GARAGE MOVE DAY 10:31 PM

So now that we officially owned the house and were no longer considered "trespassing" on the property, we wanted to move all the stuff that we'd been storing in our Public Storage unit for years into our very own garage that didn't cost us anything.  Lucky for us it came free with the price of our mortgage!  Chortle.

Since we have never lived anywhere big enough to fit a canoe, or what some may consider one of REI's flagship stores, we've always had to rent some sort of storage garage/space to keep half our life in. 

So this particular Sunday morning, we anxiously drive towards my folks house to drop off T so that we could purge our storage unit of all our stuff without having to try and maneuver around an 18 month old.  Smart right?  The obvious answer to our problem at hand.

Which of course is, I suppose, why that is not what happened.  On the way to my folks house, T fell asleep and in our very own brain damaged independant way decided that we can surely pack a 20' long UHAUL truck to the brim in an hour which is the length of time he will surely sleep right?  So we sped past my folks house and continued on to the UHAUL rental facilty, picked up said truck, and parked in front of our storage unit where we commenced the move with sleeping child in car. 

When we opened the door to the storage unit, I was immediately reminded of just how much stuff we had to move and began to feel my old friend panic edge it's way into my throat realizing our perfectly planned timeline most likely won't be panning out for us.  So I did what any mother would do upon realizing that you have put your child in a potentially precarious situation. 
I started running.

I made J stay in the truck to recieve and pack and I ran my little legs off lifting, chucking, throwing - a furious cloud of moving mayhem I was.

Huffing and puffing a half hour later, the inevitable happened. 
T woke up.

Did I mention that it had started raining too?  Yes!  Yes!  It was raining too!

Luckily, my dad called right then and offered to come and help us. 
T entertained himself for quite some time by stomping in puddles and finding long lost baby toys to relive his glory days with. 

Do you guys need some help?  Cuz I am really good at helping.  Just give me a minute here...

T barking instructions from the sidelines.  "Now you with the grimace, a little to the left!"

Desperate times call for desperate means of entertainment. 

Yes, I have officially stomped in every puddle.  My work is done here.  Hand over those cheerios woman!

BIDDING WARS 10:01 PM

So now that we owned the house in all it's ragged glory, at the top of our priority list was soliciting bids so that when that elusive permit did finally get reviewed and approved by the village, we'd be ready with contractor in hand to commence de-ragging it.  Not sure what that means, just thought it worked here.

So cute that I still thought they'd get around to that permit review any day now.

J of course contacted a few guys from his days with his dad's home building company and he posted the project on Blue Book and Service Magic and got a great response.

Blue Book produced way more leads than Service Master. The only advantage to Service Magic is that the contractors are prescreened and have a reputation to maintain through Service Magic, so it feels less risky.

Speaking of risky, that is of course the method that I chose to take. We were looking for a bid blitz basically, hoping for quantity over quality initially just to get a really good hold on where the pricing should be at.

I posted a general ad on Craigslist (the land of crazies) describing the entire project and soliciting all types of bids and within a matter of a few hours of placing the post, already had 80 emails log jamming my inbox.

I promptly removed the ad just to allow me to deal with the 80 contractors that had already contacted me practically foaming at the mouth for work.  Again - enter state of economy. 

Honestly, of those 80, only about 20% of those contractors even replied back to me after giving them drawings to bid and stating all our requirements. So really I could have used more, but between all those sources, we felt we had solicited a good amount of bids.

Now mind you, part of the reason I think I only had a 20% response back was that we were very stringent in our requirements. To do work in Oak Park, you have to be registered, licensed (if the trade requires it), bonded, and insured. A lot of small time contractors who are probably your most sketchy bunch can't meet those requirements. Oh, and we were asking for references as well. I mean come on - we're not that brain damaged!

One other resource I used was a local start up company called MyLinkPros.  They are a contractor referral service with just a few leads.  But they all come highly recommended by the owner of MyLinkPros with many references and you can feel pretty safe using any of them. Unfortunately, they were all pretty much our highest bids as well, so we weren't able to use any of them.  But good resource in a pinch.

It was interesting the kinds of bids we got back. Everything from "are you employing small children to do the labor for you?"  to "do you think we're building the Taj Mahal here?"

