Where Did I Leave That Map?

Well. I got the call back from the bank loan officer an hour or so ago. My house appraised out a good deal lower than the neighborhood maximum book value.

This doesn't surprise me. Not really. Not with all the half-stripped woodwork, the wallpaper that's ripped in some places (previous owners' dogs) and hanging off the wall in others (a spur to me to replace it sooner than later--supposedly), the torn-up garden borders, the old, scarred bathroom tub with no shower, and all the other signs of work-in-progress-but-nowhere-near-done.

And the figure came in only a thousand less than the current book valuation by my mortgage company-- and double-digit thousands over what I paid for the house four years ago.

So I can't complain, though I don't qualify for the 1% under Prime home equity credit line interest rate, nor for the maximum line amount. The new bank is still willing to write me a line for more money and at 1.25% less than I now have at the old bank.

So I told the loan officer, let's go with that. It'll allow me to get a thing or two done around here that I shouldn't put off and can't at all do myself.

Like basement waterproofing. And that's where I need the map.

I got an estimate from one major Pittsburgh area company last March, Dessicators, Ltd.* But even after the applicable Home Show discounts, they still wanted a quarter of my gross annual salary (literally!) to do the job.

That was bad enough. But I had a feeling at the time that my architectural firm employer was running out of projects that matched my skillset. So even if the price turned out to be the going rate, I didn't dare take on that kind of major obligation. I told the estimator I'd be getting at least three bids total and I'd (maybe) call him back.

I was right about the job situation. I've been "freelancing" since mid-May. And honestly, I can't say things are immediately more promising now.

But last month I heard that another area basement waterproofing firm, Dry-as-a-Bone Contracting*, was running a 40% off deal through the 30th of September. I got my foot in the door by calling on the 28th to schedule an appointment.

Their estimator came out this morning. He measured and poked and took readings with the water detector. And with the 40% discount, the estimate to dry me out comes in at less than half of the Dessicators, Ltd.'s discounted price.

But I found out where the discount comes from. It's a promo from the major chemical company that makes the drainage system components Dry-as-a-Bone installs. For various reasons, I believe them when they say that they have a rapidly-dwindling number of these discounts to apply, and that I have to let them know by Thursday at the latest.

But I don't have my third estimate! Since a week ago I'd been waiting to hear back from OvenDry Waterproofing, a company that uses a system successfully installed in the basement of a fellow Houseblogger in Portland, Oregon. But when I talked to the regional agent today, they told me they can't come out till the 25th, sorry!

So where do I go from here? Dry-as-a-Bone Contracting has been around for decades, is family-owned, and has an excellent reputation with the Better Business Bureau. The estimator left me a list of references longer than my arm. It seems that the tasks they'd perform would solve my wall moisture problem effectively, and they extend a lifetime no-water guarantee.

And, unlike Dessicators, Ltd., they won't insist on covering my honest painted brick basement walls with that godawful shiny vinyl liner and joint cover strips. They'd need to come up a foot from the floor with it, and I'd have to take on the obligation of repainting the walls periodically. But the estimator says, "There won't be any water."

But I still want that third estimate! And I really, really wanted to check out the system that Hillsdale House in Portland used!

Do I take the chance and rely on Dry-as-a-Bone's reputation? Do I take it as a bad sign that OvenDry Waterproofing never got back to me, and say phooey on them, anyway? Or, might I take advantage of the fact that Ted's Rilly-Dri Basement Company* also installs the interesting system used in Portland? But they might not be able to fit me in, either!

Where, oh, where, do I go from here? There ought to be a nice Ordnance Survey-type map that would tell me where all possible paths might lead and keep me out of the swamps and morasses. But all I see on the charts is Terra Incognita.

Oh, well. I can call some of Dry-as-a-Bone's references. And go down and make myself some lunch. Food first, decisions later.

____________________________________

*Made-up names

Running Ahead

The appraiser who's supposed to tell the bank if my house qualifies me for the new and improved home equity line of credit was due sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 this afternoon.

At 2:15, I'm down in the basement bathroom, trying to figure out how to work the tension shower curtain rod my POs left me--I've been using it the past four years, but every time I take it down, I can't get it back up without it and the curtain falling onto the floor at least twice.

Which it was doing now. I could hear my dog barking upstairs, but he sometimes does that, at whatever or whomever passes on the street. So I ignored him, because the appraiser was due at 3:00.

But Llewellyn kept up the racket, and at last, I thought I'd better go look.

It was the appraiser, at the door. "Hi, I'm Ernie*, from XYZ Realty!"

