Project 1: Make the Chairs Great Again! - Part 1

Hi everyone! :)

I won't have many updates on the house for about another week, so I decided to share one of the projects we've been working on. Chad and I will give our old Parson chairs a new purpose in life: decorating our new living room! Our sofa is charcoal and we want to have blue accents in that space, so this original burgundy color has to go. Also, what's up with the fabric-covered legs? Nope.

The first thing we did was carefully cut the fabric around the legs and back using an x-acto knife in order to expose the staples used to hold the fabric together. And holy crap, staples WERE plenty on this darn chair. We used a heavy duty staple remover we bought at Joann Fabrics for $10--you can probably use pliers to do the job, but it will require a lot of time and patience. The investment was well worth it. We were cautious not to remove staples holding the seat and back cushions. One thing we didn't think of until later in the process was to keep the fabric as intact as possible. It will help you tremendously when it's time to cut the new fabric as you can use it as a template.

Once the chair was completely naked (hehe), we fixed the legs. They were unfinished underneath the fabric and all the staples left it with more holes than Swiss cheese. We used wood putty ($5 at Home Depot) to fill the holes and fix any imperfections in the legs. We let it dry for about 4 hours and used 180 grit sandpaper to smooth it all out.

After the legs looked smoother than a baby's butt, I used two coats of Rust-Oleum Gray Spray Primer to prep the legs for paint. Make sure to really clean all the sand dust with a damp cloth and let it dry it completely before applying the primer. It was cold, dark, and windy, but I toughen up and made it work.

After letting it dry for a couple of hours, it was time to paint. We choose Black Rust-Oleum Gloss Paint for the job. Here are some pictures after 2 coats; I actually put another one later in the day, just didn't capture a photo.

Excuse the bathroom photo--this is the bad thing about living in an apartment :P

The next step is to apply the new fabric. I will create a different post for this part. See you then!

Some Confirmed Dates

Yay, we have scheduled our pre-construction meeting: February 7th. They had slots available as early as next Monday (1/30), but Chad didn't want to take a day off work to do that. He usually works from home on Tuesdays, so 2/7 was the next Tuesday the PM had available to meet with us.


I wanted to kill him; Chad, not the PM. I need the PM to make sure my house is built.


According to our SR, ground should break second week of February. They had told us last week of January, so that's a little disappointing. I will blame Mother Nature on that one. It'll make me feel better.


Ai ai ai.

The Anticipation is Killing Me

I know we have just started this journey, but I can already tell this part of the process is the WORST. We have signed papers, selected our options, gotten an initial approval, and paid an amount of money that could have been used to buy a LOT of candy and now... nothing.


Ground has not been touched yet and we are still waiting for our pre-construction meeting to be scheduled. I guess it doesn't help that the weather in MD has not been optimal...wait. Why am I measuring my words in here? It's been crappy. Shitty. A pain in my anxious ass.


Anyway...


Once we see some progress with construction, I will start feeling better. This is something so big for us, and as I mentioned in the last post, I'm just so excited and borderline obsessed. And I don't want to lose the habit of posting here, hence the babbling. Also, the anticipation is literally killing me. Look at what I found on my head this week:

My very first gray hair.

Too many changes in 1 month. I can't deal with this.

HELP!

HELP! I NEED HELP!

I'm on the verge of dropping to the ground like a 3-year-old, throwing a massive tantrum because I can't get what I want. If this were a Marshmallow Test, a whole bag would be gone. No delayed gratification for this girl.

I want my house ready. RIGHT NOW.

Now that we got the initial approval for our loan, the next step is to sit with Sam and our Project Manager for our pre-construction meeting so they can start breaking ground (apparently, that can occur simultaneously, too). They haven't given us a date for that yet, although she said it'd be in the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I've been obsessing about everything house: I've been reading other blogs, browsing Pinterest for ideas on decoration, walking aimlessly around Home Depot and Lowe's making lists of items we might need.... It's very entertaining, to tell you the truth.

