The Longest Month

Oh man, where should I even begin?  We're under contract on our current house, which is good.  Today we officially closed on our new house.  But since our last post, life has been nothing short of a roller coaster.  We're planning on starting a new blog for the new house since we're moving off the Circle, but since that hasn't been started, I'll give you the cliff notes version of the new house saga.

But first, here's a sneak peak of the new place:

View of the back patio and overhang

 Please pay no attention to the rot.  As I already noted, this is a project house.

Back to the house-buying drama.  We got a helluva deal and had assumed everything on the financial side would be fine.  Long story short, it wasn't.  Due to some appraisal issues (again with the appraisal!) we had some financing issues and for a day or so, we weren't sure we'd be able to get the house.  While we were waiting to hear back on final approval, we got a call saying the new house had flooded.  This was on Sunday.

Flooded was an understatement.  Closing was less than 72 hours away.  We still didn't have financing secure.  Jesus Christ, we should have our own goddamn reality tv show and we haven't even gotten to the construction part!

Monday we got the final approval for the financing, Tuesday the seller's insurance agency started the claim on the water damage, and we delayed closing on Wednesday at the very last minute.  We were tying up loose ends on the water damage and wanted to make sure we were covered.  Everyone scrambled on the paperwork and we closed over lunch Thursday.  I have to say, after the last week, closing seemed very anticlimactic.

There will be more details to come and a relocation of the blog.  But we need a name for the new house and we're stuck.  It's a brick 1950s ranch on an acre.  I know somewhere in there is a clever, witty name but right now all I keep thinking is Brick S#&t House.  Any good suggestions?

Coming soon...

A beautiful 2-bedroom, 1.5 bathroom house in Prairie Village will be coming to the market soon. Located close to Shawnee Mission East High School and the Prairie Village shopping center, this mid century modern gem could be yours.  A private backyard adjacent to Brush Creek features a sunken patio.  The garage is probably one of the largest in PV - 6 cars total!  You better hurry, this won't be on the market for long! For more information contact Bob Myers http://www.bobmyersproperties.com/contact.html

OK, sales pitch aside, we are selling the house.  Things have been more than a little crazy around here but the big news is...

WE BOUGHT A NEW HOUSE!

We found a 1950s ranch on an acre just south of here for a steal.  But it's rough.  Really rough. So you can look forward to lots of new pictures and projects.  This house is going to make the work we did on the Roe Circle house look like child's play. Seriously.  But an acre. John is already dreaming about getting a tractor.

This just goes to show you that sometimes things don't work out for a reason. Two months ago, we were in full addition mode and hadn't even considered the possibility of that load being denied.  And now we're tackling a project even bigger project.  We're very excited about the new place: it's bigger, no stairs, huge open family room, an acre lot, unlimited potential for MCM cool, and an acre. It needs a ton of work, but it has good bones. Did I mention it's on an acre?

Things are moving fast, to say the least.  We close early March but will need some time to get the bathroom fixed (there is duct tape in the shower, I kid you not) before we move in. Winston will be swinging a hammer in no time.  Stay tuned, the inspection is on Thursday and we should have some pictures to post after that.

But seriously, if you or anyone you know is interested, please contact our realtor or pass this information on. We've been told our house should sell fast, but the more interest, the better.  If you don't want to scroll back to find house pictures, here's the link to when we were on the KC Modern Homes Tour in 2009.  Not much has changed other than the furniture.

Take Your Project and Shove It

Well I spoke too soon. Our appraisal came back yesterday and it was the perennial problem for modern homes, we have no kitchen. Wait, how can you not have a kitchen? So when you enter our house you enter in the middle level at the living room. You can either go down a half flight of steps to the kitchen and dining room or up a half flight to the bedrooms and bathroom. Since the kitchen is below the grade of the front door the appraiser decided it wasn't living space and didn't include it in the overall total. Funny, all of the comparable sales had kitchens.

 

How can this be, there has to be some other way. Well it comes down to appraisers really not being supervised or the homeowner having a legitimate course of action for objective review of a biased appraiser. I mean without legal action which isn't an ideal solution either.

Fannie Mae Selling Guide
Section 405.06 – Gross Living Area

“Rooms that are not included in the above-grade room count may add substantially to the value of a property-particularly when the quality of the "finish" is high. For that reason, the appraiser should report the basement or other partially below-grade areas separately and make appropriate adjustments for them on the "basement and finished areas below-grade" line in the "sales comparison analysis" grid. To assure consistency in the sales comparison analysis, the appraiser generally should compare above-grade areas to above-grade areas and below-grade areas to below-grade areas. The appraiser may deviate from this approach if the style of the subject property or any of the comparables does not lend itself to such comparisons. However, in such instances, he or she must explain the reason for the deviation and clearly describe the comparisons that were made.”

 It basically comes down to the appraiser needing to make and justify an exception. As we have found in the past, most appraisers don't understand or appreciate mid-century modern homes. Throughout the process cap fed has been great to work with and I cannot say enough good things about them.

