The House is Lit For Christmas

So we finally got up the Christmas lights. We did not blow a fuse so living here is pretty nice, considering the fact that if we put up more than 6 strands of lights at my parents house the whole house would blow out. Hehe.

At any rate, it was beyond exciting putting up lights in my own house this year. I got so into the spirit that I made these here stockings using some craft green glitter glue, and stockings I picked up at the dollar store. 

He wanted to put our 15 foot snowman up on the roof! I wouldn't let him because I was afraid of a gust of wind taking him away. I did however settle on allowing him to put the 6 foot snowman up on the lower level roof. It looks pretty good!

I put the larger 15 foot snowman up in the front between the 2 lit up trees. He looks pretty dang good there. We had began putting the lights up on November 1st, which was a little early. Just yesterday, December 2nd- others in the neighborhood finally began to put theirs up! I was waiting for a month to see others get into the spirit. I got my spirit a little early!

Here is me and my Bubba!!! I plopped the little hat on him, he was not happy about it!
The walkway below, was lined using Halloween branch lights I got on sale for $2.00 for a set of 3. I bought the last 2, and just used them as xmas lights. No one knows the flippin difference!

Bathroom Makeover!

Upon the many times we had been in the house to view it before even owning it, everything looked nice and fine. Yeah she required a bunch of updates, but for the most part it all looked pretty cosmetic, and even the inspector whom we paid $450 to do the inspection of the home missed a few major key things that should have easily been detected by a professional.

For instance...

The very first day we moved in and used the downstairs shower we discovered that water was literally leaking from the built in shower window out onto the deck and down into the basement as well.

Great!

Now not for nothing, had the inspector actually ran the water for a bit in the shower this would have quickly been discovered.

I cannot complain though, it's now my issue, my house, and the fix had to be made by me.

When you are a new homeowner though, and unaware of the handy work involved it can easily consume you and you could end up spending an entire day installing a new window, and then another week jusyt laying in tile. Granted it could have been done faster, but it is a wee bit impossible when you are working a full time job and then coming home to work another household duty.

Due to the awkward window size we had to spend top dollar on an Andersen Window. Schnazzy, and everyone who has since seen the new window naturally commented on the brand. I for one cannot fathom why, a window is a window if you ask me, and I would have been more than happy to not have spent $280 on a new name brand window, and spent half that for a lesser known brand. But eh... such is life.

Installing the window thankfully was a do it yourself job taken on my my other half.

Here is the before and after--- well, sadly I did not get the before shot of the bathroom before he tore the walls out. Kick me now... but here it is.



 

Now the major issue with why we had to re-do this entire bathroom was previous owner laziness. Notice in the before shot how he used greenback in the shower- no wonder the crap leaked. You need cement backing in the shower, especially for tile work, which this bathroom had in plain white before it had to be torn up.

At any rate, this bathroom was a labor of love, as was my upper level bathroom.

The upper level bathroom was claimed by yours truly, the only time my other half was allowed in was when he was refinishing his bathroom! Tee-hee!

At any rate, as you can see by the photo, here is my before shot, as is, as it was purchased.

The image next to it, is my finish.

I painted the walls brown. Now initially I hated it, it seemed to dark and reminded me of poop. However after adding polyurethane crown molding, I realized that the brown was actually really nice. Nicer than I thought!

 

I then decided to paint the moulding antique gold. I did this by applying a coat of black paint, and then Martha Stewarts specialty finish paint in Penny Copper. The result was a high beam glossy copper finish, and I adore it!

 I also re-did the window frame, and even the door. All in all the bathroom now looks like a classy sassy bathroom, fit for my queen like standards. Haha!

The final touch of course came about a week later, when I came across this cute wall vinyl sticker. I added it right to the bottom wall below the window, and just adore the added touch!

I will include the tutorial on how to install polyurethane crown molding, how to paint it an antique copper, and how to use corner blocks in another post at another time.

Lucky Visitor

The house was mine before I even signed for the deed. The day of our closing we went into the home for one final walk through to see if everything was in the same working order as the last time we had seen it.

The first visitor of the day was a Praying Mantis.

What a lucky thing to see a few hours before your closing. It signifies a lot, and after some research it made a lot of sense.

Did you know a praying mantis only moves when she has to?

I did not necessarily have to move, but the mantis also signifies patience... which I surely have a lot of.

At any rate, here was our first lucky visitor.

Burner Is Out... Burner is In...

So the other night the oil burner decided to not click on, our usual temperature is a steady 67 degrees in the house. Fine time for it to decide to go off.

It was more upsetting because we had the fireplace guy coming to install our M55 Pellet Stove, but sadly they had to cancel... that same very day no less. What a kick in the teeth.

So I head downstairs and hit the rest button, and wallah, the burner kicks back to life, roars like a lion, and then...

Like another kick in the teeth...

It turns off again.

