Eyesore Across the Street

Seriously, is it any wonder we haven't been able to sell Mom's house? Look at the one directly across the street.

Sure, it's a tough economy; nothing is really selling. But this doesn't help. You must click on the above picture for a larger view of the damage.

There are things falling off the facade and things living in the attic--I know, because there are at least two ginormous holes that I've seen squirrels come in and out of.

Sheesh. I don't even have to try to obscure the house number in this pic. That fell off ages ago.

Paint Stripper

I spent a night by myself at my mom's other house to get some more painting done, but when I was ready to begin, I realized I forgot to bring my grubby paint clothes with...

Topless painting time!

Thank goodness for thick blinds and drapes. :-)

Disclaimer: The photo above is a dramatic recreation. I forgot to bring clothes, what makes you think I had my camera?

The MLS, Ladder Safety, A Hornet Nest, and Outdated Kitchen Cabinets

What is it about a whopping big hornets' nest that just makes you want to poke it with a stick? It must come from the same primal part of the brain that makes you think, just for a moment, that jumping from the top of a tall bridge would be fun. Some kind of suicide-is-cool death wish.

This picture doesn't do the hornets' nest justice, either. It is freakin' huge, maybe twice as big as my head. And I have a big head.

I didn't end up whacking it like a pinata; instead, I saturated the thing with wasp and hornet spray, which *supposedly* you can use at a distance of 25 feet. Ha! Maybe if it was below me or on an even level could I get it at 25 feet. I was lucky to get a 10-foot range from the can, so I was standing just below and maybe two feet out--way too close for comfort. Sure, it was after sunset, and the hornets were all slumbering quietly, unaware of their impending doom. But I was a wee bit paranoid all the same.

It was just one of the fun tasks Mom and I took on this week at her other house.

We had taken a few days off to roadtrip to her place and do a little more work on it. We pulled the house off the market at the end of June, after firing her agent; it's been 90 days now, so we could relist it in the MLS with a new number and it would show up as fresh. However, with the economy tanking and no one able to get a mortgage, we're not hopeful. Instead, we'll be strongly pushing the rent to own or straight rental option. In a year or two or three, when prices (hopefully) improve, we'll revisit the idea of selling. It's not where we wanted to be, but at least the house is paid off. There are a lot of people in worse shape.

So, between general maintenance and priming and painting various things (the first time the garage had been painted, um, ever), I dug up the St. Joseph and Buddy Christ statues we had buried in the yard to help with the sale. They'll get a good bath and get reburied next week, with new prayers said. C'mon guys, do your stuff! If any of you out there have another charm we should try, let me know.

These are the kitchen cabinets. They are extremely outdated, the last remnant of a kitchen which once sported funky green and orange seventies wallpaper with chickens on it, or something. I'm not sure what that architectural feature above the cabinets is called. I call it a waste of space. It juts out into the room, taking up valuable space that could have been used to stack stuff on top of the cabinets.


We thought briefly about doing some sort of treatment on them; I don't know, paint them or something. But now since we're focusing on rental instead of resale, I don't know if I can be bothered. I doubt it would make the house rent out more quickly if they were freshened up. Still, they just bug me whenever I'm there. (The stained glass window, however, always makes me smile; it was done by my grandmother. We're taking that with us to put in The Box House somewhere.)

I checked out rental prices on Craig's List, and there's some good news and some disappointing news. Average rental prices are higher than I expected for the area, but there also seems to be a lot--as in a ton--of rent-to-own options. Last time I checked, back in the spring, there was only one listed for her town. Now there are seven or eight. So, perhaps a bit more competition than anticipated.

The only thing we have to really decide on yet is the carpet. When we were trying to sell, we had offered a carpet allowance, to be paid at close, so the new owners could rip out the stuff themselves and choose what they wanted. Now that we're focusing on renting the house instead, the carpet seems to be a detriment. It's very old, and has seen its share of pet action and spilled cokes. One room even has the original carpet yet, a not-so-lovely shade of peach once popular in the seventies. If we replace the carpeting with something cheap, we might be able to command a higher rent overall. And we could recoup the cost with a few months' worth of rental income. Does anyone have an opinion on that?

