I was so unimpressed as to share this thought:

But a few more houses in and we found some with a more varied palette and my spirits lifted accordingly.

Part of it is, I think, that we’ve been immersing ourselves in house and home decor ideas since the chance of acquiring the Dollhouse became a reality that I’m less impressed by the trends as I feel like I’ve seen a lot of them between the blogs and magazines I’ve been consuming at a rapid pace. That said, there’s definitely something different about seeing particular details in person versus on-screen, and this gave Todd and I the chance to discuss certain treatments and get the ball rolling on some ideas for our own home.

Padded headboard, lush drapes, and wall-mounted reading lamps.

Padded headboard, lush drapes, and wall-mounted reading lamps.

One of the first ones we came across was this corniced and draped canopy(?) behind the headboard in the master bedroom. I’ve told Todd several times I want wall-mounted reading lamps for either side of the bed, but when I’d shown him similar pictures of this sort of set-up he wasn’t really enthusiastic. Once he saw it in person? Much more on-board with the idea! And with the 10′ 6″ ceilings in the Dollhouse we can do a lovely treatment at top to really make it special.

Most of our attention was directed at kitchens, though. This is not surprising as it’s almost certain that our kitchen will be the first room given a makeover once the contractor is through with his to-do list.

jvanderbeek_paradeofhomes-5

Open shelving with decorative brackets or corbels.

jvanderbeek_paradeofhomes-4

Open shelves bookended by glass-front cabinets.

I’ve already said my first act will be to remove all the horrible upper closet doors in the kitchen and leave them off until we decide just what to replace them with. Todd was concerned, for a bit, that I meant to leave them that way–open–but that’s not the plan. I’m no more a fan of completely open shelving than he is, but I’m also not opposed to judicious use. After seeing the decorative brackets/corbels in the top photo he decided that some floating shelves isn’t necessarily a bad idea, and even like the open shelving in the next photo, as well.

Again, it was just a matter of seeing things in person and in a space to bring about an agreement.

jvanderbeek_paradeofhomes-2

A tidy kitchen with excellent cabinetry.

While I definitely want some of our cabinets to reach to the 10′ kitchen ceiling to maximize storage space, I’m certainly open to some cabinets ending short of the ceiling if they’re topped with pretty crown molding and, perhaps, some uplighting for maximum effect.

We did spend some time up at the Dollhouse this past weekend, as well. It was nice to see the progress that the contractor was making (new roof, some of the flooring being updated, and even the taller-than-I-am window in the upstairs bathroom opens, now!) and give another shot to getting the hot water to work. Not to spoil the suspense for next week’s post (once I’ve had a chance to edit and upload the video), but we’re not there yet. Le sigh. Other things were accomplished, though, so it certainly wasn’t a wasted trip!

Things like:

  • Determining the best sushi in town is at the local supermarket (Publix)–neither of the two Chinese places we’ve tried so far have impressed us much, and the third we walked out of when we realized it was more like a fast-food place than the Japanese steakhouse the sign suggested. Oh, well, it’s probably for the best, and it’s not like Tallahassee is too far when we get the craving for good sushi.
  • We’re definitely going to need a water purifier for the house–we drink far too much water to go strictly bottled and the local water in Thomasville is not pleasant on its own. During one of our two trips to Lowes we checked out the options between simple under-sink filters, reverse-osmosis systems, and whole-house filters as well. It’ll need to be addressed by the time we move in, that’s for certain.
  • Both Todd and I had this weird feeling about seeing evidence of “strangers” in our house while we weren’t there. I mean, obviously we asked for the work crew to be in there but to come in and find things very much changed was still disconcerting.

Currently we’re trying to complete the first draw request so that the work can continue. It hit a few bumps (is anyone surprised?) but hopefully we’re ironed out the kinks in the process. More on that next week, as I don’t want to tell this tale before I’m sure of the ending!

The Roof That Started It All

The Gingerbread Diaries

It’s gone, y’all! And replaced with spiffy new shingles all since last week’s update (apparently our contractor decided to fast-track it and I don’t blame him–more on why in a minute).