I cannot for the life of me figure it out, the burner supposedly was serviced a week before we moved in- at least that is what we get for taking the previous owners word for it.

I do some investigative work and find the service card on the burner. Turns out the burner had not been serviced for an entire year! I assume this is a mistake! So I take it upon myself to call the last company that was in to service it. It seems the previous owner used this company for years, so yes, of course, they should know the last time they were in to service it.

I get a call back and low and behold it's true, he lied. The burner had not been serviced for a year. So now it is 11pm, and I am left with no other choice but to dig into my wallet and call in for emergency burner fixin! Yowza's.... $418 later, I end up with a working burner, and a service contract. Not exactly what I was planning on doing, but the guy was super friendly, and ended up staying and chatting with my fella for an hour after all was fixed.

I appreciated his good friendly nature, but hello! It's now 12:30 at night, and I am ready for bed.

Anyhow, the following day while at work I get the phone call I am waiting for...

My M55 is ready for installation. I will be including a review on the Enviro M55 in a later post.

So here it is folks, the beast. Capable of heating up the entire home, and guess what it sure as heck did! So the thing literally cost us a trip to Fiji- Twice... but hell, either a week in Fiji, or a lifetime of warm cozy winters. We are literally going to save a ton of money on oil! Just what we need - money in the bank! Yeah baby yea!

Don't mind my little photo bomber- that's just Bubbie, and he totally is in love with his new pellet stove!

I Think I Am Going To Love It Here

Back in 1994 when my parent bought their home, the only welcoming gift they got was a basket of fruit from their real estate agent.

The neighbors sort of ignored us, and possibly even hated us when we first moved in.

I was expecting the same sort of unwelcoming committee the day we parked out U-Haul in the driveway....however after just 48 hours we had already met 2 neighbors, and gotten 2 welcoming gifts. I had never felt more welcomed anywhere in my life, and they were still strangers!

The first gift came from the older woman next door, Lorrene, she brought over a package of Halloween themed cookies, which were fabulous, and a nice large container of crackers and cheeses.

The following day, the neighbor across the street brought over warm homemade bread!

Yup... I love it here! I feel like I stepped into a scene in some movie... where everything is perfect... what is the catch?!

Burner King- Contract Sting

So after being suckered into purchsing Burner Kings service contract on our boiler the other night, we had to once again make a call in to have the same issue addressed once again.

We called in to have them come back to look at it at 6pm, it's  now 9pm and no one has returned our call to let us know when they are coming.

Funny.

Seems the moment you pay the jerks for a contract they don't give a rats A blank, blank word about you or the burner- or the fact that we have had no hot water or heat for a few hours now.

Thank God for the pellet stove otherwise we would have froze by now.

Word to the wise... ya need a burner contract for service- skip out on these clowns.

Halloween Do It Yourself Light Up Craft Pumpkins

Halloween is my favorite holiday. I have been collecting Halloween decor since childhood, and had Chase Bank actually been a little quicker with getting our loan in order, we would have been in the house sometime in the August of 2013, instead of October 3rd.

The house was and is nowhere near being ready for decorations, and there is still so much to unpack a month later, so naturally most of my Halloween goodies remained in their boxes up in the attic where they now remain. It literally took me 3 weeks to find everything, organize it in Halloween labeled boxes, and store it all away.

The good news is that I am totally ready for Halloween 2014, as I now know where everything is!

Before moving in though I created something pretty cool that I figured you do it yourself crafty folks out there would like. I created my own light up craft pumpkin string set, which when set up and put on my steps looks pretty awesome.

Here it is...

This was actually pretty simple to make, and I will have it for years and years to come, because these pumpkins do not rot!

Now my first word to the wise would be to only purchase these craft pumpkins AFTER the holiday when they go on their mega 75% off sale. Michaels and other craft stores already have them marked down. If you get them during the holiday hype, you will pay almost $30 for a large sized one, which is crazy!

Before just randomly carving into them you will want a template... you do it in the same manner you would a regular pumpkin, you hold a piece of paper with the template to the pumpkin, tape the paper on and make small holes around the template. Remove the paper when you are done tracing out the design, and then you can begin cutting.

The two bottom pumpkins were templates I found in a pumpkin carving kit booklet, and of course the one at the top is handmade, and adds such a charm. Our pizza delivery guy thought it was neat because it made finding our home easy peasy.

I did not want to use those cheap battery operated lights, not only are they weak when it comes to giving off light, but they also die fast if you forget to manurally turn them off at night.

Instead I cut a hole in the bottom of each pumpkin, and stuffed it with green colored Christmas lights. I only used one 50 light string set and simply connected them all together on the same light set.

It worked like a charm, and everyone who saw them commented on how neat they were.

So there you have it folks, a fun, simple, and pretty little addition for your steps or rail at Halloween time!





----Aside from my craft pumpkins, here was the small amount of items I was able to find. At least I had some decorations out this year.