What's next? I really don't know. We are exploring some other options and only time will tell.

 

Shastoration Sunday

The trailer project continues. I took some time off this week and made some good progress. We ordered the aluminum skin from California and it showed up in three big boxes. It's not ready for skin just yet, but we have it sitting on the shelf. The house and trailer wiring are finally finished.

 

The electrical cabinet contains three fuse panels and one inverter charger. In total there are four AC circuits and five DC circuits.

 

 And there was light. All of the lights are DC LEDs so they draw very little power.  

I replaced the standard bulbs in the main house light with LEDs and rewired the original kitchen light for two LEDs also. Although not shown in the picture, we saved the original 1960's glass sconce for the kitchen light. You can just see the remote battery monitoring panel mounted on the front of the fuse door there in the closet. I picked up a cheap car battery to test out the systems. Eventually we will get use a sealed AGM type for camping.

 

Most importantly, the refrigerator works. So now when the world ends and we have to pull it into the middle of nowhere, the beer will be cold.

The next step is to trim and insulate. Since we will be using lots of spray foam for insulation, the interior trim will need to be completed so nothing leaks in or deforms the panels.

Big House News

With our munchkin, the blog posts and general photo worthy activities have really slowed down. We love our house, but with the three of us things have been getting tight. If we have a second one, then we are definitely too small. It's amazing how much stuff kids have. Our options are either move or add on. Since the Roe Circle Country Club is the most exclusive club in Kansas City, we really don't want to leave. That puts us back at adding on. There is no good way to add on to the house without completely screwing up the lines and general layout. Fortunately we have a big garage with power, water, and gas. For the past couple months we have been running through various options with Studio Build and finally have something that works.

The general idea is to "drop" the addition onto the garage and link the two from the upstairs hallway in the existing house. The addition will have a master suite, 4th bedroom/office, and a laundry/storage room. The window layout hasn't been finalized so just a few are shown.

The 4th bedroom faces front with the laundry room at the right of the front windows.

 

Siding will be horizontal stained cedar.



 

The master bedroom faces the rear and patio.  The master bedroom hopefully will have a wall of built-in closets and some type of cool headboard with some more storage. The master bath will have a walk in shower, tub, water closet, and dual sinks. The current plan has a wet bar with an ice machine and coffee maker between the master bedroom and bath.

Eventually we will move the laundry into the addition. This will allow us to make a true half bath and pantry down in the kitchen where the laundry currently sits.

Depending on the weather, the tentative start date is February 1. Stay tuned for plenty of updates in the coming months.

1965 Shasta Compact Project: November Update

After months of wiring, the trailer is getting to a point where we will be making some visible progress soon. In case you forgot, this is what the profile looks like.

The wiring in and distribution out all come from this side. The wiring doesn't take that long, but the drilling and fishing the wires through the aluminum tube takes forever. Grommets have to be fitted and glue into place everywhere the wires run through the frame so they don't short from vibration.

The frig is installed. The one we wanted, and built the cabinet for, was out of stock indefinitely, so a little modification was needed to get the larger model in. The wall was cut out and one of the front structural member was removed and needs to be relocated. 

 

From the front the fig fits like we meant it. The original plan was to have some walnut trim around the refrigerator. As you can see, this model completely filled the space.

Not a ton of progress here other than a couple reading lights in place. After wiring is complete and tested, we move on to trim before spray foam and skin.

Funny, the past 6 months have been spent pulling wires to and from this cabinet. A few dozen more connections and I can close this up. 

Keep in mind this trailer is 12ft long tongue to bumper. For power we have a 30 amp shore service, 2 90 watt solar panels, and 200 mAh of sealed batteries running to a 1200 watt inverter charger. That powers 5 AC outlets, a TV, and LED base lighting, and on the DC side, 2 outlets, a refrigerator, 2 reading lights, 1 main house light, a kitchen light, and an automatic fan. That is more power than you would find in an airstream 3 times as big. 

Mid-Season Garden Status

We are right in the middle of tomato and pepper season. So far it has been a very good season. We have been warm and relatively wet. Actually more than relatively wet, I have only watered 3 times. I have managed to can tomato, jalapenos, and pickles. This is just a portion of yesterday's haul. The little red peppers in the lower left are funny. We don't get enough sun to grow full-sized bell peppers so I planted a miniature version. They are exactly the same as a regular red bell, just small. This picture doesn't even include all the Anaheim and Poblano peppers that need to be roasted and turned into sauce. Currently we have peppers, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, basil, and beets. Pretty soon it will be time to start fall lettuce and spinach.

Our tomato selection this year has been pretty spectacular. Most if not all of these will be planted again next year.

Tomatoes:

- Striped German (pink)

- Wasipinicon Peach (yellow)

- Cherokee Purple (black)

- Black Krim (black)

- Sungold Select (orange)

- Black Cherry (black)

- San Marzano (red)

- Money Maker (red)