I'm throwing the white flag...

This post is full of whining, complaining, and is quite frankly, bitchy.  If you're not in mood for such things, please read no further.


Murphy's Law states:  Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

And it has.  At the moment, I am regretting buying a house while my husband is still in the military. Often, I'm here alone and as all military wives know, Mr. Murphy and his stupid law come in to play as soon as the ship leaves or the boots leave the immediate area. It is in full swing here and the white flag is up and waving in hopes that it will leave me and go bother someone else. When my husband is home and something breaks, I deal with it until he gets home and then 9 times out of 10, he knows how to fix it.  Me on the other hand...I've been spoiled all my life with my dad or Navy housing fixing things. I know how to fix SOME things, but plumbing is one of things I know nothing about.

The house we bought was built in 1993, so while not brand new, it's not crazy old either.  But EVERYTHING IS BREAKING.  If it's not something breaking, it's me not knowing how to work things.  Like our heat, it's forced air, I had never heard of it until we bought this house.  It took DAYS, phone calls/texts, and my parents coming to visit for me/us to figure it out.  Attic unit...turn it on...open 2 valves on the water heater. Done.  I wish our inspector had told us how to turn it on because I was incredibly frustrated.  Lowe's is coming out to give us an estimate on a new AC unit soon, and I'm going to ask about changing our heating up as well.  I want a heat pump on our AC unit, like every other home I've ever lived in has.

We had a flood in the upstairs bathroom.
The tub  faucets in said bathroom are shot, we couldn't even run a bath, only a shower. Then the drain plug wouldn't work.  (Thanks Daddy for fixing that!)

In our kitchen sink, the sprayer nozzle started leaking.  Then it eventually became stuck open and then slowly the pressure left our main faucet.  It's only in the spray nozzle now. I've been told by a friend that we need to change our valves and I've been told by my dad that it could be a clog in our line/faucet.  I don't know.  I'm so freaking afraid of plumbing stuff that I'll deal with it until my husband gets home.  I just know I'll break something off and won't be able to use my sink at all.  At least now I can wash dishes with some difficulty via the spray hose.

Our fireplace is a death trap apparently.  Somehow, our inspector, who is paid to tell you the things wrong with a home you want to buy, missed it.  He said it needed to be cleaned, that there was damage to the flue, and when I asked him if we could use it before cleaning, in case an emergency arose, he said, "Absolutely."  Turns out that if we had built a fire in our fireplace, we'd have died or the house would've burnt down.

See those cracks in there?  Our chimney sweepers said carbon monoxide or one tiny ember could've gotten trapped in those cracks (there are more than this one) and more than likely would've caused my family to die of CO2 poisoning.  We contacted our realtor to let him know about this "mistake" the inspector made, because for God's sake, this is dangerous, someone could die. He was kind enough to send another company out to get a second opinion and they agreed, our fireplace is totally worthless. However, they said it would cost $1,800 to repair instead of the $4,000 the first company quoted us, but still.  This was something we were told worked properly and doesn't, we were not expecting to spend money on it.  And further more...I was looking forward to building a fire in our fireplace and snuggling damnit.  There goes my winter!

Everything just keeps coming and coming and I'm ready to see the light at the end of the tunnel on home repairs. We'll always want to fix stuff, or upgrade, but we JUST bought this house and it seems that we've had problem after problem. One thing I do know for sure though is our next realtor will probably hate us.  We were so blinded by the thought of owning a home that we missed so many little things when we looked at this house.  Our next home will be newer (I'm actually hoping to be able to build) and we'll be checking so many little things that we overlooked here.  Tub faucets.  Screens.  HEATING.  PLUMBING.  It will have a newer roof and a damn good AC unit. Newer appliances. Weather stripping. I know even newer homes have issues, but maybe not as many as this one is having.  Not to mention, the next time we buy, my husband will be out of the Navy and home every night to help if something does go wrong.