And lastly... I had to decorate myself up for Halloween, and yes, I am guilty of this here Halloween Selfie combo shot.

Getting My Parlor Ready

So most people probably would not want a black and white living room with Victorian red and white furniture, but I am not everybody, and I am sure there are others like me whom would dig it. After painting over the stairwell though, I decided to get a little more creative. What about black floors?! Why not! So this is basically my next DIY quest. I have the black and white stairwell, I have the cool re-done Victorian red and black throne chair, and heck, I even got the flippin $5,000 Enviro pellet stove to go with the whole allure of the room. I'm likely going to do what everyone else on every forum suggested not to do... I am painting my wood floors a high gloss black and finishing it off with a super high gloss poly finish. These babies are going to shine, and I will be sure to share the before and after shots. But for right now, here is the stairwell, which I think came out beautifully.

This was not the only project I had taken on. My dad gave me an old lamp which I knew would fit into my parlor just perfectly.

However the old lamp looked sort of dated, so I took it upon myself to go ahead and give it a facelift. Hours of back breaking labor went into this sweet chandelier. Here is the progress photos as I worked on the lamp.

The Before, The During, and The After.

This Old Chair

I found this chair at a yard sale about 10 years ago. Everyone who saw it dubbed it ugly, anf that I shoulf have left it in the yard I picked it up at. They were sure it would have ended up in the garbage anyway.

Pshhh... what do they know?

It took me 10 years to finally own my own home, and to finally bring this old baby back to life.

Here is the before and after shots of my beautiful throne chair.

I have yet to find her match in beauty, but Ebay sells some really stunning throne chairs, which cost a hell of a lot more than the $30 I paid 10 years ago.

I dusted her off, and gave her a fabric cleaning, followed up by some red fabric dye. I then slowly gave her 3 coats of high gloss black paint. Quite stunning now, and everyone compliments the old chair.

Frame Out A Mirror Using Polyurethane Crown Moulding

I had about 30 feet of polyurethane crown molding left over from the bathroom. I had a spot that seemed pretty ideal for it, but everyone who heard of my plan to frame out the parlor mirror told me it could not be done.

Please!

Never tell a crafty craftenstein like me what can and cannot be done.

I was told I needed to use plain flat molding to frame it out, but the stubborn Taurus I am.... well... I went ahead with my plans with using the decorative crown, and guess what? It came out looking fabulous.

I liked the fact that I was able to make my 45 degree angle miter cuts by hand, due to how lightweight polyurethane molding is!

Anyway, below you will see my step by step before- during and after photographs.

I think I did a schnazzy job!

For those of you wondering how I did it, it was all rather simple. I measured my mirror, measured out my molding, and simply applied it to the walls using Loctite Adhesive.

I then used painters tape to just hold it in place so it would not slip. After all was dry, I used spackle to connect my miter cuts to leave it looking seamless. I then of course painted it black to match the black and white color scheme I have going on.

All in all it turned this old 60's mirror into a more classical look. It allows it now to pop, and it looks decorative and a heck of a lot nicer than it originally did!

I am glad we decided to keep this mirror in place. Originally we were going to knock it down, but I liked it, it made the room look a lot bigger. With it framed out the room just has a sweet refined look- that Gothic turn of the century decor I was going for!

I Have a Changing Room

You can call me spoiled all you want, but when you work 7 days a week, on call not knowing when someone will demand you pick up from what you are doing and head in to work... you can point the finger and call me a brat- but I know you wouldn't- because like me, you work for what you got.

At any rate, yes, guilty as charged... I have myself a changing room. Showing this particular room to friends and family usually ends up being the same result- they are in awe- they wish they had it- and they compliment on the... yep... the freakin racks.

In my case, I went with the ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit. Below you will find my review of this particular organizer. -Review also found on Yahoo Contributor- reviewed by me.


Before the review though, have a gander at my precious!

My cousin is up there helping me get all of my clothes on hangers, and next to that photograph is the finished product. 

Anyhow... on to the review:

 Ever since becoming a homeowner, and having more than enough rooms than I knew what to do with, I decided to turn one of the con-joining rooms that attaches to my bedroom into a dream walk in closet that every girl could ever want, or need as far as space was concerned. However I did not want to cluster up the room with dressers and bulky furniture pieces. I wanted organization. I wanted to feel as if I was walking into my own perfect little boutique, and everyday when I went in to change for work, I would not feel as if I were just in a room, but a shopping store.

ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit literally delivered exactly what I was looking for. This review is dedicated entirely to the ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit.

I picked up this kit for $139.00 at Home Depot. I felt the price was sort of high for a bunch of metal pieces, but after putting it up and lining it with my clothes I realized it was money well spent.

The first items I purchased were free standing clothing racks, and I found out very quickly how useless they were, and how easily they fell apart. ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit is built into the wall, so there are no weak spots, and you can hand a lot and not have to worry about the weight.

