Contractors

Our wonderful buyer's agent, Georgia Selfridge, has essentially taken over the job of general contractor for our kitchen and electrical work.

She's jawboning every contractor she knows, to try to get someone to tackle our kitchen as soon as possible. The bad news is, the guy we thought could do it can't, meaning a bit more delay. The good news is, our electrical panel upgrade is going to be done Monday. And, they're going to lay the wire for the new water heater, so as soon as it arrives, it can be connected and plumbed.

I really can't say enough about how great it's been to have an agent, and Georgia in particular, helping us through this process as first-time buyers. As lawyers, we thought we knew enough to buy a house - and we probably could have accomplished the most simple, straightforward transaction on our own. Say, buying a brand-new townhouse in West Seattle, from the builder.

But Georgia took the time to explain her philosophy, and what she would do for us, even before we went out looking for houses. For one, she almost always represents buyers and never does "dual agency," which made a lot of sense to us - even though real estate conflict of interest rules are more flexible than the attorney Rules of Professional Conduct, she holds herself to a higher standard.

And her assistance became invaluable when we decided to make an offer on a house that was priced high, and then wanted to close in 2 1/2 weeks while still getting some work done during escrow. Georgia's network of people she's worked with around Seattle - contractors, lenders, insurance agents, etc. - have been making our house purchase happen, while Kristen and I have been working at our day jobs. I would have had to spend days, and too much time off work at my new office, just trying to get estimates and negotiate with the seller.

It'll Look Like a Whole New House

We have big plans, right away. Big plans mean lots of planning, and that feels like it's all we've been doing all week.

The kitchen has been taking up most of our time. Everything has to be torn out in order to put in new subflooring, so we're faced with a completely blank room. We're on the hook to pay for new flooring, per our latest addendum to our contract. An evening trip to Home Depot confirmed that linoleum sucks, tile is cold and doesn't have the right look, cork and bamboo are expensive, and regular hardwood (oak) is just right. We're in a bit of a time crunch, which led us to opt for pre-finished wood flooring; they can just slap it down and we're set to go. Currently, we have a small pile of samples sitting in my car -- they'll take a trip to the new house this weekend to figure out which one matches. It'll be just like an episode of American Idol, except without all the bad singing. Or production quality. Or celebrity judges. But you know, otherwise, exactly the same.

We've also spent waaaay too much time this week looking at the IKEA website, walking around the kitchen displays at IKEA, playing around with the IKEA kitchen design software, drawing endless diagrams of our kitchen, etc... According to Consumer Reports, IKEA cabinets are excellent. They're much higher quality than all other cabinet brands in their price range, and everyone we've talked to who has them, loves them.

Evan and I both really like the "Adel" cabinet fronts (seen here in brown). We'll get them in white. At left is a non-colorful rendering of how the kitchen will look, once finished. Imagine yellow walls and hardwood floors. And a view of the backyard out that window. There will also be a small cabinet above the fridge, which I couldn't add in the IKEA software for unknown reasons.

Evan looked far and wide, and found Value Stone, a local dealer in "granite slab countertops at wholesale prices." Of their selections, I think "Uba Tuba" fits our kitchen design the best -- we'll only need three slabs, which we'll then have to get finished (hopefully by our contractor!).

We also bought a dishwasher. Old school house had old school dish washing: by hand. Evan and I agreed long ago that a dishwasher was necessary in our relationship.

The far left corner of the kitchen will also be the home to our new tankless water heater! It's a small box, the size of a VCR or TiVo. It mounts to the wall, and has the added feature of not being a large tank full of water that leaks on the floor. We plan to hide it behind the cabinets, but configure the cabinets in a way that still allows us access to the water heater when we need it.

Our electrician will be in on Monday to install the wiring for the tankless, as well as upgrade all the wiring in our house. As you might recall from our inspection, our electrical situation was nowhere up to code. We're getting upgraded service (more amps!), and new wiring throughout the house, and much needed grounded plugs.

So, while we won't have a complete kitchen when we move in in a week (gulp), we will be able to plug things in and have them work. Yay!

From reading Kristen's posts, you may think that we're crazy. We're maybe only a little bit crazy.

First off, the inspector was great and came up with a to-do list, but this house is fundamentally solid.