First things first: no video this update since we didn’t actually go up to the Dollhouse last weekend. We had friends coming over at 2pm on Saturday so it would have meant doing what we could up there Friday night and hustling it back down here first thing in the morning: not exactly a good payoff for the time spent there and back. It was awfully nice to sleep in on Saturday morning, though, not to mention have a nice, relaxed date night on Friday, too!

Bye-bye old shingles and tin! (Todd was nice enough to go snap pictures of each day's progress, this was just Day 1)

Bye-bye old shingles and tin! (Todd was nice enough to go snap pictures of each day’s progress, this was just Day 1)

And since they started replacing the roof on Wednesday, it was just as well we opted not to go up since there were building materials and debris in various places: no sense tripping over all that just for a couple hours work (on the #$%^&* hot water heater).

To refresh your memory (or explain for those of you not with us from the beginning):

  • The roof was the first thing that tipped us over into Renovation Loan territory;
  • In part because under the deteriorating shingles/tin (different parts of the house) were the original (?) wood shake/shingles;
  • Which meant that in addition to pulling all that up to begin with they were going to have to re-deck the entire roof before they could put new shingles on!
  • The extra work and supplies that entailed pretty much doubled the cost of what a roof in that area would cost under normal circumstances.

Of course, that was just the tip of the iceberg as far as this house’s issues went, but it still represents half the total renovation costs that were worked into our mortgage. Because of the various twists and turns we traveled through during the loan process that ended up with us going the standard 203(k) route, that meant our contractor couldn’t get any funds up front, only once work had been completed. As part of our 203(k) structure there are a total of 3 disbursements (i.e. draws against the renovation escrow account) factored in: 2 mid-project and 1 at the end. Each of these draws can only be made on the work that’s completed (not even for supplies purchased: they have to be installed on the house to count). And then the bank keeps back 10% of each draw until the final inspection is complete and they verify that no liens have been placed upon the property before paying out that final bit. So, you know, the contractor is motivated to get. stuff. done!

So yesterday they put in for the first draw based on the roof work. This meant that our HUD Consultant had to ride up there (and, yes, mileage fees are tacked onto the inspection fees by the HUD-C, and all that’s figured into the total cost of renovation) to verify the work being drawn upon was complete and take pictures to show the bank as proof, etc. Well, the roof wasn’t quite finished when Mr. A got there, so he adjusted the draw form to be 95% of the total roof quote, even though they probably would have it finished by the end of the day, it only counts if he sees it at his appointment. One draw down, 2 more (and another 5 weeks or so of work, though maybe not even that long if they can keep up this pace) to go!

Now, just because we didn’t go up to the Dollhouse last weekend doesn’t mean we did nothing as far as the house went: I was doing research!

(What, doesn’t everyone find that exclamation point-exciting?)

Unfortunately Georgia is still working on digitizing their property records–they’ve only got as far back as 1992 on file and since the K’s bought the Dollhouse back in 1994, I can only see who they bought it from, but not any previous transactions unless I go and camp out in the records room of the courthouse for untold hours and sift through the deed books myself! Since that will require a day off that coincides with them being open (aka not a holiday) it might be a while before that happens!

1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Thomasville, GA (population--including suburbs--10,000!)

1920 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Thomasville, GA (population–including suburbs–10,000!)

In the mean time, I’ve been trolling the South Georgia Newspaper archives for any mention of our street address, trying to find some history on the place. After exhausting the free archives (that end in 1922) I even paid for a membership to NewspaperArchives.com just to stay on the trail. The other resource I found was the Sanborn Fire Maps. Unfortunately the 1912 map stopped the block before ours, but the 1920 map clearly shows the Dollhouse in pretty much it’s current configuration! The only things added since then were the 2 bathrooms and, possibly, the extended back porch/utility room area (which we pretty much figured from the beginning, though the Realtor suggested the kitchen wasn’t originally attached, and that seems unlikely, now).

