Ridiculous amount of projects

A scary amount if projects!!


As seen from the outside. There are:
End table and coffee table
The dining table and five chairs
Two solo chairs (sanding)
Another side table


Oh but wait why not do it all? There are two metal stools
AND a globe that is cut in 1/2 for hanging lamps.


Dad and mom came over to assist in the effort!


Don't I look lovely? That's a dust mask on my head. I have
Been out sweating from 7am to about 12:30 when this was taken.


After this I got a shower and we went to a nice Mexican lunch. Yum!!

I'm in love

Let me say I'm not allowed to shop for the beach house ANY MORE!
No more!!
So why do I say this? Well I had gone to good will yesterday and found a cute green end table for $10 I couldn't pass it up. It will be perfect in one of the bedrooms.
So why this reaction today?


So cute!!!


So inexpensive!!! With five chairs I asked a nice guy in the store to help me pull it apart as there was a leaf function. I could feel the locks!

Turns out the leaf is missing BUT it has TWO drop leafs on either side! Yes you read that right! It shrinks down to two feet wide!! Perfect for a tiny beach house!!!

And he said "I can do better than that $49.99 and a tip for me" heck yeah!!

So into the car it goes!!


The car is FULL and you can see this is MOST of the table.


Oh and had I unpacked the day priors find? Nope! So it was relocated to the front along with two dumpster found plant stands!


Another road side find plant stand!


And a cute lamp to redo for the living room too!


Yeah I know I'm not even IN the house yet ;)

Why don't we have keys yet?

Kind of a poopy situation as we have coughed up the cash...and have a bill if sale...however have no house. WHY?
Well, here is why:



The title can be issued after the ten day waiting period is over. When IS that day? Well, that will be the 5th. Yeah, that part bites too. The clerks office had my property scheduled for the 8th...so on the 8th or 9th we will be taking the legal actions to take the house back and get in there.

Now is when we need prayers that all is well and the house hasn't been trashed completely!!

Conjectures..

Conjectures of what the house will look like inside shape wise.

This is a house in the same area, same year and even the same layout and orientation.


Photos proved interesting as to placement of walls and rooms


Very informative!


The half bath now makes sense to me!





Here what I think the layout will be. Now we wait until we are in the house and we will see just how close I was :)


I really want to get IN there already!!

Lizzie's leg (peg leg Sue)

She's NOT happy about being here :(


And off comes the cast


And now we know why her heel was hurting. Poor Lizzie!! Working on a nice skin ulcer there. BOOOO!!


Now here is the SHOCKING picture. Loss of muscle mass in a matter of five weeks of non use.


Now the GOOD news?

She's out of her cast!!!

Wooohoooo one week more of no weight bearing, then just walking with foot on the ground with crutch. Then three weeks come back and see where we are then.


Progress.

In other news...

Today was cast check! Lizzie had a naked leg for the first time in three weeks!


There is a marked difference in calf size :o/ Her foot is still swollen :o(


And blue in odd spots..where the blood pooled from the bruises. I would have thought four weeks after injury (yes 4 from injury, 3 from cast) it would have reabsorbed. No such luck. And nice snake skin too!


Foot bath before the next cast. Still not released to the boot yet :(
(focus went wonky)


She went for blue this time :)



The old cast in the garbage :) I wasn't in there when they removed it

I had a farm in Africa....

I had a farm House in Africa Florida….

 

So as of approximately 11:20 CST (12:20 EST) on June 25^th, 2014 we had a bought a house.  It looks like this:

Sorry, no full shot of the house without the silly two picture look J but you get the gist, right?

 

Well we sort of bought a house… this is a slippery slope and the more I read, the more I get a little freaked out.  I am vacillating between thrilled and panicked.  I guess that is to be expected.  It’s harder still because it was a cash sale, so ALL of our savings is now dumped into this house, sight unseen and apparently still occupied (lights were on in the house last night – drat it!).  Although most of me KNOWs that the value of the house is a minimum of $15,000 above the assessed value, it’s still a bit scary to have all that money sunk into a very UNKNOWN hole.  L

 

So, here are your foreclosure facts for today:

 

The Foreclosure Sale:

At the foreclosure sale, the property will be:

•sold to the highest third-party bidder, or

•revert to the foreclosing lender and become REO.

The borrower has ten days after the sale to file an objection to the amount of the bid. After ten days, the clerk confirms the sale and issues a certificate of title to the purchaser.