One other unique facet to this bidding process was that if a contractor was not able to get back to us in a timely manner via the internet (or could not compose an email in somewhat coherent English) - they immediately dropped way down on the list of likely hires.  Because this renovation is not our full time job, we had to find contractors that are willing to work in a slightly atypical fashion - i.e. need to be technologically plugged in, in some fashion.  This is the only way we'll be able to manage the process and work our day job at the same time.  Answering phones and being on the job site all day long is just not an option.  It will be interesting to see how it goes with these guys.

For those of you who know us, you know that there are some serious excel spreadsheets at work here keeping track of all of this...  wink.

CLOSING 9:39 PM

The headache of what then ensued over the next few months leading up to closing on this property will be greatly condensed if not just for the fact that I am writing this now much after the fact so the details are not as fresh in my mind. Nor do I care to relive them.

And it’s probably better that I spare you the daily aneurisms I had over delinquent lawyers, botched paperwork, failed inspections, and just overall chaos. Because frankly, it just hurts to hear it.

The bank’s lawyers were a joke, so that was the root of most problems. Then our bank is telling us that unless a few things are fixed on the property they won’t give us financing.

Eh?  We don't own this property!

It was bank owned, and they could care less if there are things that have to be fixed so we can get the financing we need to buy the house we've already signed a contract saying we'd buy – so we are on our own.

We find from others that with lending the way it is these days, this is a common problem. Buyers are being forced to basically trespass on properties and make modifications to them without even owning them just so that they can get the lending they need.

So of course this is what we did. 

Luckily, we were able to get our list of "repairs" reduced to just those that were considered "health and safety issues".  The night J went over to repair some broken windows and turn the water on (in hopes that the house didn’t explode in a furry of water propulsion due to broken pipes), he also discovered that a portion of the ceiling on the 2nd floor caved in due to the roof leaking above it.  Awesome!  We love you house! 

Because he was hoping to spend more time repairing drywall that we were going to turn right around and have torn down.

Excellent.

Not really.

After days and weeks of curious and confusing emails between lawyers and lenders, the closing is scheduled for March 26.

Oh, wait – more problems with paperwork.  When you buy a house "as is" at auction from a bank - no one is going to throw you any bones, that's for sure.  It is pretty much up to you and your lawyer (if you buy a home at auction - PLEASE hire a lawyer to handle the closing!  It is waaaay more complicated than you'd ever expect!)

Did I mention the $800 in unpaid waterbills holding up the transfer stamp?

No?

There came a point sometime between the 26th coming and going with no closing and April 12th, when we did actually close that I began nervously looking for candid cameras hidden in trees and behind my rear view mirror because I was having a lot of bad hair days, and didn’t want to be put on TV with bad hair. But being on candid camera was the only logical explanation for the ridiculous circus of lawyer and bank emails that were circling around us every day.

The week before closing, my even keeled husband started threatening to march into the sellers' lawyers' office and cause an angry client scene. Maybe rant a little. Possibly even punchasize someone's face for free.  (super troopers?  no?)

Much to his chagrin, everything pulled together literally hours before they rescheduled our closing for like, the 3rd time, and we finally walked away with our name on the title.

Here we are at Potbelly's with J's mom (our realtor) day of closing while we wait for paperwork to be sent through.  You didn't expect all the paperwork to actually be in order at the closing did you?  Silly reader.

As we're driving back to work from the closing, a pursed smirk started to creep it's way across my lips at the thought of that ridiculous chapter being over, but before I can say "and done", my sneaky lip turned right back down as old man worry barged into my noggin.

You see, before we owned the house, there were just an assortment of scrappy teenagers or bums or someone/thing taking haven and wreaking havoc in the house with beer bottles and smokes (and Lord know what else), breaking doors and windows when things managed to get locked up again and again. Every time we'd visit and see more damage we'd wag our heads from side to side and guffaw almost in near amusement at their wily antics.  "What?  They broke in again?  Silly chenanigans!  Chortle Chortle."

Now that we owned this house - THERE WERE PEOPLE BREAKING INTO MY HOUSE FOR THE LOVE OF PETE! (whoever pete is - he gets a lot of love from me)

Next on the agenda: Project Secure House.