Set up was a real headache, as you can extend the unit to fit anywhere from a 5 foot sized wall, to an 8 foot sized wall. I of course extended it to the entire 8 feet allowing me some more room.

As I said though, setting it up was not easy because the directions are very vague and very hard to understand. We literally did everything by eye, so once we tossed the instructions and rigged it up our own way things came together a lot easier. Do be sure though to have your units hang rack nailed or drilled into at least 2 wall beams in order to support the weight of the unit.

All in all installing the ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit took about 4 hours, with the help of 2 other people. Once it is installed you are free to place your shelving anywhere you see fit, there is no one way, set way to go about things. You can place them where you want, and I truly loved being able to customize the unit to fit my needs.

Once the ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit was all set up, I went ahead and began placing my clothes on hangers and putting them on the hang bars. I worried about the weight of my clothes pulling it out of the wall, but the issue never arose.

I was able to hang everything I owned, including shoe boxes with shoes inside of them without the unit even showing signs of fragility. I still have room to add more things too, and not just a little room, a whole lot of it.

Overall:
 
The ClosetMaid ShelfTrack 5-8 foot Closet Organizer Kit is a sturdy and fabulous piece. I now walk into my changing room and feel as if I am in a boutique and not some cramped up closet. I am in love with it, and will be purchasing the smaller 3-5 foot unit for the other wall.

I cannot recommend this organizer enough. I no longer have a hard time finding what I need, nor do I have issues finding matching pieces. This has literally saved me time in the morning instead of rummaging through dresser draw making messes.

Hey We Need a Freakin Sensor Light Out Here!

The very first thing I noticed about the house when we moved in, was that at night there was no motion sensor lights attached to the exterior of the house.

This annoyed me to no end, because I felt that it was something we needed immediatley. The only issue was, I had no clue how to install an electrical one.

So here is my review of the one I decided to buy, the XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light
-My review can also be found on YAHOO CONTRIBUTOR NETWORK. 

Did you know you could save yourself a bunch of money if you were to purchase the XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light sold by Coleman instead? It is in fact the very same light. Just some food for thought.

I stumbled upon this by simply searching online for the model number PSO1W. At any rate, I discovered this normally priced $100.00 solar motion activated light for half the cost. I got lucky, unintentionally of course, because I was about to spend $100.00 on the light anyway, however after discovering the light for $50.00, I naturally was happier than a pig in mud.

Anyway, moving along, one hundered dollars, or fifty dollars, is the XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light even worth the price? That is after all why you stopped in, is it not?

So let me break down exactly how I feel about this solar motion activated flood light.

On arrival I laughed pretty hard at its overall appearance. It seriously looked like a cartoon robot from Futurama. It appears to have 2 eyes, a mid section for a nose, and the motion activator looks like a mouth. All strangeness aside though, my next thoughts were of quality.

The XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light is made of plastic, but not a cheap flimsy sort of plastic, a very sturdy and heavy duty plastic which made me feel as if this light was made well, and it would indeed withstand the harsh elements of being outdoors. You can purchase this light in either a black finish, or white. I went with the white finish to match my homes white siding, as my plan was to affix it to the side of the house.
My reasoning was simple; we bought a home that did not have a motion activated flood light, and being the non-handy broad I am, I had no choice but for a quick and easy fix. I also had no idea how to wire in a flood light, nor did I have the time to. This light made that issue disappear, as nothing is required in order to get it to work. Nothing but the sun that is.

In the box a large, and yes, a slightly ugly black solar panel which feeds the light energy. I am not a technical person, but basically the included panel is what catches your rays energy and seeps them into the light in order for it to charge up everyday and provide light at night.

Installing the XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light was really simple. I crawled up onto my second story balcony, and screwed it into the side of the house. My only concern from there was whether or not this light would actually detect motion being so high up. I pointed the motion detector toward the ground and hoped for the best. I also wondered how powerful the 2 floodlights would actually be, considering most solar powered lights do not provide all too much light.

It took 2 days for the XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light to fully charge and begin detecting movement. The box instructions stated it would take 3 days, but ours was fully functional in just 2.
I was giddy with delight when it powered on for the first time, and I was beyond impressed with just how bright the lights truly were.

Overall:
 
XEPA PSO1W Solar Motion LED Spot Light is a total win in my opinion. I did not have to hard wire anything into the electric, as everything is wireless. Installation took just minutes, and the light is exactly what we needed for at night when bringing in groceries, or when guests arrived, and of course to alert us when someone was in our yard at night. It gives me a sense of security, and I couldn't be happier with this purchase.

I highly suggest this one to those who like simplicity, ease of installation, and a maintenance free lifestyle.
The one con however which I must mention is that there is no way to set the length of time the light stays lit. It powers on for one minute, and will not power back on unless motion is detected again. No big deal, but I would have liked to control the length of time it remained on before auto powering off.