I am going to do some research, maybe see if Lowe's or *gulp* Home Depot offers classes on home repair because this is getting old. I got really down on myself yesterday, I just feel stupid because I don't know the first thing about fixing some issues here, and those who know me best know I hate feeling this way.

Now that I've had time to reflect on things, I do not regret buying a house. I regret that we didn't further our search.  We wanted our kids to stay in their school district, and here we are.  We have a great house, it just needs some work.  Unfortunately, at the moment, it's work I know nothing about, but hopefully I can change that soon.

Raise the Roof

The roof!  The roof!  The roof is......new and sturdy!   It...looks...UHMAYZING!  So good, it requires some weird teenage way of spelling 'amazing.'

But no seriously, our first grown-up purchase on our first home looks great, I couldn't be more excited and happy about it. We decided to go through Lowe's to get our roof because...Lowe's.  We love Lowe's. Who needs Disney World when you have Lowe's?  Can I say Lowe's any more?  Lowe's rules.  I'm done now.  Okay...moving on!

Those shingles used to be gray, yall.  I am 28 years old, our roof was 22 years old.  That's awful isn't it?  We had a run around with our insurance company because of it, too.  Super annoying.  The guys from the roofing company were at our house at 0730, here it is, past 1900 (7, for you non 24-hour clock folks) and these guys are still here cleaning up.  They even did us a solid, so-to-speak, but more on that later.  

Estate Gray.  Oh-lah-lah!  Why yes....we're having a fundraising gala at our Estate.  Mmm, quite.  

This was interesting for me, the whole roof thing. It was loud and fast, and to be honest, I had no idea how it was done until today.  It's certainly one job that I would never want, it looked like back-breaking work, from sun up until sundown, almost quite literally.  These guys certainly earned their money today.  

Looking good, 'eh?  My kids were enthralled with the whole process.  They were also ticked when I wouldn't let them climb the ladder to the roof to help. 

Check her out!!  From shingles so old they turned white, to this!  They actually look like shingles now.  Now, about that "solid" the guys did us.  When we signed the contract, our shed was included in the structure that needed to be re-shingled, however on their paperwork it wasn't. The guy in charge came to me, after they had been working non-stop for 12 hours, to ask if I wanted them to do the shed anyway.  I mean, I was told it was included, but somewhere down the line, wires got crossed.  Still though, 12 hours and these guys gladly took another 30 minutes to complete our shed.  Lowe's man...Lowe's.  I'm thrilled with the results, our home looks great now.  We just have to give the new shingles a few days to lay flat, but that's just part of it.  It looks so much better than it did.  I'm already excited about another big project we have planned....THE AIR CONDITIONER!  

Mean Girls references are ALWAYS warranted.  

   

Mini freak out moment!

     Apologies for not making a post in a while, we've been busy with non-house related activities.  The kids are back in school, my husband is officially done with the CPO Season and our family has gone back home to Alabama.  We have time now to focus on everything in our home and honestly, I'm starting to get a bit overwhelmed. And depressed.  (Angry???)  Things seem to be just breaking, either on their own or with the help of my offspring.  I don't think we've gone more than a day without finding SOMETHING that is going wrong.

     First on the list:
The Garbage Disposal (AKA: The Demon Machine)

It jammed up on us a few days ago, which happens.  We did some googling, found out how to fix the issue and did.  Our defeat of The Demon Machine was shortlived however, as yesterday I saw that something under our sink had been leaking.  Another.  Leak.

After doing some high-class investigating, we thought we had solved the problem, it seemed the leak was coming from our spray nozzle.  "That's easy," we thought as we breathed a sigh of relief, "Just replace the gasket or even the whole nozzle, but until then, we'll just leave it hanging in the sink."

WRONG.  WRONG, WRONG, WRONG.

Turns out, it's the nozzle AND the disposal.