All in all, it was a productive couple of days. The only hitch was when Mom and I got into a bitching session, mostly my fault, and instead of staying at the house with me she went up the road to stay with my Aunt Marsha; she actually called her and said, "Joanne's being a bitch, I'm staying with you tonight instead." Sheesh. But it was my first night to myself in a long time, so I'm not going to say I felt bad for the spat!

On the way back to Evanston, we took a few pics. Sorry for the bad quality, as they were taken in traffic. Look closely at the house on the left. Go on, click the images to enlarge them. The top window actually shows the attic with the chimney right up against the window. It's very odd, and I don't think I've seen anything quite like it.


But it's this picture that takes the cake. We drove past this house on Oakton Avenue, where the residents are obviously taking out a very large tree. Several major limbs had been cut with a chainsaw. But it's the ladder I want you to look at. The bottom is resting against a lower branch and is at least eight feet off the ground, and sort of tied to the main body of the tree. I ask you, would you really want to be wielding a chainsaw from such a set up? Talk about an accident waiting to happen!

Really, it's worth renting a big ladder from Home Depot.

For Sale By Owner, or, Firing Our Real Estate Agent

We fired Mom's real estate agent two weeks ago.

P., the agent, was little more than a glorified secretary, scheduling appointments for people to look at the house but not going over himself, not following up with the buyer's agent until weeks after an appointment, and certainly not giving us any advice on what to do to make the home more marketable in a down market. In ten months, we've had numerous people walk through, but no offers. In fact, we had some people come in two and three times, but we didn't know until way after the fact, when P. would offhandedly mention it. What do you mean this was the third showing to the same people? What do you mean you weren't over there to talk up the place and answer questions?

Seriously, in this market, you want your agent to put some effort into the sale. After all, when you're forking over 5-6% in commissions, you want to see something for the money.

We had been talking about how best to break the contract with P., but I think the last straw was when he called to talk to Mom and I said, "She's out; you can call her on her cell."

P: I don't think I have her mobile number.

Me: What? I've given it to you before. (Me thinking: Idiot--why don't you have that programmed into the phone?)

P: Well, I don't think I have it. Can you just tell her I called?

Me: (Thinking that he should at least have asked for it again) Um, okay. (Idiot)

That night, Mom read him the riot act on the phone. It's a tough market, and not everything is his fault, but the agent has done little to guide us in this process, and I think that's what he's there for. Getting feedback from potential buyers and passing on that info to us is critical, I would think, but he never did anything like that.

Anyway, before she could actually fire him for non performance, he offered to dissolve the contract. Yay! Now we can find a better agent and list it again with a new MLS number.

Only we can't. If we list again within 90 days, the previous information will pull up in the MLS and it will show as having been on the market since last August. Did P. bother to tell us that? No. We found that out from a realtor acquaintance of ours.

We first met Shawn Daly six years ago, when he was the seller's agent for the condo Ted bought around the time we started dating. Every year we get a Christmas gift from Shawn, as does every other owner in the condo building. I guess the thought is that when those units are ready to sell again, he'll be the go-to agent.

We met him again last summer. Shawn was actually the seller's agent for a house we looked at, and for a while strongly considered. He not only remembered Ted from before, but the condo's address as well. (He, and not a secretary, sends out those Christmas gifts, apparently.) We didn't hire Shawn for our two-flat search with my mom because we wanted a buyers-only broker who would give back a percentage of the commission, although we'll strongly consider him when it is time to put Ted's condo on the market. (For those new to the blog, we rented out the condo in Chicago rather than try to sell it at this time.)

Anyway, from last summer until last weekend, we hadn't encountered Shawn again, but ran into him at Custer's Last Stand, an arts festival here in Evanston. He not only recognized all of us, but even remembered which house—of the many properties he represented--that we looked at. We'd hire him in a second to sell Mom's place if his territory stretched out that far.

Although he couldn't be our agent, he was gracious enough to give us some free advice. He's the one who said we'd have to wait 90 days to get the property back into the MLS with a new number, and that it's probably better to wait and have it show up as brand new for a whole new crowd of buyers. But he advocated For Sale By Owner (FSBO) in the meantime, saying that most agents (although they should be) are not working properties very hard right now. He boasts that he's still selling pretty well in a down market, and I believe it, because I've seen a number of his properties sell in the past year. He offered several ideas that we might try if we're feeling aggressive, so in the next few months I'll be chronicling what's going on at the other house as well as work we're doing here at The Box House.