 

Statutory Right of Redemption

Florida Statute 45.0315 allows foreclosed homeowners to redeem their property by paying the final judgment amount prior to the issuance of the Certificate of Sale to the new owner. In other words, once a final judgment amount is entered, the lender may auction the property. It is not until sometime after the sale is complete before the Certificate of Sale is issued. At any time before or after the auction, up until that Certificate of Sale is issued, a foreclosed homeowner can pay the final judgment amount and redeem the property, which voids the auction sale. (I understand the certificate of sale will happened when the money hits the court system and is considered paid in full)

 

Equitable Right of Redemption

If the foreclosed homeowner cannot pay the final judgment amount, there is another way to challenge the property's sale. In a foreclosure proceeding, a Florida court will typically order a foreclosure sale and specify how the sale will occur. Once the property is sold, the foreclosed homeowner has a 10-day equitable right of redemption period to object to the terms of the sale based on violation of the court ordered procedures or because the sale price was a result of bidder collusion or other unfair practice which lead to an artificially low sale price. This right is important because if the property is sold for less than what the foreclosed homeowner owed, then the lender may obtain a deficiency judgment against the foreclosed homeowner.

 

From the occupant’s perspective:

Eviction Following Foreclosure

If you don’t vacate the property following the foreclosure sale, the new owner will likely:

•offer you a cash-for-keys deal (where the new owner offers you money in exchange for you agreeing to move out), or (yeah, NOT going to happen folks)

•evict you.

The eviction process is typically part of the foreclosure action with the right to possession included in the judgment. After the certificate of title is issued, the lender files a motion for a writ of possession. When the motion is granted, the clerk of court issues the writ, which gives you 24 hours to move out, and the sheriff posts it to the property. If you do not leave, the sheriff will make you leave.

 

The good news from OUR perspective, it’s MUCH shorter time frame than the 90 days it could be.. so pray that we can get the folks evicted on/near the 8^th of July.  We have 10 days after the sale – that would put it on 5^th.  As that is a Saturday, it will take until Monday for the writ to be issued, then another day to get the sheriff’s office out to do the eviction… so best case, we’ll have them out on/near the 8^th.  BETTER case would be that they have moved out already and left the house vacant and our folks on the ground will go knock on the door and be able to see that it’s empty and we change the locks right now.  Sigh.  I don’t like the “hurry up and wait mode.”

 

I think we should go down there and be on site that week so we can immediately take stock in what we have to do and start the ball rolling.  What do you vote?

Bonus room revamp

Before. Well, I had already dug in a bit so the chair was opened and stuff shoved onto the bed. You can see the futon on the window wall and the bed in the forefront. That's the key change here.


After. The dresser ended up not needing to be moved too far. The "school" supplies that were in the far corner are now tucked behind the dresser. The bed is moved towards the window and the futon moved to make more of a sitting room upon entering.


I like it a lot better. There are two chairs on either side of the dresser that can be pulled out to game. The kids can also use futon to sit on and hang out while others are playing. I may need to get a coffee table for the girls as well.

It all started with Zillow

For those of you with iPads, smart phones or any type of implement that can load an application, and those of you with a LOVE of dreaming of buying a home somewhere/anywhere in the US; Zillow is dangerous. I mean DANGEROUS!!

I have dreamed and shopped for the last 5 years or more. I have watched the market ebb and flow in Fort Walton Beach, Venice Beach, Mexico Beach and a myriad of other places. I have watched homes go on the market, watch them sell and been SHOCKED at what they sell for when going on auction. Been saddened that I hadn't checked it often enough or fast enough to note that the house behind my MIL went on the market in 2011 and SOLD quickly for a mere $75,000 as we had talked to the owner of the house a few years prior telling them "if you ever want to sell, call us FIRST". Well, apparently the husband passed and the wife didn't remember, didn't think to call over to Sally's house and whala the house sold without our having a chance to so much as bid on it... sigh. So I watched and waited and looked at houses and dreamed of buying an auction home down there.

So what should greet me earlier this week but a note on the house directly behind Sally listed at $100. What??? No, it wasn't a typo, that is the starting bid on the property. I talk to Butch about it, show him and encourage him to go down there on the auction date and stand on the court house steps and put his best bid in like you see on TV in the house flipping shows. He agrees and the research begins.

First shocker is that auctions are longer on the court house steps; well, at least not in this county. It's all on line.
Second shocker is that banks will not give you short term secured loans. Really - nope, won't do it.

So the process has begun, a lawyer has been contacted and paid to do a title check on the house to make sure there are no liens we don't know about. That should be done by Monday/Tuesday and the auction is on Wednesday.