Through my newspaper crawl I found out the following:

  • For much of the latter half of 1889, E.M. Mallette [an obvious bigwig in the real estate market back then] was marketing an “elegant residence lot” on our street with the same lot dimensions and referencing the cross-street next to us for a whopping $400; even if this wasn’t our exact lot (the Sanborn map shows the two lots next to ours to be of approximately the same dimensions) it’s a good bet he had the selling of the original lot.
  • In October & November 1914 there was an 8-room house for rent at our address [that would square with the number of rooms the house has, not counting the bathroom additions] by a Mr. Burch; this holds with the idea that the house was built in 1910 or so, until…
  • Continued searching actually found a listing for a Lost Dog by Mr. Burch at our address in 1904! So either there was a previous home built that was torn down and replaced by the Dollhouse or the Dollhouse is older than we thought!
  • Mr. Burch, a widower twice over by then, passed away after a nasty fall in the house in December, 1941.
  • They appear to have taken in a boarder at some point or rented the place out as there are ads for a Mr. Van Dore offering to repair or tune pianos and listing the Dollhouse as his address in April, 1948. He didn’t stick around long, though, as in June of that same year he posted an ad selling his light housekeeping wares as he was leaving town.
  • As of 1949 I can see references to Mr. Burch’s daughter (a local school teacher) hosting various church functions at the Dollhouse, so either she let rooms while living there are moved in after Mr. Van Dore vacated. Either way, she appears to have stayed in the house until her own passing in 1969.

And after there the trail has gone cold. I’ve yet to come across a mention of the address past 1969 in the local papers (people started getting cagey about posting their addresses so freely, I suppose). From the K purchase I had the names of the two sisters that sold the house in 1994, but at the time of Miss Burch’s demise, one was a musician and teacher at Wesleyan College in Macon, and the other is tied to a Grant St. address from what I’ve been able to find. So there’s still a 25-year gap to fill in; but I’ll get there!

One other tidbit of information was uncovered during my search, and helps explain how the perceived-to-be-original wood shake could have survived long enough (notwithstanding the hardiness of the old-grown wood used back then, of course) to be covered with asphalt shingles somewhere in the 1970s (again, guessing on the part of the Realtor).

It didn’t!

[box type=”alert” style=”rounded” border=”full”]Roof Fire Damages Burch Residence On C— Street—
A roof fire at the residence of Mr.  Burch on East C—street fanned by a gusty wind caused serious damage to the dwelling and contents yesterday afternoon. The whole building was deluged with water and the entire roof and second story practically gutted before the blaze was brought under control. The firemen worked two or three hours mopping up and clearing out debris and ashes making sure that no hidden fire remained but at four o’clock this morning the fire broke out again and the firemen were forced to fight fire again for an hour or two before retiring to their headquarters.
–Thomasville Times Enterprise, April 1, 1939[/box]

At then end of March, 1939, the roof of the Dollhouse caught fire and destroyed the upper floor of the house. By mid-May it had been rebuilt and renovated and the family was able to move back in. My guess, then, is that they used the wood shake at that point (similar to what would have been in place before the fire), and it lasting the 30 or so years until the asphalt shingles were laid down is a far more believable timeline that it being from the original 1910 (or earlier!) build. Of course, depending on just how much of the house had to be rebuilt, it does make me wonder if the house still counts as it’s original build date–whenever that may actually be!

Good thing we like puzzles, right?

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

The Gingerbread Diaries

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Even though we’ve closed on the house, we’re still a far cry from being done with Wells Fargo and their various departments. Still, I was surprised to get a call (then an email) from their “Retail Deficiency Management Team” (and doesn’t that sound ominous). Apparently there was a signature missing from one of the addendums (addenda? addendi?) and, you know, that’s entirely possible. Until, that is, I saw exactly which addendum it was.

Y’all, I know for a fact that I signed this paper at the closing, and I know because I signed it twice!

See, there’s this HUD/VA Addendum that has various boxes to check, but only if certain other boxes apply (usually about previous or concurrent FHA/VA loans or if we intend to rent the place, etc.), and while I was trying to decipher said boxes at the closing table, the seller and the Realtor were chatting like magpies about old dogs and daughters off at college. And between that and the fact that I skipped lunch to go to the bank and still make closing on time, it was tough to concentrate and I checked the wrong box and signed it and had to ask the attorney to reprint that page when I realized my mistake.