So, for the moment, Mom's house is off the market. We're going over next week to work on a few more projects to spruce things up before doing the FSBO route. But, if anyone out there has sold their home "by owner," I'd love to get some feedback on the process--particularly how you marketed it and how you followed up with people who came to take a look at the place. I just picked up Robert Irwin's new book For Sale By Owner, which was written for a down market and has tons of great advice. But I'd love some firsthand accounts as well.

Goodbye, My Childhood Home

At the front door of the house, beneath the soft glow of the porch light, my first boyfriend John gave me my first kiss. My grandfather had his wedding reception here, and my cousin Kristen her bridal shower. The house has hosted its share of slumber parties, birthday parties, and holiday parties. So many happy memories are sheltered here, so many sad memories, too. It was nearly four years ago that my dad passed away here, suddenly, and without warning.


But it's time to say good-bye, now. In a few days, we'll pick up the U-Haul and load it up with the bulk of my mom's remaining furniture and take it to The Box House. After months of gypsy-style living and waiting for repairs to be completed at the new place, after weeks of lugging our computers back and forth so we could work on the new place and still get work-work done, after endless trekking back and forth across the snow-laden suburbs, we're finally doing it. We're settling into our new home.

I've enjoyed a rare privilege that not many adult children have. Last October, when Ted and I rented out our condo, we put the bulk of our possessions in storage and moved to my mom's house to wait until close, and stayed longer as we decided to get some crucial work done on The Box House before moving in. For the last four months, I've lived at my childhood home.

As I write this, I'm sitting at my desk, looking out my window on a street scene that hasn't changed much in the thirty-one years my mom has owned the house. Since being here again, I've found myself falling into many of the same routines as before: shopping at Stratford Square Mall, driving up to Portillos for a hot dog, walking the dog to the park--it's a different dog, sure, but the route is the same. Many of the neighbors who were here three decades ago are still here, and I'll wave and exchange hellos as before. "Yes, we're getting ready to pull out. Any day now, yes."

Our beloved Harley, who died last year at the ripe old age of 12.
He's posing most reluctantly for Mom's annual humiliate-the-dog picture.

Some things about my hometown I said good-bye to long ago. Wags is gone; the 24-hour diner with its bottomless cup of coffee was our after-work hangout in high school. The movie theatre I worked concession at has been gutted, expanded, and now serves Starbucks Coffee. It looks nothing like it did back in the day. And while I see an occasional almost-familiar face, softened somewhat by the years, most of the people I grew up with and hung out with are scattered across the globe.

Over the years, I've left and returned and left again, but part of me is feeling homesick at the thought of leaving for good. Whenever I left before, I always had the stability and reassurance that my parents would always be here, that their home would perfectly preserve every memory I had of growing up. And if I'm feeling troubled at the thought of other people living here instead of our family, how must my mom feel?

She has lived in this house exactly half of her life. Of course, she didn't plan on staying here forever. When my dad retired, the two of them were going to sell the house and move somewhere warmer. Maybe Florida, where my brother lived. Maybe somewhere else. Wherever it was, it was going to be bright and sunny.

But life can throw you a curve ball and change your plans forever. I know my mom never pictured getting a two-flat with her daughter and staying in the cold Chicago suburbs. She was supposed to enjoy her golden years with my dad, not argue with me about what color to paint the stairwell. She was supposed to live in some low-maintenance condo, clean and new, not in an 80+ year old brick house that will need work over the next year or two to make it into her dream home.

What I don't think my mom realizes, though, is just how much Ted and I enjoy having her around. We've actually liked hanging out with her these last months. My mom is one of the sweetest, kindest, funniest women around, with a heart as big as all that. I like having her in my day-to-day life again, and I love how she and Ted have formed a real bond.

Ted and Mom

When plans change so abruptly, it's hard to let go, make a leap of faith and follow them. My mom and I each feel, in some way, that we're leaving my dad behind in this house. I loved him so much, and I still miss him terribly. I worry that memories might fade if not bolstered by and surrounded by the physical things, the places, and the people that helped create those memories.

But I'm slowly coming to realize that a home is not the physical building itself, it's the people we love. I will remember my father whenever I see my brother use one of his gestures or my niece one of his phrases. Or when I see my aunt and uncle smile--they look so much like my dad it aches, sometimes--I can hear my dad's laugh again. Those are the kinds of things that will go with us to the new place, and we'll build a new home.