As Promised: How To Give Polyurethane Crown Moulding A Bronze Antique Paint Finish

My family is full of snobs, literally. If you are adding crown molding to your home they say, than you absolutely must use wood.

Yeah in a perfect world where I hit the lottery and could afford to crown out every room in wood maybe I would. But after looking at pricing of wood molding, and polyurethane molding, I figured heck with them, I can not only save a ton of money, but I can also pick molding with truly beautiful and unique designs. Designs that I simply could not find carved into wood, let alone with prices I could afford.

After extensive research on exactly how to install this type of molding, I went ahead and took the plunge. I ordered 63 linear feet of poly crown molding, and hoped for the best. Heck for just $155.00, how could I go wrong?

The poly molding came shipped in a few days, and I had it cut and up in about an hour in my 33 linear foot bathroom. I also ordered corner blocks to virtually eliminate the need to do 45 degree miter cuts on the ends. Yes, I saved myself a ton of time!

Next was to paint them. According to the site where I ordered my poly molding, they were ready to be painted, so all I had to do was pick my colors.

Seeing that my walls were freshly painted brown, I figured a beautiful bronze antique paint job on my crown molding would really snap it to life.


Surprisingly the finish came out 100 times better than I had ever imagined it would, and here is how I did it.
You want to paint the molding after you install it, because any small cuts in the molding where one end meets the other will need Spackle in order to hide the seam. So, before painting, just install the molding. After it is up, allow it to dry and then add your Spackle to hide seams. Next you can paint!

Here is how to get a beautiful metallic looking antique bronze finish on polyurethane crown molding
I used black high gloss interior paint. I brushed it onto the molding in one quick swoop. This part of the paint job does not have to be perfect, but be sure to cover all white that may show through for a deeper coloring for when you apply your metallic top coat.

Anyhow, after painting the crown molding black, it will likely look awful. You will want to cry and wonder why you ever did it in the first place. Fear not, this is just part of the process, and it will give your molding depth, especially if you have any dips/grooves for a design in the molding.

You will want to allow this paint to dry. It does not take long for it to dry, but let it sit for at least 2 hours or so that way any areas that have paint pooled can dry better.


Next you need your metallic bronze overcoat. I used a beautiful and unique color called Penny Copper, which is sold in small containers by Martha Stewart.


I shook the container and began swiping this penny copper paint on top of the black. I was astonished when I finished at just how stunning the crown molding looked using this technique to paint it.


Basically in order to get this sort of deep rich shade of copper you will need to use a black base coat. The high gloss black paint allowed the color of the bronze to come out darker and more rich, hence only needing a small amount of metallic paint to bring it to life. Without using the black base color, the metallic paint would not have shown so brightly and vividly, and would have required tons of coats. When you use a black base you literally only need one thin coat of the metallic paint, saving you time and money!

Tip- You do not need to use a copper color, you can get a rich metallic silver, or any color you choose that is metallic to finish your molding. Just always remember to use a black undercoat to bring out the shine!
Have fun, and enjoy your new room! 

What Happens When Your Lender Requires Mold Remediation In Order To Fund Your Loan?

This is coming from my own personal story; and let me tell you it has caused 5 new white hairs to sprout from the very essence of my head.

Anyway, the reason for this article is based off of the simple fact that I could not find any information online in regards to what to do when a lender requires a certified mold certification.

In fact, I did not even know what it meant. So here is my experiences as a home buyer in this ordeal.
I found my dream house, everything looked fantastic. I had to order a home inspection, and after that an appraisal.

But, during a disgusting week long heat wave the house showed signs of secrets that were not seen until this heat wave spread through the county.

Low and behold, the basement decided to spore out like nothing I have seen before. Every wall down there was covered in mold. During the appraisal, of course the mold was noted.

Being a first time home buyer, I had no idea that this would hold up a sale and cost me so much grief. More so when I was under the impression that lenders are less likely to care about things when you are funding with a conventional loan, which was the type of loan we were getting.

Once the lender had the report in hand, and the mold was something of issue, they told us we needed mold certification. Basically a test that would show the type of mold, level, and so on.

This report cost $500!

Luckily for us, the seller paid for this report.
The report came back 4-5 days later, with a bunch of issues with mold. Count was high, moisture high, and so on. It all looked bad on paper.

With this being presented to the lender, instead of moving forward and allowing me to fix the issue myself after I moved in, I was told that in order to close the issue would need to need remediation.

Now here I am shaking in my shoes, already under contract, already financially vested in home inspections, and the cost of the appraisal. I am basically knee deep in this home, and of course there is a personal attachment to it as well. It's my dream home, and I certainly do not want mold to be the reason I cannot purchase it!

What are my options?
 
I can walk away. I can get back my deposit because the bank refuses a loan without it being remedied. I will however not see a refund on the home inspection cost and the appraisal cost.

I can ask the seller to fix the issue at bay so we can all move on and close the deal.
But what if the seller will not pay for the remediation?