After more sifting through the first 2 pages of google (yes, two pages. That's when you know the desperation is real) the best answer I found was to replace the whole damn thing.  Woopie. Hooray. Huzzah. I'm so freaking excited about spending a crap-ton of money on a new disposal and about also spending a lot of time fixing it.  I normally wouldn't be too worried about the amount of time spent fixing something, but we have so many things going on so this is just something we didn't need right now.


Second on the list:
Weather Stripping

You all get it right?  The stripping is so jacked, that we can see daylight through our closed door.  "But you LOVE natural sunlight, lady!"   Yes, yes I do when it's streaming through a window brightening my day while I sip my morning (or afternoon) coffee.  Seeing it through the frame of my door however makes me want to turn green and run through a wall or 20.  It's just sitting there, like, "Haha!! Do you feel the hot air seeping through?!  DO YOU?!  DO YOU?!"

Yes Your Majesty!  I agree!  Screw you, sunlight through my door frame, you are unwanted here!


Third on the list:
Front Door

The handle fell off.   The handle...fell off.

That's it!  I quit.  I mean, it was an easy and quick fix but COME ON!

Let us not forget that the kids have pulled down a shower curtain rod and also my curtain rod.  The shower rod...who cares.  But my curtain rod?!  We haven't had a lot of time to clean out our garage either, so it's getting to me.  Plus, there are no frames hanging on our walls yet.  The old man is like, "Do it yourself, babe."  Okay.  Here's how it'll look:

That's straight right?  Don't get me wrong, I can hang the easy stuff.  I'm talking, one nail, in the middle, done.  It might not be in the exact middle of the wall, but I can hang it!  The dual hangy'things?  Nope, nu uh, not gonna do it.  I am a tried and true sucktard at hanging those little bastards.   My husband on the other hand, is a God at that stuff.  He's meticulous in measuring and making sure everything is straight before he starts hammering.  Before too long though, I'm going to be forced to attempt this myself.  *Cue scary music*

I know what I'll be doing over the next few days though: Garage.  Maybe if I can knock out that one task, I'll feel a bit better.

Tomorrow though...we get our new roof.  At the rate we've been going, let's just hope that our entire home doesn't fall down around us.  Before, during and after photos to come!

I suck at painting, y'all.

     If you're a fan of The Dark Tower series like me, I'm sure you've read the following; "Blaine is a pain and that's the truth."  You could change "Blaine" for "Painting" and you've captured my feelings on our little project today.  Let me just say, I suck at painting.  We didn't even full-on paint, we only painted a chair rail and some base boards, but I sucked all the same.  My husband cheered me on though.  "Cheering me on" meaning he was hovering over me frowning to himself only to smile when I looked back at him.  I assume there was a glimmer of hope in my eye, a will to do well at this and he didn't want to extinguish my flame.  If you're reading this babe, thanks for that.  It gave me the drive to paint more things in our home.  *Dun dun dun duuuuunnnnnn*

     When we first looked at the house we now call home, it was on a TV screen in our Realtor's office.  We saw photos of how the old owners had it and to be honest, we really loved what we saw.  Until this....

    

     Once again, excuse the photo quality.  I saved this to my cell, uploaded it to my husbands laptop which I just found out doesn't have an edit feature, so there goes me cropping it and such.  Oh well...I digress.  My husband is from Texas.  We love Texas.  We love the Dallas Cowboys, we only like the Texans. Although....JJ Watt...  

George Bridges/Getty Images

      ........Anyway...... That room is our dining room, their man-room, maybe?  I don't know.  Lucky for us, when we did our first walk-through, they had painted over it and turned it in to a make-shift office.  One less thing for us to do, so we were happy.  

     When you walk through a house with the intent to buy it, you miss certain things in your excitement.  At least I do.  My head fills with visions of what I would do to a room, etc.   I get so worked up and giddy that my brain just skips over crucial things that look bad, or should be fixed.  Take the dining room, for example.  Yes, they repainted it, but like the incident with the leaky washer lines, it wasn't done well.  It took us a few days to notice it, but red and blue still show through the color they used.  They just threw on the paint and didn't tape the chair rail or base boards, so there is a crap top of paint on them.  