"I wasn't expecting you till 3:00," I replied in my adrenalin-fueled, sleep-deprived, stretched-to-the-limit ungraciousness.

"I know," admitted Ernie cheerfully. "I'm running ahead today!"

He certainly was. He went out front to take his pictures and measurements, while I did a quick sweep through the house picking up dust cloths and stashing the vacuum cleaner. And I swear it was no more than four or five minutes before he appeared back in the house. He got started in the front room, and I dashed down the basement to quickly get the shower curtain up and stayed up, and to move the more egregious obstacles out of the way. Thinking to return and answer questions upstairs.

But in a minute or two, I heard his footsteps on the basement stairs. "I see you're renovating the woodwork upstairs," he commented. (Is this bad because of the current mess, or good in prospect?) Barely glanced in the door at my lovely shower floor painting job. Said, "Nice dry basement." Which I suppose is true if by that he means the floor's not creeping with rivulets and puddles. (Never mind the mold I scrubbed night before last off the brick.)

Escorted him up to the second and third floors. A quick glance here; a floppy-tape measurement there. There were spaces he seemed about to skip till I advanced and opened their doors. Is he such a pro he can take everything in at a glance? Or is basic structure and dimensions all he (and the bank) cares about? Or was he scamping the job? (Oh, surely not!)

At nearly the last minute, Ernie asked me what improvements I've made to the house since I bought it four years ago. And in all the hurry, damned if I could remember everything I should have!

This was not the detailed process I was led to expect. I won't venture to say exactly how many minutes the inspection took, but it wasn't that many and he was out the door. After the past week of cleaning and painting and grouting and hauling, it was very anticlimactic! Did this past week's effort make no difference one way or the other-- or will, for instance, the stair carpet the cat spilled paint on back in 2003, that I didn't have time to rip up, come back to haunt me?

I'll find out in a few days.

Meanwhile, congratulate me: I did not collapse immediately after Ernie the appraiser left. I went back down cellar and finished the job I was doing when he so inconveniently interrupted.

No, I collapsed after an early supper and spent this evening reading other people's houseblogs. I'll get back to the battle tomorrow. Tonight, as my grandmother used to say, I'm too pooped to pop.

_________________________________________

*Made-up name

I Did That. It's Real Keen!

Funny how a whole summer is hardly long enough to clean out your files, but a few days will suffice to complete a whole slew of tasks you should have done ages ago-- like the few days before the impending visit of The Appraiser.

There is something to be said for an unhurried approach. So much more conducive to preserving one's health and sanity. But even as your deadline drives you on to exhaustion, it's also nice to stop from time to time like God on the Seventh Day and say, as did a high school classmate of mine after a communal renovation project, "See that part? I did that. It's real keen!"

Real keen, like the bolt I installed early Tuesday morning on the hatch to the attic storage. On Monday the kittens, taking after their adopted big sister the calico cat, figured out how to jiggle the cabinet latch open and get in. The little female picked up a dead bird in there (Let's not think about how it got there and how it got dead, okay?). I do not want a repeat of this. Thus, the brass bolt.

And from Tuesday, see how keen the basement shower floor is with a second coat of moss-green floor paint? Applied it with a brush instead of a roller this time: maybe it'll hold up better.

And a touch-up coat of paint on the rest of the bathroom floor:

That's real keen, too.

And early (very early) Wednesday morning, it was keen to get the basement laundry room walls de-cobwebbed, vacuumed, and scrubbed with mildewcide and Simple Green and the floor mopped with TSP:

Wednesday, I got the silly bushes in the front and side trimmed:
(I say "silly" because if you don't trim them, they look unkempt and disruptive and disreputable, but when you do trim them, it seems it's always the most charming, liveliest branch tips you have to shear off. It keeps striking me as some sort of parable about modern society, but whenever I try to work it out, I can't decide on which side the moral lies!)

But getting them done was keen, especially the lemon-lime parfait effect on the golden cypresses or whatever those are.

And it was keen to get out the loppers and tame the weeping cherry, which had threatened to reach out with its rampant branches and devour the house:

And ya gotta admit, it's real keen that at long last, I got the new tiles around the upstairs bathroom mirror grouted and a new medicine cabinet put in:

(Yes, you do see a gap in the tile at the top of the mirror. That is not keen. That was cut out by some previous owner to accommodate the former medicine cabinet with the fugly fluorescent fixtures attached to it (I think the ballast sat at the top). This cabinet here is an el-cheapo stand-in until I can custom-build the cabinet I need. The space between the studs is too narrow for a decent stock model.

