more house stuff

so we were running around like maniacs yesterday trying to get all our docs signed and notarized so we could start work on the house tomorrow. God bless our realtor and his patience. he really helped to fix a bad situation that wasn't really his fault to begin with. so thanks for that. and the escrow agent, jolene diaz was really nice and helpful. so jolene, if you ever google yourself (does anyone else ever do that? i had to stop trying, there are like 756 guys - and 3 girls - named adam steele in the united states) and this blog turns up - thank you!

today we get the keys. tomorrow and sunday we demo the whole front area of the house, including the kitchen. then we close escrow on monday.

here is where we stand on the place:
-found out the heater doesn't work and there is no a/c...just before summer. cost of new stuff (with a stellar deal...thanks to my father in law and his subs) - 4500. awesome!
-found out there are termites. we may need to tent the house. 2k. sweet!
-found out the pipes are galvanized, not copper. couple thousand more. ok!
-cabinets - thanks to erick corsa from rocky peak for a great price and a wonderful attitude about the work. seriously one of the best guys around. erick, same as jolene, if you google your name and read this...thanks! anyway, cabinets - 7000 - 8500
-counter tops - anywhere from 1000 to 4000 installed. we need to shop this out.
-flooring is 8 bucks a foot, for either 580 ft2 or 1520 ft2...so either 4500 or 11000. big difference, i know.
-appliances could work for the time being, and that is great. may have to wait on these and upgrade later. looking at around 4000 for all stainless steel stuff.
-sink and fixtures haven't really been priced out yet, but those can be reasonable or crazy, depending on where we go. most likely somewhere in the middle and definitely at least 1k.
-still waiting on the bids for the dry wall and electrical. don't know where to put this.

so for you mathemagicians who have been counting as you go, we are looking at about 17k if we do the bare minimum and about 40k if we go with everything we want right now. needless to say, the 40k ain't happening. we only have about 23k to work with. so we will be cutting some stuff out for sure.

owning our own home - priceless!

i will be posting before pics of the whole house on monday as well as some pics from the demo process.

stay posted for more on the saga of buying a first home. so fun. we'll see if i'm still saying that in a couple of weeks.