You can still walk away, or you can negotiate a split between cost of remediation, however why should you pay for a remedy when the house is not yours yet?

There is risk involved in this sort of negotiation. However if you want that house, and you want to close on it, and the seller refuses to take the bill on as a whole, you may have no other option, which to me seems insane, but such is life.

What do you do?
 
First and foremost, you want to get quotes. Lots of them. Find out what the cost of remediation of the home will be. If it is a decent price, and you are willing to pay it, or split the cost with the seller than by all means, do so. However talk with your attorney first and see what they can do for you.

Costs can vary depending on the amount of remediation needed. If sheet rock is being pulled and the area being cleaned it will cost a little less, than say a project involving re-building.

Conclusion:
If you really want the house that badly move forward with the remediation process to appease the lender. If not, walk away, especially if the cost to remedy is very high and the seller is not willing to pay for it, or at minimum split the cost.

Can Mold Noted On An Appraisal Hold Up Your Conventional Loan?

Everyone who gets a conventional loan is under the same impression that I was when I was first approved for this more difficult to obtain loan. I knew the nightmares associated with an FHA loan, and how strict they are on their inspection process. I also knew an FHA loan would take a heck of a lot longer to close on.
I jumped for joy when I learned that indeed my good credit score helped land me a conventional loan! Yippie! I sore in the air and click my heels together.

All was gouing well. I found my dream house, everything looked peachy; that is, until a rougue heat wave came into town causing the basement to literally spore out in mold without anyone's knowledge.
The appraiser was set to come out to appraise the home, and this was when the mold spores in the basement were discovered. There was no denying this was an issue, but I figured no big deal? I have me a conventional loan, all should be well, things go easier with a conventional loan right? I have nothing to worry about right?

Wrong! 

Once the underwriter got the appraisal in hand and noticed that the appraiser had suggested that the mold be tested that was when my home buying process went from easy to plopping me into the stress test treadmill.
My lender passes the information on to me. This information is then passed on to the attorney. Who then passes it on to the sellers attorney, who then passes it on to the seller.

Thankfully the seller agrees to conduct this test.

Can you guess what happens next? 

They find mold! Well duh! The mold thankfully is not the toxic kind, but due to the spore count it now needs remediation!

What the heck is that?
 
Oh, OK. You basically want me to hire someone to rip up sheet rock and spray chemicals onto the walls. I get it, but dang, how irritating because it was something we planned on doing anyway, after we closed on the loan.

Sadly, unless it is done, there will be no loan!

Now we must once again, call our attorney, pass him this information, so he can get it on over to the seller.
$3,000 later we have come to an agreement to split the costs. How terrific, paying into a home that is not even mine yet. Then we throw into the mix that our interest rate lock is about to expire.

How triple terrific!

The whole ordeal was an absolute nightmare.

So to answer the question, can mold on an appraisal on a conventional loan cost you a deal?
Absolutely.
Conventional loans will overlook some things, but not mold. Take it from me!

-My article also on Yahoo

What Happens If My Interest Rate Lock Expries Before I Close On The House I Am Buying?

My article is also on Yahoo. Melanie Dee.

I am in the process of buying my first home. How ironic for me, I am a real estate agent who does this sort of stuff for a living. I can sling houses out in 30 days so long as my client has a standard Conventional Loan.
However due to a mold issue that my bank wanted fixed, time suddenly became my enemy. My interest rate lock and mortgage commitment expiration date was 30 days away, and the bank was not rushing anything, even though I was.

The mold issues were fixed in nearly an instant, however my bank was literally kicking stones when it came to getting their end of things finished up. I watched as my mortgage commitment letter expired, only to have to re-submit paperwork in order to get a new mortgage commitment letter.

After that expired though, the most important thing was about to expire, my interest rate lock, and this worried me. I felt as if the bank was moving slow on purpose just to slap me with a higher interest rate, and with rates hiking upward, I was really under pressure and angry.

But enough about me, you are here because you are wondering exactly what happens if your interest rate lock expires before you close on your loan.

Well many things can happen, however if it is due to the bank itself, and something out of your control you can fight them on it. For me, I had grounds to fight because the moment the bank required that the mold be tested, I hired a company to get it done in 24 hours.

The bank literally took 2 weeks doing nothing to determine if the test was OK.

In the very beginning they also wasted 2 weeks doing nothing, when finally they decided to ask for my income verification. That added up was literally a month long where they could have been working and asking me for the proper papers to be signed way ahead of time, and instead they kicked stones and didn't. They waited till the very end, and therefore I had grounds to stand on.

If you were the cause of the rate expiring, you may not have much ground to stand on, and you may have to pay a hefty fee to extend your lock by 7-15 days.

Now some lenders will issue you a free extension, but trust me when I say- before you take on any loan with a lender find out in advance what their policy is on interest rate lock expiration.