This should be an exciting process - wish us luck!

The little notebook that could

Cleaning drawers at the office and look what I found:









Why the little notebook that "could"? This was my constant companion for about three years from 2002 to 2006ish. It was my PC support lifeline. There was a time I would panic if I didn't have it (ask Frankie about that) it had all the "keys to the kingdom" at the time. This year is the year met it's end :( I'll miss that notebook.

Cerused furniture

It started with a blog post:
http://www.addicted2decorating.com/cerused-oak-dining-table-table-makeover-finished.html

AND a road side chair:





I forgot to take the true before picture with the top off looking like a snaggle tooth because the spindles were split about 1/3 of the way down from the top and the center piece was laying on the ground. Sigh. I tried to see what it would look like without the center piece. Yeah, it looked terrible so when I glued it all back together the center piece stayed.

And I waited and ordering started because I needed some liming wax.

I didn't take pictures if the chair after paint and stain. But it was impressive then.





And even more so now with the wax buffer out :)

Goodwill finds this evening

On a whim I stopped at Goodwill tonight and found some folding chairs like these:

very nice for $8.99 each for a seat of 2
I also found a cute poppies painting... I have at thing for RED and a thing for poppies from our time in Italy.  That and sunflowers, but my red fetish has me always going to the poppy pictures in stores.  This one is a Kirtland one that was originally $80 for $20.  Can't beat that... and I love the theme :)

Summer

While reviewing this years calendar for summer, I noticed something - there really is NO summer for Angela this year.  She was out of school on the 22nd of May.  In reality she got out a few days early due to exempting finals (GREAT work on her part to be over 90% in all her classes!!).  Her color guard practices started on the 5th of June - what's weird is this didn't even give her the first two weeks of summer off!  In the past they have had guard all summer, however they have had two full weeks OFF of school to get things done, to have some fun and play. 

 

I had planned on sending the girls to Florida for a week during those two weeks off and wouldn't you know it the VERY first week of summer Lizzie broke her foot.  No, really - school for Angela got out on the 22nd; Liz broke her foot on the 27th. 

 

Sigh... not even 5 full days after summer officially began.  Let me tell you, this ruined some plans for me too!  She was to be my driver this summer to make sure the little ones got to and from color guard camp during the week and cleaning of the house.  Surprise!!!

 

Needless to say summer is flying by already and it's just begun!  Right now it's full of appointments for kids and such.  Liz for foot issues and revisits to make sure everything is healing just right.  Angela for Color Guard camp and trekking her from point A to point B.  Butch and I are in charge of Tuesdays - Butch takes them TO the school and I go get them at noon and take them home.  Today is the first Tuesday (they started last Thursday)... we'll see how much this impacts my day having to go all the way home and back to work in less than an hour if I'm lucky!  OH and grabbing food on the fly as well.

 

On to MORE summer updates... pictures to follow when I get a few (I'm updating via email that I take DAYS to compose!).

Beds.  Angela has had her daybed for a few years now and it was purchased from the local "junk" store - love that store, but not revealing where it is to keep it "my" little treasure trove to DIG through... :)  Anyway, it was a steal from there.  I want to say it was $40 total for the whole thing, trundle and all - $20 each piece.  It needed some love even then.  It was missing a few of the springs (I got the replacements from Lowes) and needed to be updated a bit (it had gold accents).  So, I dragged it home, painted it all white and she has loved it ... a LOT.  It's taken her growing and growing and pushing on the bars and breaking the bars in her sleep ;)  So... after many a mend with white tape (used for her color guard or we wouldn't have known it existed) it's time for it to go away...   I don't think it's salvageable without some serious welding at some of the joins and honestly - not worth it even if I paid $40 for each piece.  It has lived its life and given it's all for a few children, I'm sure!

 

So what is she going to sleep on now, you ask?  She wanted to take the futon from upstairs to her room.  I was in agreement until I really thought about it.  I LIKE having two beds upstairs for when company comes.  I like having two beds up there when the girls have sleepovers.  Lets face it I like having two beds up there and having a futon and a bed is just ideal in that the girls can go upstairs to play games and watch TV with friends and make all the noise they want during a sleep over and NOT disturb us.  Bonus!!  So, no, that futon had to stay upstairs and we took a trip to Wal-Mart last night to see what futons they had available.   They had a gray one to match her room colors and a plan was hatched and futon purchased.

 

The good thing is that they are packaged in such a way that the box is rather "square" and fit perfectly into the back of the pilot!  It was meant to be! 