Exhibit A:

     Chair rail.  Base board.  It's just a terrible job.

Exhibit B:

      They didn't even take off the outlet/switch covers!!!  It was, quite literally, stuck to the wall.

HOW DID THEY NOT TAKE THESE OFF BEFORE PAINTING?!?!  

HOW DID THEY NOT TAPE OFF THE RAILING AND BASE BOARDS?!?!  

     ....I just...  They were in a hurry, trying to get their home ready to be put on the market.  I get it.  Like the old man keeps saying, "They didn't care, they were selling it."  I GET it.  Their laziness means extra work for us though and that really irks me. 

     Oh well.  We took care of it.  Ish.  They left paint behind, hopefully we can find the color they used in the dining room so we can touch up some areas, mainly the areas where the old color is showing through and the light switch plate.  We changed those out today and of course, the one we bought is smaller than the old one so the red you see in the photo is showing.  *Insert look of total disdain.*  

     So we got her all gussied up and painted like a girl of the night.  She's looking mighty fine now, if I do say so myself.  The husband got one side, I got the other and together, we took care of business.  We were like Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.  He did the hard stuff, I  made it look good and took care of everything else.  Pepper Potts would be proud.  Second project, completed!  Well, third if you count the fact that we got a new toilet seat for our bathroom today, but I doubt yall will want to see that.  

     I may suck at painting but we got the job done and done correctly.  The room just pops now with a bright, fresh coat of paint.  Perhaps we'll add some wainscoting in the near future?  Thoughts?  (Just say yes...)  

     Homeowners: 2   House Problems: 0  

Leak-Be-Gone

     Muahaha!!!!!   The leak, the scourge of my existence, has been vanquished by the manliest man I know.  My husband. He came home from a night of defending our most basic of freedoms and then he got down and dirty on the washer lines.

The before photo.
Note the water running down the wall.

     Please excuse the quality of the photo, it was taken on my cell.  Sometimes it takes good photos, other times it too is the scourge of my existence.  Anyway, like I said in my previous post, it's a DIY nightmare. It leaked, the hoses were old and terrible, they just did an all around crappy job.  Just wait until you hear what needed to be done to fix this problem.

THE MAN.  

     We had to put a hole in the wall to see what kind of pipes we were working with.  Copper?  PVC?  We didn't know, but there's something fun about knocking a hole in a wall.  We were thinking we'd have to do so much work and I'll be honest, I was skeptical about doing it ourselves.  My God, Jim...we're not plumbers!  We were bound and determined to give it our best shot though, as this was our first project in our house.

     One thing we wanted to do was exchange their hoses for ours.  It took some work because I swear every actor in The Expendables franchise had a hand in tightening those beasts.  Once they finally came off, we connected our hoses, broke off that foam stuff and ran them through the wall to the washing machine, turned the water on and it was still leaking, although not as badly.

New setup.

     The hoses are a bit long, but hey.  Look at those shiny new things!  I'll give you a moment to find your sunglasses. Once our eyes adjusted, the husband tightened the bolts holding the valve handles to the pipe and that was all she wrote.  That was literally all those people had to do to fix the issue.  Change out the hoses and tighten two bolts.  That's it.  We can't fathom why they didn't just do that.

This is what we were dealing with. 

     How simple of a solution it was, too.  We still have to fix the wall, possibly replace that whole area with new sheetrock to prevent mold and rot from setting in, but our leaky washer line and first issue with the house we own is done!  I may, or may not, have squealed like a little girl, did a happy dance, and hugged my own version of Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor.  Luckily mine didn't get hurt, fall off a roof, or run a backhoe into a house.