All in all, so long as it in not your fault that the loan did not close in time, and it was indeed the lenders fault, argue till the grave. Odds are they will allow an extension because they do not want to lose you as a client.
In order to avoid this mess though, always ask prior what the interest rate expiration policy is. If you do not like what you hear, find another lender. There are plenty of them out there willing to work with you.

What Happens If My Mortgage Commitment Expires Before I Close On The House I am Buying?

I wrote this piece on Yahoo awhile back, during my home purchasing process, and I am sure a ton of folks out there have been asking the same question, so I decided to get this one out there and share it with my blogger audience as well... here is one huge question that came up during our process.

Read and find out: 

What Happens If My Mortgage Commitment Expires Before I Close On The House I am Buying?!

Buying a home for the first time is supposed to be one of the happiest times of ones life. However there are tons of pitfalls and nightmares that can occur during the long ordeal that literally turns this exciting time into one so stressful that you end up loosing sleep at night.

I am a real estate agent, buying my first house. I have sold homes extremely quickly, with clients in the same position I am now in. Only there was one ironic difference.

Instead of an easy 30 day turn around, contracts, closing, and keys, my experience was nothing but a nightmare.

During my appraisal, the appraiser noted mold in the basement. Who knew this little word could end up costing me so much money, time and stress!? Well now I know. I learn something new in this industry everyday now.

The lender of course took note of this mark the appraiser so quickly made, and required a clearance. This meant they wanted the mold tested, they wanted it remediation, and $3,5000 later they were satisfied.
Only one small problem.

Even though the work was done and complete in just 4 days total, it took the bank 2 weeks to say that it was OK. Time wasted as far as I was concerned. Why it took 2 weeks to just OK the work was beyoind me. More so considering the fact that this was a conventional loan, and not some FHA 203K loan.
After that hurdle, the survey that the owner had on hand was certified only to him, so naturally the lender decided it was not good, and they wanted a new one.

Great.
 
They tell me this literally 60 days into the process. Never will I in my career ever in my life recommend to any of my clients to use big banks to process their loan. I have ever experienced such slow underwriting, and such a gross lack of communication.

My mortgage commitment letter and interest rate are due to expire in just days now.

Great! How on earth can I make this deadline, considering the lack of time they gave me?
I pay a surveyor $800 now, to draw up the survey and have it back to me 3 days later. I am able to do this, but once the survey is given to the bank, it takes them days to review it.

Can you guess what happened?
 
Naturally my mortgage commitment letter expired, along with my interest rate lock.

So what happens now!?
 
After my mortgage commitment letter expired, I was back to sweating again. I was worried that after all of this, and money out of my pocket that the bank would decide to randomly not issue me a new letter.
Thankfully they did, but what it took was new pay stubs, new income verification letters, a new run of my credit report for any changes, and of course 2 more weeks for the morons to process this information.
Basically, when your mortgage commitment letter expires, it is rather easy to get a new one. However it will add more time to you actually meeting a closing date. It is frustrating, tedious, and annoying. It also steals away the excitement of being a home owner. Just bear with it though, the day you move in will grow closer.

Is there a way to avoid this sort of mess?

You bet. Avoid big banks. Like the plague.

As Promised- My Review of the Enviro M55 Cast Iron Pellet Stove

This review belongs to me- it was originally published on Yahoo Voices- I however am the owner/reviewer of this stove! (Sorry guys, I have to ad that whenever I share one of my reviews with you. Anyway, here it is, as promised:)

I just moved into my new home, and with winter quickly approaching and the way our large 2,000 square foot home eats up oil, I came to the quick conclusion that I wanted to have a wood stove installed in the home to save on the cost of fuel.

Unfortunately due to the awkward layout in my parlor, I could not add a wood stove unless I placed it in the center of the room, and ran it up through the entirety of the home. That was not in my budget, nor did I want a pipe going through the floor.

After some research and speaking with our local fireplace store/friend, we decided to take the plunge and go with the Enviro: The New M55 Cast Multi-Fuel Stove. Aside from pellets, you can burn corn and cherry pits in this beast. Seeing that we do not live in areas that sell cherry pits or corn by the pallets, we were going to be using pellets in our stove.

My parents had the Enviro: Mini Pellet Stove in their smaller 3 bedroom ranch, and I knew the power that the smaller model carried. Although skeptical about the M55, I figured it would pump out some serious heat, even if it did not manage to heat the entire house.

Why we decided on the The New M55 Cast Multi-Fuel Stove
 
Our home is big, 2 stories with a lot of space. I was of course skeptical that the The New M55 Cast Multi-Fuel Stove would actually heat the entire home, but the sales woman insisted that the one in her home does the trick in her 2,200 square foot home. I raised an eyebrow but decided at this point there were no other larger options when it came to pellet stoves.

The advertising in their store also stated that this particular pellet stove had the capability of heating up to 2,500 square feet. This was more than what we had, so I lowered my eyebrow and signed on the dotted line.