 

THEN I went to Target... BAD Donna, BAD!  I have been looking at a different solution for the foot of my bed as my little "puff" boxes are getting really ratty looking where the pleather is peeling off from being well loved and used over the years.  I have been looking at a bench with cubbies for a while and made the choice last night to purchase it at 30% off... I wasn't willing to chance it not being there at 50% off.

  

 

Well, this poses a problem as I have two kids and the entire back of the car is FULL... hum... so I have to pull my seat forward to get the TOP of the long bench box into the car, then into the foot part of the seat next to Liz, then move the seat back again.... while holding the box a bit higher in the car.  Sigh.  It worked, it all fit and life was good and we went home with a CAR full of goodies!! 

 

 

OH and the last thing I purchased was wall paper... why wall paper?  What for?  Well, the back of my china hutch.  I had been looking for the perfect accent to put on the back wall of the unit and I FOUND it.  It's perfect.

I’m IN LOVE!!!!

So now I will push forward with the hutch remake and get it on the move.  I have the “glass” taken out now and it’s sitting waiting for the next move.  This was the clincher.  It will be white with this lovely yellow wall paper on the backboard… I’m excited!

 

 

Storage wars and weekend adventures

Is your house like mine and stuffed to the gills?  I have a big house, but I have a bigger clutter problem L  I’m working on it every chance I get and this weekend I got a BIKE TREE.  A what?  I bike tree.  Yeah, I have never heard of one either… but they have them.

 

Mine looks similar to this – this one is nicer as mine has four supporting brackets coming up from a square base to a single central pole, but you get the gist.  It was a BIG debate in our house as no-one thought it would be worth it for a mere $45.00.

Well, I got the first one home from Harbor Freight on Saturday after going out running around with mom and Lizzie.  I had started the day out going to Lowes to pick up a replacement part for the palm sander… yeah, I even told the guys there, we will NOT be discussing HOW I messed this up, just how I can FIX it – ha!  So, parts in hand I was going to Mom’s to help her on the computer.

 

I got side tracked a few times with yard sale signs… Georgians really tick me off, however… you’re zooming along a busy road and see a brightly colored sign with YARD SALE big as can be.. and a TINY address printed at the bottom.  Hello???  I don’t know where the heck that road is in the labyrinth that is your neighborhood.  DO NOT put an address… leave me a trail of signs, thank you very much!  I gave up on two in my neighborhoods because 1) I don’t have a “spotter” in my car to read your address and 2) who has a spotter that can read your freaking TINY address on the sign while zipping off a busy road.  Gracious folks!!

 

So, off I go towards mom’s house without stopping at ONE garage sale I pulled off the road to find… only to spot an Estate sale sign… you guessed it – with a tiny freaking address.  I literally had to circle the block THREE times to get the dang address – then had to pull over, put it on my GPS because there were no signs on the road further down.  AGGGRRRRREEEEE!  I went to the estate sale, left with … nothing!  But on the way out I was friendly to the gals at the checkout and they told me to go to a “moving” sale down the road and the description of how to get there was something like go down to Gordon street, but not the first Gordon you come to, the second, then you’re going to go to a house on the curve – it’s on the curve and has a Century 21 sign out front.  The sale is in the back yard, just go on back.  Hum… I teased them I would be walking into some strangers’ back yard and it NOT be the place – then the jokes on me.  Well, I finally find the 2^nd Gordon Street and there is a house to the right that has a Century 21 sign.  The house is deserted.. nothing out front, no signs of life.. and I pull past the sign and am just getting ready to drive away when I noted in my rearview mirror there is a moving sale taped to the other side of the house for sale sign…Ok, I’ll bite.  I walked through the back gates and there is NOTHING out there but some kids and a few adults standing around talking… so I asked them if it was indeed a sale.  Yep, anything and everything in the outbuilding is for sale.  It’s all pretty much junk, but I found a cute decorative bird house in one of the trashed rooms and asked how much - $2.00.   Ok, for that it can come home with me J AND I had exactly $2 in my wallet.  It was meant to be. 

 

After all that, I went to Mom’s fixed here stuff up and went on a ride with her to find a replacement switch for Dad’s lift chair.  We finally ended up calling the place they bought it from - Phillips Furniture - and was told that we would have to order one on Monday – in the meantime, that is where dad sleeps and if he gets the chair BACK he can’t get it up as that is the button that is broken.  I explained that to the gal and they were so sweet they came out and WIRED a new one in for him!!  Really – what great people they are at Phillips Furniture (yes, another blatant plug for them!)  Talk about wonderful service!!!