And with that, here's a few pics of us that night at our virgin home visit on the eve of the first day officially owning the property/project.

J driving up to the house and pointing it out as if I forgot which one it was.  OMG J.  Are you kidding me right now?

T and MIL again reminding me which one is ours.  Seriously? You're making me break out in hives over here.

FIL hunched over the impending weeds, already feeling the stress for us I presume.

And done.

What in the world where you guys thinking!???!

READY, SET....GO! 12:23 AM

So now with closing tentatively set for the end of March, just over a month away, our immediate task at hand was to not only design our new house, but then to also smash together a set of drawings to get into the village so they can sit around and wait for an undetermined amount of time before someone in the elusive land of Oak Park’s building department decides to sit down and review them and then most likely return them to us smeared with comments and revisions we’d need to make. This needed to happen quickly as our goal at the time was to try and get the drawings back in a timely manner so that we could start construction as close to closing as possible to minimize the amount of months we had to pay both mortgage and rent simultaneously. (Did I mention folks were currently using the rear enclosed porch of the house for drinking parties?)

Yeah. Awesome.

No.

So, the task at hand – redesign the existing 2-flat brick box into a nice “normal” single family home.

And by "normal", I mean something more attractive to potential buyers than ourselves as this is really an investment property that we’d also like to enjoy living in for the few years (cross our fingers) that we have left in Illinois.  Designing to "normal" within our own standards if we were to stay there forever would most likely involve things like concrete flooring, zinc paneling, plywood walls, moss balconies and nothing would be straight - there may not even be any walls.  Not exactly your "appeal to the masses" type look.

Me and J hemmed and hawed over the design for quite a few evenings after T went to bed, on the train to and from work, and in our heads while we hummed in the shower.

And for some reason (mostly due to our brain damage I’m guessing), neither one of us can seem to remember to bring home or purchase any trace paper, and we end up sketching space plan upon space plan right on top of each other on a single sheet of plain white paper. About 7 sketches in, we’d both be hunched over the drawing trying to remember if the red line or that black line, or maybe the slightly faded blackish line was the current running model. It is as if we were literally trying to look for ways to make the process even more difficult than it already was.

For the sake of pete, whoever that guy is, I can’t begin to understand why we do things like this.

A few days later, the basic design was complete enough to start drawing, and we attacked with a vengeance. Now mind you, I don’t think me and J have ever said the phrase “just get something on paper, we’ll worry about the actual design later” as much as we heard ourselves saying that week. MmHm. We'll see how that pans out in the end.

Fast forward another week and we were close to being done with drawings.

Fast forward another week and there is gnashing of teeth over having to now wait on others for MEP (mechanical/electrical/plumbing) and structural drawings/calcs that we found out we needed.  Additionally, due to our venting out the side of the house for range hood exhaust, we had to hire a surveyor to do a plat of survey for the village to prove we were within the required distance away from the neighbors house to do this. 

We did also end up hiring an architect to size a few beams for us as the 1st floor plan went from many rooms to one room which meant large open spans that hadn’t previously existed.

(Note easier method having been to keep walls around rooms in the design like most people have in their homes)

(Oh yeah, also note irony in having to hire an architect when both of us work in an architecture firm - commence groan)

Anywho…

Many late late nights later (round of applause to J who shouldered much of the drawing work towards the end due to the technical nature of the MEP/S drawings), we felt we had scabbed together a set of drawings sufficient enough to have a fighting chance at the village. I plopped them on the building department’s desk on March 12 and walked away fully expecting to hear back from them in a few weeks (because, duh, they must know our closing is supposed to be soon and we can’t be delayed any further!  AND because T did a LOT of flirting with the woman at the front desk.)

I'm shaking my head in disbelief that I could ever dream anything so stupid now having the permit in hand and realizing how long the entire process actually took.  More on that later.

So drawings in to the village for review.

Check.

 So here is the existing floorplan.  All the dashed lines are walls or things that are being demo'd.  What exactly are you leaving you ask?  Well, the floor joists.  We thought we'd leave the floor joists.  