Enviro The New M55 Cast Multi-Fuel Stove took a week to come in, and our appointment was set up to be installed. The installation took them about 2.5 hours, and once that was done we were in business.
There are 2 ways to heat the home, a thermostat is included so you can set the temperature, but we did not need this installed because we wanted it to run continuously. There is a small panel inside under the lid that allows you to adjust your settings. There are a total of 5 heat settings, 1 being the lowest, and 5 being the highest.

The hearth we decided on was called Night Owl, and it is such a perfect and pretty touch to the parlor.
On level 5 the pellet stove really comes to life. It offers a large and romantic flame which reminded me a lot of a regular old wood stove, so this was a really pleasant touch.

If you leave it on setting 5 all throughout the night you will go through one entire bag of pellets during a 15 hour time interval, which is not too bad. However on a lower setting the stove requires less pellets. We wanted to put the stove to the test though and really let it cook to see just how hot the entire house would get with it on.

At setting 5 in about 1 hour our home which initially began with a 67 degree temperature rose to 75 degrees on the lower level, and 73 on the upper level.

After around 3 hours of running on setting 5, we had the house cranked up to a sweat inducing 85 degrees on the lower level, and a warm and toasty 80 on the upper level.

At this point we were 100% satisfied that the sales rep did not lie to us, and that the advertising on this particular pellet stove rang true to the words written on paper! You can seriously get some powerful heat from this stove, and yes it will heat up your entire home, lower and upper levels without a hiccup.

Yes the price may of cost us the same amount of money as a 2 week trip to Bora Bora, but in the end we now have tropical weather inside of out entire home for years and years to come. The amount of oil we will now save is going to be the most impressive, and of course the best investment we could have ever made for our home.

Overall:
 
If you are considering the Enviro: The New M55 Cast Multi-Fuel Stove do not even hesitate. It is worth its weight in gold, and it is such a beautiful touch to any room you decide to add it to.

We got ours for a very decent price of just $4,400 with installation. The price will be higher depending on where you purchase it. We got ours from a reputable seller, and friend, so we were not charged labor.

Tip:
 
You get a $300 credit on your taxes for purchasing this stove and other pellet stoves as well.

Your Door Is Kind of Creepy

Sadly I was not able to get this gem in before Halloween, no matter though, I will have it hung up on my door year round!

At any rate he is called the Vecchio Greenman Authentic Iron Door Knocker, and reminded me of the Labyrinth door knockers, only he is 100 times more scary.

It is large, in charge, and is very detailed and made of high quality iron. It will last for years, and I just love how my door looks now!

My door was initially a red mess, with paint peeling and it looked really bad. I decided to repaint it the same color red, and add the knocker for flair! I think it does justice, and I feel like I live in a castle now!

 The above photo shows what the door used to look like. Below is the door repainted- well what you can see of it anyway, and the Vecchio Greenman Authentic Iron Door Knocker hung up on it. Pretty dang neat if you ask me!

You Have Christmas Lights On In November?! Yes... Why Yes I Do!

When you are a new homeowner, holidays- I guess... at least at first are exciting.

It is only November 6th and we have already began putting up Christmas lights. The neighbors think the new people (us) are insane, but hey, while unpacking I found my lights, and figured I may as well Chevy Chase this house out this year, to really make a statement.

This is just the small area we finished over the past weekend... Well, I should say I. He was on the second story roof cleaning out the gutters. I on the other hand had fun decorating the yard.

Kitchen Nightmares

The new house needs a new kitchen,  but this is not a task we can take on at this moment. We have the money on reserve, but we just do not have the time to get this major update done- not while we still have a parlor and living room, and 5 bedrooms that need major updating as well.

The kitchen however has been a pretty neat surprise since moving in.

But first let me get to the layout, and why a new kitchen is so necessary. It is shaped awkward, so you really are limited to counter space. There is of course room for more counters though, so this is a must for when we get to doing this.

For right now though, we have one counter and a half counter of work space. It is defintley not very efficient for space, but for right now we have to make it work.

The neat thing about this kitchen though is that it is on the bottom level of the house, which was the 1968 built level. The kitchen, and its cabinets are just as old. Literally.

When we first moved in, really ugly white checkered wallpaper covered the walls. On day 4 while cleaning, I was able to see some neon colors just behind this drab white vinyl wallpaper. I began peeling and discovered a 1960's hidden gem.

We of course will not be keeping this wallpaper up, but we will be taking out the best area and framing it.

At any rate, here are the photos, with the original 60's wallpaper.

This first photo shows the wallpaper we ripped out.

My fella on the right--->

 

Pretty neat Brady Bunch like colors. It's relatively ugly, but discovering the hidden treasure was really neat!

I am antsy to start renovating the entire kitchen, as you can sort of see we do not have a whole lot of cabinets for storage. We did purchase a chef's block for $300, which was a nice addition though, and gives us that extra bit of surface space and storage that we so desperately needed.