Homeowners: 1  House Problems: 0  

     

And so it begins

     I come to you today in a state of panic and distress. I am so upset that my mind can't function properly.  Don't be alarmed if I start rambling on and on about the most mundane things, it's just me trying to wrap my head around what has happened.  Two things have caused this emotional uproar:

1. I am almost out of coffee. 
2. Our washer lines/valves are leaking. 

     Coffee lovers, you understand my panic.  Opening that coffee container and seeing the bottom of it.  The horror!  Oh the humanity!  This of course is easily replaced, something I can do easily and by myself.  The plumbing....not so much.  I mean, I am woman, hear me roar!  I CAN do it, I just don't know how to do it.  I hear plumbing is pretty serious business, we kinda need our pipes to work correctly and stuff and junk. What do I know though?  I'm new to this home-owning thing.

     We had the house inspected of course, we aren't totally insane. The inspector used his water-leaking-tester thingy and said, and I quote, "There was probably a small leak here at some point, but it's not leaking now, nothing to worry about."  Cool.  Bro knows what he's doing, right?  Let's grab our time-travel machine and go the time we installed our washer and dryer in our new house.  Don't forget not to mess with anything, you could screw up the space-time continuum and that wouldn't be good for anyone. 

     Beep, boop, beep.

     So here we are, ready to bring in our washer and dryer, but lo and behold!  The previous owners have left theirs behind!  What luck!  We can sell those bad boys on Craigslist.  We move the washer, go to disconnect the hoses (because ours are brand new from Lowe's and they so totally rock), can't get them off.  The hose connecting the water line to the machine is cross-threaded and is so tightly stuck that even a Hulk Smash couldn't break it loose.  I'm going to assume you all know what happens when a hose with water running through it does when cross-threaded.  Yes class, you're absolutely correct!  It leaks!  Water...all over the floor.  Not to mention a crap ton of dust mixed in with it.  Not our dust, but someone else's dust.  Yuck, doesn't even begin to cover it.  Needless to say, we're a bit upset but as homeowners, we resolve to have the issue corrected ASAP.  In the meantime we thought, we'll just turn the water off at the valve so it's not leaking into our floor. 

     Can you guess what happened when we shut the water off?  It started leaking - from the valve!  A steady drip of water, just enough to taunt me.  What others heard: Drip. Drip. Drip.   What I heard: HA! HA! HA!  Since it only leaks at the valve when the water is shut off, I can see how the inspector missed it, but come on, son! Plumbing issues from the start?!  What the hey?! Is it not enough that when I went to clean our toilet in our room, the lid shot off the bowl like a rocket? That's all the plumbing issues this gal wants.   The previous owners, or someone who owned it before them, decided to move the washer lines inside.  Originally, they were in the garage.  The job they did however, looks like a DIY nightmare. I'm glad it's inside, I can't imagine having to go in to the garage to do laundry.  It's hot and spider-infested in the summer and cold as balls in the winter, no thank you.  However, I feel like, as a homeowner, how do you not do it correctly?  They took the time, the money and the work to move everything, but they did a crap ass job and didn't seem to care.  They knew it leaked, yet they did nothing. My husband and I are very proud to call this house ours and when we do a project, or a repair, it will be done correctly.  If we mess something up, well then we'll fix it.  It's very annoying to move in to a house and find a problem like this right off the bat.  Especially after the inspection didn't pick it up, we weren't expecting it. 

     I did the only thing I could think of at the time...I called my Daddy.  And I bawled.  Buying a house is stressful, yall!  Buying.  Moving.  Cleaning the old house more than I was able to clean my own.  And then we discover this.  I called Daddy, had a good cry and 1 (3) glass of wine in the middle of the day, and then I felt better.  I put my pull-ups on and carried on like a big kid.  Dad tried to give me tips and pointers over the phone, some I think will work without us having to call a plumber, but I can't quite get the tools where they need to go, so Husband has a honey-do list now.    

   Hopefully soon I'll be here posting a happy update on this leaky situation.  I'll have the last-laugh, drip! Oh yes. 