Dad and Me, 1970. It's one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.

We'll encounter difficulties long term, I know that. Perhaps by having our own units in The Box House my mom and I will still be able to maintain a good level of independence--and sanity. We have our own interests, our own hobbies, our own lives. When we don't feel like visiting, we could in theory go days without having to see each other. But it will be good to know that whenever one of us needs the other, it's only a short flight of stairs to the other apartment.

While we'll continue to come back to the house I grew up in each week until it actually sells, after this weekend it will no longer really be our home. Our future is in a new home, now, and I think it's looking pretty darn sunny.

Peel, Stick, Repeat: Vinyl Floor Tile Adventures

Crap. Crap.

The tile we picked up from Lowe's to re-do the sewing room floor at my mom's other house, the tile that we thought matched exactly the tile she already had in the rest of her downstairs rooms, doesn't match at all. Not at all.

Under the florescent glow of overhead lights at Lowe's, they looked the same. A perfect match. Even the Lowe's guy said so.

Mom already had three full boxes of Italia Stone tile left over from tiling her kitchen, hall, and downstairs bathroom, and we figured we would need only four more boxes of tile to complete the sewing room. Only the manufacturer, Cryntel, had fazed out the Italia Stone, replacing it instead with their new line of EuroStone tile. But the patterns looked the same. We would all swear to it. I just assumed Cryntel was remarketing their old product in pretty blue packaging with an obviously hipper name.

But back at my mom's house, under her lights, the tile didn't match at all. The new stuff is more bluish-greenish. Hmmm. Although it didn't match the old tile, it did nicely compliment the unplanned for mint-green wall.

Weird.

But now what?

The top half of the photo shows the Cryntel Italia Stone tile in the hallway. Below the wood-like transition piece I still need to install because the floors are not level, I have the old and new tile laid out together. Can you tell the difference between the two?

Our choices were this: We could go back to Lowe's and pick up enough of the new EuroStone to complete the room, or we could return the new tile and search online and see if anyone was clearancing the Italia Stone. But after checking the Lowe's web site and elsewhere, it was clear we weren't getting any more Italia Stone tile without driving to 42 different places. Lowe's didn't even carry the product number anymore. The new EuroStone, no problem. Every Lowe's in the Chicagoland area was fully stocked with the new product.

"We could blend the old tile with the new," I suggested, still hoping to save a few bucks by using what we already had. "You know, scatter them in so it makes a patchwork." My mom the quilter just gave me The Look, indicating what a stupid idea that was. Ted shot it down pretty quick, too.

Stubbornly, to prove it did not look stupid, I arranged several of the old and new tiles out on the floor.

Crap. Crap.


The new tile has a beveled edge. Well why didn't they say that on the package--?

Oh.

"Fine, new tile it is."

When I started to lay out the EuroStone vinyl tile, I was soooo careful, paranoid that just one set slightly off would ruin the whole floor. But by the second box, I was ripping off the backing paper, tossing it over my shoulder, and nearly flinging the tiles in place. The job is not as scary as it looks.

What is scary is this:


Does this really happen often enough, people sliding across the floor and injuring themselves, risking life and limb to tile a floor, that they actually need to put a danger label on the paper, telling you to throw it away?

At any rate, I got the job done without too much stress. Most instructions online advocated using an exacto blade to cut the tiles; those are all packed, so I used a cheap-o pair of scissors to cut them to size for the closet and along the edges. While the scissors didn't exactly cut through like butter, it was not a problem and I got the floor laid out in an afternoon. Or what would have been an afternoon if I didn't spread it out across three days. I can now happily check "lay vinyl floor tile" off my Bucket List.

Here is the final result, with our carefully staged furniture.

Why only two chairs? To make the room look larger, of course! Actually, I have no idea what happened to the fourth one; the third one broke when I sat down on it. Seriously. I'm no wee skinny thing, but all I did was sit on the damn thing. Definitely time to get to the gym.

Look how nicely the unplanned for mint-green paint matches the window blinds. The bowl on the table is one my grandmother brought back with her from Finland when she took her mother to visit with family in Helsinki. Great Grandma Marta (Aiti to those who loved her) emigrated to the United States, alone, when she was only seventeen.

The room looks fabulous now, doesn't it? Surely, someone will make an offer on my mom's house now. Everyone think positive thoughts!