(Of course, all this will be torn out when I do my Dream Bath with the blue iridescent tile and the clawfoot tub.)

There's even more keen stuff I got done these past few busy busy busy days, all so I can impress that august personage, The Appraiser. I was up till six-ay-em doing it. (Thus the chronologically-impossible but artistically-accurate time stamp on this post.) But at this hour enough is enough. I do believe (novel thought!) that it would be really, really keen to get some sleep.

Will the appraiser think all this work is keen? Will the bank extend enough of a line for me to get something done on? We'll see in a few hours what comes of it all.

Trade-Offs

I'm still trying to get rid of the landscape rock my previous owners were so fond of.

My friends Hannah* and Steve* have a large drainage ditch/percolation sink on their property they need filled with something permeable.

I got rock, they need rock. So let's trade.

Howbeit, I wasn't exactly planning on their coming over to scoop rock this evening. Monday night is community choir night and our Fearless Musical Director does not take random absences lightly.

But Hannah rang me at 5:00 o'clock this afternoon and said, "We're all coming over at 6:00 to get that rock. OK?"

"Uh, it's choir night, and I'm supposed to be there at 7:15."

"That's okay. I have to get the kids home by 7:00 to get them to bed for school in the morning. And this is the only time this week we can do it."

Um . . . my front border looked really ratty (witness specimen photo from last Spring): All random piles of rock and landscape fabric sticking up here and there, where I'd cleared the ground to plant daffodils and balloon flowers in previous years. Or from where I tried to dig up the miniature rhododendrens to transplant them in a more favorable spot, and gave up because the roots were under all that rock and I'd run out of places in my backyard to pile it. Good intentions and optimistic plans are all very well, but your typical appraiser won't see that. Curb appeal, my house front had not.

So I told Hannah and family to come ahead, and I'd take the consequences.

And they did, with their van, their tarp, their shovels, a five-gallon bucket or two, and a little plastic child's wheelbarrow. She and Steve and I amongst ourselves got the front border looking a bit more orderly; at least, if you look at it from the sidewalk. Helped (at some detriment to the plantings), by their kids Stevie* and Letitia*.

Wonderful how much three and two/halves people can get done in an hour and fifteen minutes! No, I did not make choir, and I shall have to prostrate myself in deepest self-agnegation to our director.

But it'll be worth it, for the work that got done.

Too bad the daylight ran out. Too bad Hannah and Steve don't need about 20 more cubic yards of the stuff. I'll trade them the rock, for a hole to put it in!

______________________________________

*Made-up names

Don't Let Me Cuss!!

In his office, my Architecture school dean kept a drawing done by one of his small children. It was a passable portrait of himself, and in the speech balloon was written the plea, "Don't let me cuss!" Seems he tended to let it rip in front of the kids, and his son had drawn the picture to remind him not to.

Me, I don't have any kids to shelter from my bad language. But I don't want to cuss in front of myself, because that'd put me in a cussed state of mind and things are cussed enough as it is.

Though, under the circumstances--!!!

Here I have this appraiser coming. And the basement bathroom didn't look so good, especially not the shower. I don't know about you, this appraiser, or anyone else, but when I'm looking at a house, a dirty, scabby basement bathroom is a prime turn-off.

Here's the basement bathroom shower pan just before I moved in:*

Here's how nice it looked after I painted the concrete floor:*

But alas, here's how the shower looked four years later. I did my best in 2003 to prepare the surface, but under ongoing wet conditions the floor paint hasn't adhered 100%.

And then there were the rust stains on the grout. Disgusting.

So this evening I tackled the job. I intended only to clean off the iron stains and mold and touch up the bare spots after. I used a rust-removing cleaner on the grout joints. And I sprayed the tile down with a high-powered hose nozzle I bought this afternoon.

The tile now looks pretty good.

But the painted floor is a disaster. The reactive cleaner and the high-powered spray between them lifted most of the rest of the paint off, in some places down to the bare concrete.

Damn! Looks like something died on it, doesn't it?

Wouldn't be so awful if the paint were all gone, or if it were all stable. But it's not. A lot of what remains is loose underneath but I can't get it up with the wire brush or the scraper. Only spray, spray, and more spray does it, and I was already soaking wet and the bathroom and basement floor was getting flooded and my dear POs (whichever set of them it was that built this bathroom enclosure) didn't bring the wall tile all the way down to the concrete floor in the bathroom proper, and the standing water was already wicking up that half inch of exposed drywall and right up the wall. So I gave up for the night.