And here is the new plan.  Kind of hard to read, but you can get an idea of the basic layout.  In addition to the interior renovation, which involves an open living area encompassing kitchen/living/dining area, mud room, study, powder room, 4 bedrooms, and two full baths - we are also tearing off the haneous back porch enclosure currently eating up half the back yard as well as the white siding infill enclosed front porch.

And so here is the front of the house as it exists today.

 And here is our very rudimentary, half designed rendition of what it will look like eventually.  As you can see, all that white siding will be gone and the existing brick piers will be sliced to half their height - back to the original design of the house which you can see a little bit in the house just to the left of it.  The top of the new porch becomes the balcony off the master bedroom.  It actually reduces the square footage of the house, but we think it will be worth it.


Now if we can just get the property closed, we’ll be sitting pretty.
Right?

THE AUCTION 9:52 PM

Enter February 17.

I was at work on my lunch break probably eating a sweet potato with soy BBQ shreds if I was lucky - contemplating any last ditch efforts we hadn’t thought of for finding a house to buy. My little personal brainstorming session suddenly produced an idea – "how about you open up that internet and research buying houses that have gone to auction" (which was completely foreign territory for me having only heard of it, not even knowing if it was even possible). So I did just that, clicked on the 1st link that google offered up to me, and…what…the…??!!!

There on the first page I clicked on was one of the first houses we ever went and looked at in Oak Park (we LOVE Oak Park). The very house that we had never been able to get off of our minds, but never really considered until recently because it was out of our price range considering the amount of work it would take to convert it from a two flat into a single family. Only the night before, we had started putting together a rough renovation cost estimate so we could come up with a number to offer the bank (who owned the property), so that we could then promptly be rejected, and then finally lay the house to rest in our minds and move on to buying that bungalow in Berwyn that we’d never really make much money on, if at all, and never really like living in.

So now not only is this Oak Park 2-Flat apparently up for auction on this website, the auction is - TOMORROW.

I call J over (who works in the same office as me) in an attempt at getting him to confirm my belief that this is some sort of internet mind game, and he agreeably shares my opinion.

There are phone calls made – a frenzy of chatter, a few heart palpitations, and it is confirmed – the house is indeed up for auction tomorrow. If we want it, we have to go buy it tomorrow.

Well Geez Louise.

So it was a late night of discussion, cost estimating, and more heart palpitations (ok J, the palpitations were all mine). In the end, what our cost estimate told us was that what we had to offer on the house was sooo far below its listing price that I was just too embarrassed to even go to the auction and be laughed at by all the southern belles and grey suits that surely were there to bid on properties. What?  That's what I see I TV!  I would just discreetly put my number in online (as you had the option of bidding live online) and watch the auction numbers eat it into oblivion. But at least we tried and could sleep at night not needing to wonder what would have happened.

Enter February 18.

The morning of the auction I quick pulled up the auction website, registered, and received access to watch live auctions that were going on at that moment. My auction was not until 2:30 that afternoon so I had some time to watch a few to get a feel for how it would go down before jumping in myself. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED by the way if you ever consider buying anything at auction yourself.

Coincidentally, the auctions running off at the time I pulled them up were a bunch of condos in Chicago. I had read that it literally only takes a few minutes to auction off a property. I had in my mind what the whole process would look like, completely fueled by whatever I had seen on TV at some point in my life that portrayed an auction, having never been to one myself.

And let me tell you – it really is exactly like what you would imagine it to be like.

The auctioneers are, at least from the ones I’ve watched, these larger than life fast talking smooth southern gentlemen in smart suits and pink silk ties with a pointy handkerchief tucked perfectly into front pocket. The auction really does only take a few minutes, they do really talk just like you see on TV, and your head will really spin right off your shoulders if you don’t hang on to both your ears.

But I digress.  So I’m watching these auctions online and sit there stunned with mouth fully agape when I see the number on the screen that the first bid closed at. Now, we had been looking at housing in Chicago as well, so I was pretty familiar with what similar properties to the ones being auctioned off were going for. And let me tell you – somebody somewhere just got themselves a REALLY good deal. For reals guys and gals, it is legal to sell a home that cheap?!

But it happened so fast, I wasn’t sure that I followed the whole thing correctly, so I watched another. And another.  Sidebar WARNING: watching online auctions is very addicting!  Beware!