During the year after I graduated from college, I lived in Menlo Park, CA, in an honest-to-God dump. The house was originally a very small cottage; a porch had been closed in to create a dining room... with a 6 1/2 foot ceiling. The kitchen had rodent issues when we moved in, largely due to the former residents but also due to the open hole to the dirt under the kitchen sink for the plumbing. In my room, downstairs, a vine was growing in from the outside into my closet, and the floor in a couple of places was, um, soft. The windows were single pane and insulation was probably non-existent, which meant we paid, thanks to Enron (this was the winter of 2000-01), upwards of $300/month for four hours a day of 60-degree heat.

By comparison, our new house was built to spec by the owner from whom we're buying. There were no corners cut. The structural floor is a central joist, with 2 x 6 tongue-and-groove, old-growth fir "car decking" running out to the poured concrete perimeter foundation. It's a 54-year old place, but you can jump around in the middle of the living room and nothing shakes. The walls are thick drywall, not plaster and lath.

In short, they don't build them like this anymore. There isn't a piece of particle board or LP-board siding in sight.

And while the owner may not have watched the Style Network (she couldn't - there's no cable installed), she plowed her money into the important stuff. The roof was done only a few years ago. There are already storm windows. The siding is low-maintenance vinyl, in an inoffensive yellow. There's no asbestos; either it was abated or was never installed.

Sure, there's some work to do, but we're knocking out all the biggest stuff right away. We're painting the first weekend. We weren't planning on a new kitchen right away, but now we'll have one - and a new water heater to boot. All that's wet from the slow leak is getting repaired, no problem. Electrical will be done too, and upgraded to 200 amps - I could run a fusion reactor.

I feel like I'm buying an awesome set of projects! My new-used chop saw is already excited.

Inspection

The main problem with buying an older house is that everything in it is also old. Not only are we dealing with the original interior design, we're also dealing with old wiring, old plumbing, and old flooring. Some of these things are already giant pains in the rear -- more on that in a future post -- but they all have to eventually be fixed and brought up to date (and in many cases, also up to code).

I'm limiting this post to problems arising out of our structural inspection. Believe me, I have a whole 'nother list of things I personally would like to change...

Evan and I, along with our real estate agent Georgia, met Jim the Inspector about a week ago to go over the house with a fairly fine tooth comb.

First impression of Jim: he's the long lost twin of a friend of ours from law school (Dan C.). Looks like him, talks like him, laughs like him. Only difference is that Jim is quite a bit taller. Neither of us mentioned it at the time, but several days later, we had the following IM conversation:

12:24 PM Evan: hey - I'm (actually) working, but this just came back to me - didn't you think it was funny having Dan [C] inspect our house?

12:25 PM me: lol, that's what I was thinking the entire inspection

Jim was very helpful. He spotted a lot of things we didn't notice on our second walk-through of the house.

Things to Fix, per Jim the Inspector

1. Vent the attic. The attic currently only has two vents. Most attics have four.
2. Replace the entrance door to the garage. Okay, we knew about this one. When we were on our second walk-through, we went to look at the garage. The door wouldn't open. Georgia used a laminated grocery card to jimmy the lock, and it opened right up. Also, it's looking a little threadbare.
3. Replace the garage roof. Wha...? Alright, it has to be done, but later rather than sooner. I mean, if it caves in, it only means that Evan is down one car. Maybe I should persuade him to keep the Jetta in there? Hmm...
4. Paint the garage. Yeah, it's looking a little barn-like. We'll coordinate it with the house. Again, later rather than sooner.
5. Put smoke detectors in all rooms. Umm, yeah, not interested in burning down.
6. Kitchen faucet is leaking. Whatever, we're putting in a whole new kitchen. Fodder for a future post.
7. Replace soft flooring around base of toilet. Jim said it's probably just the linoleum flooring that's soft. There's no evidence of water damage in the crawl space. Apparently, the wax seal is about 50 years old, and is no longer effective against plumbing leaks. It should be a straightforward fix. We want to get rid of the ugly faux-marble linoleum anyway.
8. Shower head is not properly sealed. No problemo. We'll replace with a low-flow shower head anyway.
9. Bathroom sink valve may be clogged. Bleh. Do we need a plumber for that?
10. Tub drains slowly. Hmm. I'm seeing a pattern here with the plumbing.
11. No ventilation in bathroom. We'll need ourselves a fan.
12. No vapor barrier in crawl space. This apparently involves putting a plastic lining under the house. You will not see me doing this. I hope Evan's up to the task.
13. Repair small crack in foundation. Thankfully, nothing serious. The house shows no evidence of settling. We'll have to caulk up a few cracks, and voila!
14. Plumbing is made of galvanized steel, and may need replacement. So, apparently, galvanized steel builds up rust deposits after 50 years or so. Lucky us, to be buying a 60 year old house! We'll have to replace the plumbing with newer pipes. Maybe that'll solve the sink/tub issues?