I hate it, but I think this calls for a half-assed, stop-gap job. Once the shower floor's dry, run over it one more time with the wire brush and the shop vac, then slam down a coat of primer and a couple coats of floor paint, just so it looks good. And hope the appraiser doesn't go stand in the shower, since this floor paint can't be walked on with shoes for seven days after.

Stop-gap is really what's called for. My plan is to put in unglazed ceramic mosaic. But I can't do that until something's done about the moisture that's seeping through the outside walls. I have an appointment with a waterproofing company rep on the 9th. The ironic thing is, if I can get the house appraised higher, I can get a bigger line of credit and I could swing getting the waterproofing done right away. But if the house looks in too much need of work, the line will be lower and I won't be able to do it!

(Did I cuss a couple of times up there? Yeah, guess I did. Damn.)________________________________________

*I forgot. I took those photos with the 35mm. I'll have to remember where I put the prints and scan them in.

Putting the Fear of God into Me

That is, if the god in question is Mammon.

But more on that anon.

I was going along, accomplishing a thing or two, but nothing ambitious or blog-worthy. Tied up the quince bush in the back garden so it wouldn't impale me on its thorns. Rigged up an arrangement with a bungee cord and a rock to keep the dog out of the Kitten Room while letting them come and go. Plodded along and finally, last Sunday, finished my file cataloguing and paperwork filing. Got the study dusted and vacuumed and put in order, hooray.

So did I immediately get back to woodwork stripping and other useful house renovation projects?

No. I made and canned tomato sauce (well, the fruit would have gone bad if I'd left it longer!). I spent a day or two trying to clean boot the operating system on my little laptop. I tabbed hanging file folders that needed it. I went to a lot of unavoidable meetings. I played with the kittens. I watched reruns of Rescue 911 on YouTube.

Anything but do anything significant to the house and grounds.

Until last night.

You see, yesterday morning I got a call from an appraiser. He's coming to look at the house this coming Thursday afternoon.

Panic in the streets!! The appraiser is coming in six days and my house is a falling-apart, torn-up mess!!

OK, Kate, think sensibly. There's no way the woodwork is getting stripped and refinished by Thursday afternoon. No way there will be new wallpaper up or decent tile or something down to replace the shabby vinyl on the kitchen and hallway floor. But there's a lot that can be and should be and must be done by then.

Like vacuum the blankets of pet hair and dust off the ceiling fans.

Check, did it last night.

And scrape the little tags of half-dissolved paint off the living room window and get the dirty drop cloth, etc,. cleared away.

Check, ditto.

And address curb appeal deficiencies. For example:

Today's task was edging the lawn, front and back. And yes, it was a lot faster and easier to do it this time, having undertaken the eight-hour marathon in June or whenever. And the Neutron edger attachment worked fine: once I'd put in a new string reel, I didn't have to stop and rethread broken edger string even once.

This is pretty, though I say it myself:

The Herbacious Border of the Future edged and semi-weeded:

I'd hoped to tackle my crazy bushes before nightfall. But sweeping up after always takes longer than you think, especially when you're working on cobblestone paving. Gotta get to those bushes before Thursday. And do something about the piles of landscape rock and fabric sticking up out of the front border. And clear the brush piles in the back away to the borough dump.

Why the sudden advent of an Appraiser? Not because I'm planning to put the house on the market; at least, not any time soon.

No, it's because my bank was eaten up by another bank, effective this past Monday. And I didn't like some of the new bank's terms and conditions.

So my checking account and I jumped ship to another financial institution. I also investigated transferring my home equity line of credit to said institution, since their ordinary interest rate is a good deal lower than what I'm paying now.

Buuuh-uht . . . ! If I can qualify, I can get 1% under current Prime, fixed. (Whoo-whoo!!) But going by the book, the value of the Sow's Ear falls short by a few thousand. The new bank is paying for the appraiser to come and see if the value might be scootched up higher.

Agreeing to that sure seemed like a good idea earlier in the week when I was on the phone with the loan officer. Now the appointment is made, I'm not so sure. There is so blinking much that screams out for attention around here. I think I'll be lucky if they don't appraise the house under the book rate, and refuse to transfer the line at all!

Whatever I can do to prevent that, I have to do. So for the next few days, I'll be sacrificing myself, my sweat, my muscles, and a great deal of money I don't really have to the great greedy god Mammon.

"Oh, great god Mammon, we bow before you! Grant us the blessing of a below-Prime interest rate! Salaamy, salaamy, baloney!"