Which is how I know that I signed that paper. Twice. Three times if you count the fact that it was part of the disclosure packet with the original application. And, now, four times.

If you thought the closing went off without a hitch, you obviously haven’t been paying attention.

In fact, it was touch-and-go right up til the last moment: I needed to leave the office by noon to get to the bank for the cashier’s check, then get to the house for a last walk-through at 1:30, and then the closing at 2 pm. You know what we didn’t have until 12:08 pm? The amount that the cashier’s check needed to be. And even then it wasn’t official, because the attorney’s numbers and the bank’s numbers kept coming up $9.80 off.

And then, at 2pm, the attorney’s office was still generating the paperwork and the seller still needed to take said paperwork to get her husband’s signature since he was tied up at the hospital saving people’s brains and whatnot. So after about 20 minutes of semi-awkward small talk we’re finally ushered into the conference room where we round-robin signature 4 copies of the Settlement document so Mrs. K could head off with them to get the Dr’s signatures while I started in on the rest of the paperwork.

Of course, at this point I have a feeling I might be resigning documents for the next 30 years, but we have the keys and that’s what counts. Enough of last month, how are things progressing this month?!

(Direct link for the feed readers: Gingerbread Diaries 1.3: Another Leak Down–I figured out of few things, video-wise, but I’m still learning as I go as far as editing and such)

So, yeah, rumors of us having hot water were a bit premature. The missing part has arrived, though we’re still debating if we’ll make it up to the house this Friday or not to try yet another fix because of in-town social engagements this weekend. Then again, we don’t want to lose our momentum, do we? Decisions, decisions!

We’ve also discovered that the dishwasher either has a water-supply issue or a motor-grinds-it-wheels issue, but it’s not currently working. Which is a bummer, but not the end of the world.

In an unexpected upturn, we do seem to have caught a break with the rigid duct-work and the fact that it appears sound. Thank goodness! We’re still considering having the vents blown out or whatever you do to them to make sure they’re operating at peak efficiency. At some point. Maybe if I find a Groupon. The other plus, and this is a big one, is the kitchen cabinets!

Ignoring the scary paint job, there, this kitchen is going to be awesome once I'm through with it! (photo from the Realtor.com listing)

Ignoring the scary paint job, there, this kitchen is going to be awesome once I’m through with it! (photo from the Realtor.com listing)

While exploring how big the vent pipe for the stove hood was (i.e. not big at all, actually nonexistent as the hood vents back into the face of the cook) I confirmed one of my bigger hopes for the kitchen: that the soffit above the upper cabinets is purely decorative! This means we can open it up and install regular-height, glass-front cabinets to house serving dishes, my grandmother’s china, and other pretty things. I can start collecting cake stands now–I’ll actually have some place to put them!

It’s the little victories, folks.

“Roughing It” on Gingerbread Lane

The Gingerbread Diaries

It started out as a joke, that we were going to “camp out” at the new house. Turned out to be a more accurate description that we expected. After all, we had lights, water, Internet access, and all that important stuff, right?

Mostly.

The first Friday night we spent up there (2 weeks ago), I dragged a car-load of gear with me: an air mattress, compressor, linens, pillows, a folding table and chairs, bath towels, and even the shower curtain from the hall bath in our current rental. If I could have reached it, I would have brought my camping cot, too, to serve as a makeshift sofa, but Todd had already brought the big ladder up to Thomasville. Furnishings might have been sparse, but we had more than the average hotel room in other respects, so it all evens out.

Wine but no wine glasses--obviously I didn't think that one through 100%

Wine but no wine glasses–obviously I didn’t think that one through 100%

Before we ate supper (Burgundy Beef in the slow cooker, that I’d also brought up from home) we headed off to Lowe’s to pick up lightbulbs, a thermocouple for the hot water heater (the pilot wasn’t wanting to light, and that’s the most common fix for it), a new toilet seat (no amount of bleach was getting the old one clean), new door knobs/locks, and other odds and ends.