And then I was picking up the phone and calling J to tell him to batten down the hatches because his wife is going to the auction, and we might actually have a shot at getting this house!!

In a matter of a few hours, my mother-in-law(MIL), who is also our realtor (that’s reeeeeealtor, not realuhter folks), was picking me up to head over to put me a bid on a house. They typically hold the auctions at one of the properties that is up on the auction block, and luckily this one was in Oak Park in a 4 flat that was for sale - so just a few minutes away.

Sometimes they have them outside on the lawn, and sometimes inside the property. Because it was chilly, they decided to have it inside this time.

When we pulled up, it was interesting to see the demographic of people types in waiting to participate in the auction. There were a lot of contractors, a few johnny home owners, and a sprinkling of suits that were probably investors or of the sorts. But much to my disappointment, all in all, there were a lot of people – probably 30-40 or so. I was hoping for maybe, oh I don't know, like one or two. Ha Ha

We went in, registered with the guy squatting at a laptop (where all the magic happens apparently – remember this was also live online) precariously teetering on a dilapitated old galley kitchen counter in the back of one of the flats, promised to pay if I won a bid, and then waited in the cold living room for the auction to begin.  Looking back - it was February.  Why was I wearing a down vest instead of a down sleeping bag?  Come on becki!

Soon, the auctioneer (who I think did actually have on a pink tie) walked to the front of the packed room with a microphone attached to a tiny speaker and read us our rights.

Then the third man with earpiece to listen in on the online bids and VERY loud voice took his place in the middle of the crowd. His job was to yell “HUP!” every time a bid took place whether online or live so that the auctioneer knew to push the bid up as it was so packed he couldn’t possibly see everyone at once.



And then we were off!



Luckily, my house was second to last on a list of 7 or so properties being auctioned off, so I got to ease into the auction process for a few rounds before it was show time. Dumb luck! It took a few auctions before your mind can even comprehend what is being said as it is being said so fast and loud in this weird auction speak, that it will literally cause your brain to flip flop inside your head. If mine was the first auction, the auction would have been done before I could even turn to my MIL and say, “did they start yet?”.

So my house is up now, Mr. Auctioneer wastes no time in getting bidding going and we are up to my cap number before the second hand has even made it’s way around the clock. I listen closely and when I hear my pink tied friend call my number – I raise my card to indicate I bid. Unfortunately, as quickly as I raised my card, someone else somewhere on the other side of the room evidently did right after me, because I hear the numbers keep going up after I bid. My heart sinks a little as I realize I didn’t win the bid, but am also a little relieved as this whole thing just happened a little…er….fast? And we were bidding at the very edge of what we could afford.

Then, just as my mind is starting to numb over in both relief and disappointment that this whole thing is over and I can move on, I realize that they have stopped the auction and the man with the earpiece is pushing people out of his way to make his way over to where I am standing. My head was totally wagging from left to right straining to see who he has stopped this auction for and then realize that he is standing in front of me.



Uhhh…can I help you Mr. Earpiece?



So now he is talking to me very fast and low and smooth-like so that only I can hear and I step out of my own body and am now yelling at myself from across the room – “Retreaaaaaaat! He’s trying to fast talk you! You have bid the most you can bid!”.

So I listen to myself and can now hear myself just keep saying, “No, I’m done, I can’t go any higher.” And then I stop yelling at my own self long enough to actually hear what he’s saying. The dude is trying to get me to bid another $1,000. And now J is standing next to me saying “are you out of your mind? What is $1,000 on a mortgage?!” But I am yelling at myself from across the room again and grow scared of the fast talking tie and keep turning him down.

Now at this juncture, he stops his whirlwind of word games, calmly takes out his ear piece, looks me square in the eye and says “Look, I don’t normally tell people this, but you do have the option of bidding up just another $500”.

All the sudden you can hear a pin drop, every eye in the room is on me, and I hear myself from across the room say, “becki, seriously, what is $500 in house speak?”. I look over at my MIL and her face is a little blue from holding her breath and her eyes are as big as saucers staring at me like she’s watching Rocky Horror Picture Show wondering how this cabaret show will end.