Holy Crap We Bought A House!

     Welcome to my blog about what it's like to be a professional football player.  Here, you'll get a first-hand look at the day-to-day of training, learning the playbook and fighting off all the ladies.  It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it.


     Just kidding.  Just wanted to see if you were paying attention.  Did you do a double take on the blog title?  Did you think to yourself, "This lady has lost her mind?"  Well yes.  Yes I have, because my husband and I just bought a house.


     A little background on us.  We're young...ish.  We have 2 kids and 2 massive dogs that bark like mad, so it's basically like we have 2 infants as well.  Two really big infants.  That shed.  Thank God for Dyson, am I right ladies?!  My husband is a Chief in the Navy, I'm a SAHM and my hobbies include cuticle care and the E Network.  I also love Pitch Perfect so.....yeah.  My husband is getting closer to retirement and for some reason we said, "Hey!  You know what we should do?  We should buy a house!"  We are not planning on retiring where our house is, but that's the beauty of it.  No longer do we have to be out of a house by a certain date, it's ours.  We can stay as long as we want after retirement.  Because it's ours.  In case you were wondering.


     The days leading up to closing on the house were a nerve-wrecking, worry-infused blur.  Anyone who has gone through it, or is going through it now, will completely understand.  It's full of talks of interest rates, mortgage payments, inspections, appraisals...the list could go on.  It's enough to make even the most stoic of people sweat.  There are so many variables that come along with purchasing a home and for the first-time buyer, like us, it can be rather scary.  We lucked out and had an amazing Realtor who worked his butt off making sure we were comfortable with every step and were well informed of the process.  Even now he keeps in touch and we closed 2 months ago.


     Closing day was crazy exciting.  It was official!  We were homeowners!  Then the panic set in.  Holy crap...we bought a house.  Holy hell...what have we done?  Oh. My. God.  WE JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE!  Let's just say that emotions were high and were tumultuous.  Even though we closed over 2 months ago, we have only lived here for about a week, we had a lease with another house we couldn't get out of, so the previous owners paid rent-back to us for that time frame.  We picked up the keys one day early and BAM!  Homeowner status: Official.


     Moving into the house was the easy part.  Now we're on the hook for anything that goes wrong with our home and I'll be honest with you folks, that scares the hell out of me.  For my entire life I've been able to say, "Mom! Dad!  My window is broken!"  Or, "DADDY!!!  There are SPIDERS in the kitchen!!!"  Or, for my entire married life, "Maintenance...we have a busted pipe in our kitchen.  Come quick!" I personally haven't had to pay a dime for anything that has gone wrong in the numerous homes I've lived in, which totals to 7 in the past 9 years alone.  It's all on us now, there is no maintenance line to call.  I can call Mom and Daddy, but they're in my home state of Alabama (ROLL TIDE!) and I'm...not.  They'll help me anyway, even if all they can do is make me laugh and calm me down, so I guess they're my maintenance line.  Well, and the old ball and chain, he's pretty much my first line to defense when I'm overthinking something or freaking out.  All in all, I think I have a pretty good support system.  Anyway, I got sidetracked.  It happens a lot, so be aware of that.  We know we have to have the roof and AC unit replaced, which are two costly repairs.  We have a date for our roof install and hope to have the AC taken care of before next summer.  Pray for our bank accounts, they're crying already.  If they're smart, they'll call Switzerland to transfer the money out of the country...


     So this is where I'll be talking, venting, crying, whining (and wine'ing) about what it's like to be a homeowner.   My husband and I take a lot of pride in that term and we're looking forward to this adventure together.  Whether you're a seasoned homeowner,  just starting your journey or are thinking of taking the plunge, I'm sure you'll understand some of the feeling and emotion I'll try to bring to this blog.  I may not post as often as most bloggers, but my plan is to post once a week, at least, about our weekend projects, our repairs, and quite possibly, my answer to the meaning of life.  (It's 42.)