And then, there were the two doozies.

First: the electrical panel is the original electrical panel. It's still set up to handle the electrical needs of a 1950s home. It's not even strong enough to handle a dryer, let alone the demands of a contemporary home. Jim said the panel is completely unsafe and nowhere near up to code. Not to mention, there's a sink right next to it. Yes. I don't know who thought it'd be a great idea to put a water source right next to an electricity source. Smart move! Lucky for us, we did notice the old panel during our walk-through, so we weren't surprised by the upgrade requirement.

Second: The current water heater, a 40-gallon tank that sits under the counter in the corner of the kitchen, has been leaking for months. Months. All over our kitchen floor. The linoleum is soaked and bubbled, the subfloor is soaked and bubbled, the joists that support the entire kitchen and bathroom area -- soaked. Mold growing on the foundation and under the house soaked. It's HORRIBLE! And, this is not something we knew about before the inspection, so we were a little floored. No pun intended. :)

We had already devised a plan to fix the electrical panel. We asked the sellers to give us back part of the purchase price in order to fix it, a plan to which they agreed. As part of the upgrade, we would get a new panel, new wiring, and grounded plugs. We'd also have wiring installed for a dryer, and for a new water heater. There's the possibility of putting electricity in the garage, as well, while we're at it. It has to be done. So, we're fielding estimates from electricians.

As for the kitchen? Well. We hadn't planned to upgrade the kitchen at this time. We were going to just deal with the old cabinets and flooring until we had the time and money to put in a nice kitchen. So much for that plan!

We worked out a deal with the sellers that Evan and I would buy a new water heater and new flooring, up to a cost of $2000. For anything over $2000, the sellers would cover the cost, including the new subflooring and the labor involved with installing everything.

We definitely have our work cut out for us...

First glances

On Thursday, September 7, we joined our real estate agent, Georgia, to go on a first Look-See of houses in Seattle. She called it the "Good, Bad and Ugly" tour. The purpose of this initial tour was for Georgia to show us what qualified as a good house and what qualified as a bad house in the Seattle market, so that we could get a better grasp on what exactly we should be looking for in a house. Georgia periodically teaches a local first-time home buyers' course, as well as purchases and renovates houses herself, so we trusted her to help us identify the strengths and weaknesses of various "For Sale" homes.

Before our tour, she sent us a list of about 8-9 houses, and links to their Multiple Listing Service (MLS) listings.

The last house on that list was the ugliest house we'd ever seen. A total time capsule.

It was a standard rambler-style, 970 sq. ft., one-story house.


Built in 1952. And boy, could you tell by looking at the interior decor!


Each room had at least one wall with ugly wood paneling, one with a bright paint color (turquoise, green, blue, salmon), and one wall with coordinating bright floral print wallpaper. The living room/dining room came complete with lovely avocado/brown carpeting.


The bathroom still had its original pink fixtures. Sink, bath and toilet. All very pink.


There was a third bedroom-sized room, but inexplicably, it had a very large oil furnace right in the middle of it.


The kitchen was entirely green. Walls. Ceiling. Cabinets. Countertops. Floor. And had a very odd layout -- why an entire wall with just wall cabinets?


But look at that giant backyard! With a huge garage, with alley access, at the back! Plenty of room for a deck, for a nice garden, and to accommodate smallish dogs. The garden is currently in a state of disrepair, but surely that could be fixed.


Looking past all the cosmetic issues, however, we were standing in a perfect house. Everything was constructed incredibly solidly. The floors were hardwood. The doors and window sills, as well. All the walls were in good shape. There was plenty of storage. Roof was in good shape. The layout made sense. And, most importantly, there had been no substandard repairs made at any point. We were looking at a nearly blank slate.

Returning home from our "Good, Bad and Ugly" tour, it was all Evan and I could do not to gush about the house. All evening, and into the next day, one of us would turn to the other and say, "I really like that house" or "think of all the things we could do with that house!"

And so, after a second visit two days later, we decided to make an offer. Which was accepted.

And that's how we came to be the owners of the ugliest house we've ever seen!