 

While all this is being arranged, Mom and I were headed to Macon to go to Sams club and we decided to try and find a medical supply place she has seen advertised on the TV off Gray highway – we go on a wild goose chase – never found the place because 1) we don’t know the name of it and 2) we don’t have an address.  Funny, hu?  But we went anyway hoping to find it.  Nope.  So, while we’re on that side of town, we go to the Subaru place so I can test drive a Forester.  They’re nice, but feel smaller, well, because they are smaller.  They are about a foot slimmer than the Honda.  Not sure I can deal with that in the end.  But they drive nice!  We finally made it to Sams and shopped, had a piece of pizza and headed to the house.  Angela and I started to put the bike tree together when  we discovered the issue with the wheels of the unit we purchased.  I had known the box was banged up pretty bad and had immediately asked about return policy before buying – so I had the thought.  Sunday I returned the original and after fishing through two more boxes for parts and pieces, found two good wheels to add to the mix and repurchased the bike tree – came home, put it together and in the process found two wheels out of 6 had lost 90% of their bearings.  Sad… the bad ones were chucked and the good ones were installed and the bikes were all loaded onto the tree to test it.  Works like a champ!  Now to see if the girls can get their bike OFF of the tree J

 

Roadside find chair.

I always forget to take the true before before pictures where it was in three pieces. The top was off and the spindle was divided at the top 1/3 of the overall spindle. Making the top have "teeth" sticking down. The center piece was off and I debated not putting it back on however it was too plain without it, so I glued it back in place. The other two spindles were long gone, so wood putty was the option of choice :)


So today the clamps came off and the sanding has begun. It's going to be an awfully cute chair ;)




The bedside table below was a roadside find also and the top got a good sanding as well. Still debating it it's worth trying to save. It has the cutest shape and it would give me a chance to try and make a shelf to replace the missing top drawer. :). It's not solid wood and had had a rough life.

Goals....it's been a while (may 2012)

From the last list...and ashamed they aren't done in some cases!
· PAINT the backdoor.
· Sprinklers - yes, we HAVE to add this back on there
We are down to just one (not so) little thing left... and that is run the final wiring to the box by the driveway bump out. Butch wants to go under the driveway for this one... which will entail some tunneling.
For the sake of THIS exercise, I’m going to put the whole “sprinklers” and backyard stuff to bed with a “Butch is doing that"… and pray the progress continues
· get the rest of the house organized with the group
· get the craft room up to snuff (scary statement)
The group is dying on the vine out there and I'm tempted to take it over as I really need to get back on track

New :
Plant the north west flower bed and put gravel down for the drainage area.
Plant the long flower pots

I need to hit the lotto so I can stay home... then I stay home and I don't DO anything...
Guess I don't really NEED to hit the lottery, but boy wouldn't it be nice? Sigh. Not going to happen.

I guess if I would stop buying projects, I could get ahead in life. I have a number of projects...
They are:
(you KNOW I’m doing this to motivate myself, really, I am!)
Left over from last year...
· The cheese domes
o In my defense they are HALF painted now… well, more than half painted, but not fully as I was using my new trusty sprayer and I was running low on paint so the dresser won the battle as it really needed to be painted more than the cheese dome bases J
o What am I going to DO with these domes? Well, the goal is to put them on the mantel during holidays and have them filled with items of the season – easter eggs with grass, pine cones with fake snow during the winter…
o Do I really NEED these? Uhm, probably not… but I still want to get them done!
· Coat rack
o Yeah, about ready to put that bad boy out back to test it in the weather BEFORE I paint it to see if I’m on track with that. I want to put it out there in the winter so my towel will be RIGHT next to the hot tub
NEW this year – well, sort of.
· China hutch – repaint and paper the back wall with something cute. Maybe in a yellow pattern?
· Purple dresser repaint (Angelas old one)
· Paint the desk chair and recover it
· Figure out what I'm doing with the long dresser.
· Refinish coffee table and end stand for Liz
· Refinish small cedar chest

I'm sure there are lots of things that go hand in hand with these tasks as I need to go to Lowes to see about a pad for the palm sander and things like that. All in good time, I guess.

Now that they are on paper (?) again, maybe this will help motivate me again to get things DONE...

Craig's list find!

And they really were $20 for the two. Score. :)
They are a bit scratched, need a good sanding and resealed. They are VERY sturdy. They will probably go to college with a girl the end of next year :)