Chad and I actually decided to start buying some things for the house now--we don't want to start this new journey with a credit card debt. Last week, for example, we were at Walmart and saw a grill that usually costs $230 on sale for $99. That was a no-brainer. I do have a big ass box sitting in my living room, but hey, sacrifices, right? This is it:

Can't wait to cook some juicy steaks on this baby!

Guardian Meeting

On 1/7 Chad and I met with Guardian to determine where the cable and phone jacks will be placed around the house. It was a snowy day and as the true Brazilian that I am, I hate the snow. Driving in it makes me nervous and I almost peed my pants a few times when I felt the car sliding. Definitely not a grown up like adventure.

The meeting was quick and uneventful. We got an email before the meeting with a brochure, so we already knew that we were not interested in any of their services (well, that vacuum thingy on the wall was awesome, but the Dyson will do). The Guardian tech was not pushy at all, which was a big plus. Almost made me want to buy all sorts of services from him.

The house comes with 6 jacks included on the price, and we can mix and match between cable and phone outlets. Chad is a techy guy, so he did most of the talking. We ended up getting an extra cable jack and that will cost us $95. Not bad. The reason for this is that we are still not sure where we are going to set up our TV in the living room. It'll also gives us the option to move furniture around if we ever get tired of staring at one wall.

Here are the pictures of our selection. Filled triangles are cable jacks and non-filled triangles are phone jacks.

Exterior Colors

We met Chad's mom at the community this weekend so she could visit the model. While there, Sam told us she had finally learned what our exterior colors are going to be. Unfortunately, we weren't able to choose the house exterior color or elevation. The houses need to follow a certain pattern and we bought the last house in our block. Chad and I are definitely not fond of beige tones, so any other color would be a victory. A beige exterior wouldn't be a deal breaker, but a little of a disappointment.

What we were hoping for was gray siding and voila--that's exactly what we got! Chad liked the darker gray (almost charcoal) shade better, but I'm very satisfied with what we have. However, I don't love the maroon shades in the front door and shutters; I don't think they go well together. I'm hoping HOA will let us paint them after a while. Maybe a black front door and dark blue shutters? We'll see :)

These are our colors now:

Siding: Flint
Front door: Winestone
Shutters: Marooned

Oh, and our elevation is the second from right to left, with bay and attic windows:

Loan Application

After meeting with Sam and signing the purchase agreement, she handed us a checklist of documents to bring to our Loan Application meeting with Patti. Patti is a young Colombian woman who in my mind could kick any man's ass with some sweet South American feistiness. She was also warm and patient, like only a South American mom could be (a shout out to my own Mama here :)).

The checklist consisted of:
- Pay stubs for the last two months
- W-2s for the last two years
- Bank and retirement account statements for the last two months
- Tax returns for the last two years
- Copies of Driver's License and Social Security cards
- Leasing contact for last two years
- Contact information for employment verification

There were more documents listed, but they didn't apply to us (e.g. if you own property, are retired or self-employed, etc.).

After Patti verified all the documents we brought in, it was her turn to go over everything she had to show us. She started with our credit score, which was great (phew!), disclosure documents, and then proceed to show us the loan application itself, with a very detailed loan structure (interest rate, taxes, escrow accounts, etc.). She went through it all a few times to make sure we understood all the numbers and the rest of the application process ahead of us.

Something Chad and I didn't understand well before this process was the rate lock-in. In our situation, NVR will only lock our interest free of charge for 90 days. So if 90 days before settlement the rate of the day is 4%, for example, we can lock that rate, regardless if at settlement the rate is higher or lower. If settlement is delayed, we will have two options: pay NVR to extend the rate (fee is pro-rated, so you'd pay different amounts if extending for one week versus one month, but it can be quite expensive from the scenarios Patti showed us) or lose the locked rate and get stuck with the worst rate at the time. It's pretty much a gamble since the rates could go either up or down. As of today, we're more than 90 days from settlement, so we will revisit those option a little later in the process. This website gives a better explanation on what rate lock-ins are all about.