So I ignore myself across the room, look back at my earpiece dude and whisper “fine, $500”. And before the words were even done exiting my dry mouth, there was an eruption of fast talking auction speak and I heard numbers being spewed that crept back up over what I had just bid, so just assumed that obviously my bidding opponent had seen my $500 and gone in with a $500 of his own and again breathed relief that the trainwreck was over.

“Going once, going twice, to the lady in the corner!”.

I look at MIL right before my jaw fell on my foot.

Now why is that silly auctioneer pointing at me?


Like I said – it’s VERY hard to follow all the numbers being thrown around as they are trying to push bids higher, sometimes you think they are calling out the next number bid when really they are just trying to get someone to bid that number. This is what happened in my case. The auctioneer was trying to get my opponent to bite the number he kept yelling, but he didn’t budge, so the bid fell back to me.

Go figure.

So I bought me a house in a matter of minutes for just a smidge more than what we had planned.

Now I wouldn’t recommend this process to everyone because it is veery risky if you are not completely informed of the property on the chopping block, but coincidentally (or shall we say via divine intervention?), we had already looked at the property multiple times, were already planning on making an offer, and did think we knew what we were getting ourselves into having done the research. That being said – we walked away with a CRAZY deal.

We hope.  And boy is she a looker.

COMMENCE BIG ADVENTURE: finding a home 9:59 PM

So, last year, we sold our tinywiny condo (due to the fact that two became three), and steered ourselves in the direction of bigger housing.

Our shopping list was short:

1. Single family 3 bdrm home.
2. Garage.
3. Yard.
4. Walking distance to train


So really, how hard could that have been when the housing stock is so high right now? Well, in our price bracket – like trying to find something on the menu at Starbucks for under a dollar -even with the steals of deals that were being listed left and right.  Again, enter state of economy. We found ourselves compromising our ideal location (which was Oak Park near the train, by the way) and a whole lot of other things in our desperate attempt to find something in time to take advantage of that bone the pres threw us come tax time. (And get our child’s bed out of a mechanical room).

Whaaaat?

Don't ask.


We looked and looked and were coming up with nada.

OUR M.O. 10:00 PM

Me and my hubs J do life in a rather... er, less-than-obvious way. It’s not really that we are trying to make life harder for ourselves, but apparently our method of living does exhibit proof that a much easier road might have been taken. But easy is not really our M.O.

We've tried.
Really, we have.


Like the time I decided to make it easy on myself in preparing for a backpacking trip with our 6 month old and dehydrate all his food in advance (which of course also meant scouring Chicagoland to find a dehydrator to buy on a days notice) so it would be sooo easy to just add water on the trail and voila – instant baby food. Had the thought even occurred to me that now-a-days they make this wonderful thing called “jarred baby food”?
Seriously.
It comes in these cute tiny little pre-portioned jars of food! You don’t need to refrigerate it – you merely throw it in your backpack and start yourself and little one down that trail! I mean, what’s a few more ounces on a two day trip?!?!
Jimminy Crickets.
Now, let me just preface this entire blog by pointing out that I really am not the airhead I just made myself out to be. It’s just that if there is a harder, or more difficult way of doing something – that way definitely has proven itself to be this family's 1st inclination at how to go about something.
I am not really sure that there is really any merit in this method of living other than the fact that we truly believe that many times the harder way is the better way (at least more rewarding).


So I hope I have given you permission not to succumb to that overreaching impulse to constantly ask yourself when reading about our life “why wouldn’t they just…”. The answer will just make less sense to you than the pickle at hand.
And if you are reading this and nodding vigorously in approval of our antics because you were just thinking the same thing – then I hope you find comfort in reading the woes and joys of kindred spirits, because sometimes the road less traveled is just, well, sort of like the highway after a Chicago winter when the potholes get so big that people are literally suing the city for all the car repairs they have incurred because their Lexus LS10 didn’t come equipped with an 8” suspension.


What?
Don’t ask.


That being said, we have recently embarked on an adventure that is pretty big. So big in fact, that we thought what we learn from this experience might actually be beneficial information to like minded individuals out there who may be contemplating a similar operation. Or at least entertaining to those who think these sort of antics are amusing?