We discovered a few things, that evening:

  • There’s a small leak in the downstairs bath, coming from the roof–we know it’s not a plumbing issue as the water was still turned off. At least this will be addressed when the contractor gets started.
  • Speaking of water, there’s a busted pipe under the water heater/laundry room area (more on that in a bit).
  • All of the downstairs faucets exist in some sort of leaking state.
  • The plaster and lathe walls, thanks to the metal mesh that provides their structure, impede wifi signal–between the router in the living room (temporary location) and the dining room (across the hall and one room back) the signal went from fabulous to almost nonexistent; we’ll work on that!

The burst pipe was, of course, the most pressing issue and not something we could easily remedy at 9pm, in the drizzly rain. So we went from “roughing it” to near-primitive camping pretty quick! Thankfully we’d picked up a 5-gallon bucket at Lowe’s, and that (filled before we shut off the water to the house) allowed us to manually refill the tank of the commode, so at least there was that. Everything else we used bottled water for (I’d brought up a case, figuring it’d be a good idea and I didn’t know how city water was up there.)

Those finials at the ends of the pin--swoon!

Those finials at the ends of the pin–swoon!

It wasn’t all bad, though! We found out most of the downstairs doors have these awesome hinges on them, which will look amazing once I get the paint, etc. off the metal. Plus the weather was nice and cool, even if drizzly, so the 5K walk we participated in on Saturday morning was relatively comfortable. The 10K run that went by our house the following weekend would not have been so cozy!

I feel like this picture needs a hazmat warning! Years of build-up *shudder* but it's gone now!

I feel like this picture needs a hazmat warning! Years of build-up *shudder* but it’s gone now!

At any rate, my plans to start cleaning the house were a bit hindered by the lack of hot running water. I managed to get most of the crud off the bannister using bottled water and Magic Erasers before we headed back to Tallahassee.

Weekend #2 started off with far less surprises, at least of the negative kind. The Rose Festival Parade was Friday night so we walked down to the parade route, then decided to scope out the downtown Chinese place (gotta find your basics, right?). Hun Yip won’t be our go-to spot for take-out, turns out, but we’ve got a few more options to check out. We came out of dinner to find the dance party in full swing at the intersection of Jackson and Broad, stayed for the live band and then the fireworks before walking back home. It was all very Stars Hollow and I love that we’ll be able to walk downtown for a dinner out (there are so many lovely restaurants in the area) once we get truly settled in!

(For pictures of the parade, etc., check out this Facebook album.)

Saturday was the day, though! We (read as: Todd) was going to fix the pipe, repair the leaking faucets, and once and for all get the water heater’s pilot light lit! Since there wasn’t much I could do until all of that was done, I decided this was as good a time as any to start making some videos to go along with these posts! I still need to work on my editing skills, etc. but it’s not a bad start.

(Direct link for the feed readers: Gingerbread Diaries 1.1: Bread and Pipes)

I also filmed the faucet repairs but I haven’t had time to edit those, yet. I’ll add them to the YouTube playlist when I do, though. (Note to self: the night before you want to post them is not the best time to take a crash course in a new editing software!)

So glad Todd is handy with this sort of thing! Of course, if he weren't we probably wouldn't have bought the Gingerbread Dollhouse in the first place!

So glad Todd is handy with this sort of thing! Of course, if he weren’t we probably wouldn’t have bought the Gingerbread Dollhouse in the first place!

I didn’t film the hot water heater repair as it was supposed to be a simple fix. Todd described it as a 2, going in, but after an hour declared it more of an 8.5! Basic rule of thumb, everything takes longer than expected, but he eventually got everything put back into place and, yes, the pilot light finally lit! By that point it was creeping into early afternoon and Todd had some errands to run in Tallahassee, so we packed up and headed back to our other home.

We still have some issues to work out with the bathroom faucet (they don’t leak, but they also have next to no water pressure, meanwhile the tub spout flows with no problem), but at least we can leave the water main on and the major leak is fixed. Hopefully this means hot water will be in good supply for next weekends clean-a-thon!

Until next time!