Now we wait. We will hear from our loan processor soon about an approval and we should be good to go :)

Timeline

Week of 12/26/16 - first visit to the community, quote, and decision

01/02/17 - signed purchase agreement
01/06/17 - meeting with Patti, loan officer, for loan application
01/07/17 - meeting with Guardian to discuss technology package
01/13/17 - first email contact with Bryson, loan processor
01/16/17 - loan application submitted to the underwriting team for approval
01/18/17 - loan approved
02/07/17 - pre-construction meeting
02/08/17 - breaking ground
Week of 02/13 - foundation completed
Week of 03/06 - framing completed (lumber and roof)
Week of 03/20 - shingles installed, HVAC completed, and plumbing rough-ins done. Dormers NOT installed - issue pending
04/03/17 - appraisal complete
04/04/17 - pre-drywall meeting
05/09/17 - loan final approval
05/30/17 - final walkthrough
06/02/17 - settlement date




(This timeline will be updated as the process unfolds)

First Visit to the Community and Making the Decision

Chad and I weren't particularly shopping for a house. We visited Ryan Homes communities and registered for news and updates in the past, but we had never filled out applications. Chad received an email about this community sometime in late December and we went check it out.

On our first visit, the sales rep (Sam) at the community was very nice to us. Well, I wouldn't expect anything different from someone who is trying to sell me something, but I had a good vibe about her. We took a tour of the model, I stole some candies from the goodies bowl on the kitchen counter (hey, don't judge), and we sat down with Sam to talk estimates. After adding and subtracting and more adding and more subtracting options to the house, pretty much everything we need / want in a house was in the final quote and the numbers were not bad. I mean, enough to make the stingy side of me cringe at the thought of paying for it for 30 years, but not bad, nonetheless.

We went back home and really analyzed our savings and expenses. The one thing we were very concerned about was with being house poor. What is the point of buying a home if we can't take care of it, right? Another decision we had to make was whether or not it was worth it to put paying off our debt in the back burner for a year or so. We had made the commitment a few months prior to start dumping every extra penny we had into our student loans in order to become debt free. Although that is also very important to us, we realized that we can resume doing that once we are settled and used to our monthly bills. As I mentioned in my previous post, it really made sense for us to take this step and we are glad we did. You know you made a good decision when the thought of it makes you feel more excitement than anxiety.

On January 2, we went back to the community and told Sam the good news. We signed our purchase agreement, I stole more candies from the goodies bowl, and we paid the required fee to hold the lot and take it off the market ($5,000). Then, it was real. Yay!

Of course we had to take the obligatory photo:

Hello, Hello!

Hello there friends, family, strangers in the Internet, NSA, Russian hackers, or whomever is reading this post right now. My name is Vivi and this month, my hubby Chad and I bought a new house.


WOOHOO! :D


This is the first home for both of us. Needless to say, we're extremely excited and a little tiny bit nervous, even though I'm sure all the Ramen we'll be eating for the next 30 years will be very comforting. Jokes aside, this next step in our relationship makes a lot of sense: we're ready financially and emotionally, we have a great support system in family and friends, we have steady jobs, and we are DONE with throwing so much money away in rent every month.


In the past few weeks, I have read a few blogs recounting other couples' experiences in the path to home ownership and decided I would do the same. Not only in hopes to help someone else one day, but also because the blog would provide me with two of my favorite hobbies: writing and reminiscing.


We will be building a brand new home (not physically, you know what I mean), so my intention is to document the process, from application to settlement, and maybe even my attempts at decorating and DIY projects once we're all moved in.


For those who will follow our story--thank you. Feel free to ask questions and leave comments. Maybe you'll even be invited to the housewarming party...


HOLY CRAP, WE ARE GROWN UPS NOW.

(P.S.: Familia e amigos no Brasil: eu adicionei Google Translate no menu a direita para que voces tambem possam accompanhar nosso progresso)