Yesterday Lisa and I had a couple of appointments to go to; first the data wiring with Accurate Technology, then off to make design decisions with Qualico’s Design Centre.
The meeting with Manny at Accurate went very well, and he was extremely helpful. We already knew where we wanted most of our cabling, but we had to make some quick decisions about LAN drops because I had forgotten that we won’t necessarily need one in the basement since it won’t be finished, and the router will hook directly into the cable modem. Anyway, on the main floor we opted for CATV in the great room where the TV will be mounted on the wall, and TELCO at a short kitchen counter and in the garage. On the second floor, we opted for CATV in the bedroom (something we didn’t initially intend to do) and TELCO in the hallway on an alcove just outside our bedroom, for convenience to everyone. We didn’t bother with any cabling in the basement, since CATV wouldn’t be necessary right away (XBox doesn’t require a TV signal) and I can run long network cables across the floor until I get Chris to put it all in for me.
We also opted for a security system, for which the wiring is roughed in free anyway. Realizing that we were to be one of the first finished houses in the area, it would make sense to have a security system as there won’t be much of a neighbourhood for a while. It also wasn’t anywhere near as expensive as we thought it would be for the equipment (which we end up owning) and monitoring, and it all gets rolled into the mortgage so we don’t have to front anything. Small price to pay for a large bit of peace of mind.
At the Design Centre, we had decisions upon decisions to make! We went with basics for the exterior; the base uncoloured stucco, with a darker brick and brown shingles and highlights. Inside, we went with a beautiful granite for our counters. It wasn’t too dark, but dark enough to accent the “spice” oak cupboards. We picked out a very nice vinyl flooring which was a small upgrade, and opted to put it in the dining room as well which cost a bit extra. We upgraded the underlay for the carpet, but went with a base carpet which will work well. I wish I took pictures, but didn’t have a camera and Lisa’s cellphone camera sucks horrifically. There was more that we did, but I can’t honestly remember it all at this point. Maybe Lisa can pipe in on a comment with more details. She’s worried about things being too “brown”, but I don’t think it will be an issue. The walls will be “antique white” by default, which will offset it, and depending on how we paint in the future, the “brown” shouldn’t be an issue at all. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m into earth tones…
All in all, the design choices we made should come to around $8500, a far cry short of what we thought we were going to hit. Add in $1200 for the data wiring/security system, and say another $4-5000 for appliances, and we’re still shy of where we intended to be for cost on the entire house. I still need to call the bank to make an appointment to give these numbers, and discuss some other stuff, but I’m really hoping that ultimately there won’t be any issues with financing.
~MikeR.
Posted on 28 May '09 by mike, under House. 1 Comment.
Lisa and I had to go to Bridgwater today to sign a paper regarding adding two extra steps to our front walk up (we opted for two steps added to the additional steps, rather than adding two extra steps further out in the walk). Good news; we don’t have to pay for the steps or the railing. On our way there, we took some pictures of the framing progress that has been made. They can be found in our House Progress gallery.
We had our open house today while we were out. Not too many people showed up, four separate groups total (one of which was our neighbours across the street) but two groups showed a healthy bit of interest. We also had an appointment showing afterward while we stayed at Lisa’s parents for dinner. Here’s hoping at least one of the interested groups from the open house is serious and puts in an offer.
~MikeR.
Posted on 24 May '09 by mike, under House, Sigh.... No Comments.
Well tomorrow is our first and hopefully only open house. I really hope that there will be some offers coming in after the open house. I have looked at the competition in our listing price range and there sure isn’t a lot out there. I hope that means good news for us. There are only 2 other houses in the Transcona area under $200,000 and there are only 2 more if you look under the $250,000 price range. While I was outside this morning cutting the grass, a few cars drove slowly past our house and one even stopped to ask the listing price and said that they would be back tomorrow for the open house. I really hope that everything works out and we get what we need soon so that we don’t lose our new house. The deadline for the down payment is fast approaching.
I think that more then anything I can’t wait for this selling to be done with so some of the whole moving/selling/buying stress will be done.
On a plus note Mike and I have our appointment with the interior designers for our new house to make all our colour and design choices this coming Wednesday. I’m so excited and I can’t wait to see all our options! I’ll keep you posted on the choices we make.
Posted on 23 May '09 by lisa, under Family, House. 1 Comment.
It looked like this
Last night, on the way home from picking up Matthew, we stopped by our new house to see if any progress has been made. We were happy to see that the outside walls of the main floor appear to be mostly framed, as well as much of the garage. We couldn’t get close enough to take any pictures, as there was a very large bit of construction equipment blocking the road directly to our house; it looked like a crane, but was actually having cement loaded into it from a mixer and pouring our neighbour’s foundation. We drove a little further in along the main road, but the other end of our crescent was blocked by large trucks being loaded up. Ah well, I’ll get pictures asap. This is very exciting stuff.
And still, our house is not sold.
~MikeR.
Posted on 22 May '09 by mike, under House. 1 Comment.
Well, despite four showings over the previous four days (two Sunday I believe, and two Tuesday evening) no offers came in for our house last night at the deadline. We’re a little despondent about it, but our realtor says not to worry since the market is cooling and houses aren’t being snatched up as quickly. Combine that with the fact that our scheduled showing period was a long weekend (a poor weather one, but sitll a long weekend) and it apparently the outcome wasn’t surprising. He still feels we’re priced well for what our house is, and that it may take 10-14 days to sell, as is average lately. We have two more showings tonite with the possibility of a third, as well as an open house scheduled for Sunday between 1 and 3pm. I’m trying to stay positive.
As a bit of an aside, Lisa and I have renewed our EQ2 subs and rolled on Nagafen which is a PvP server. We haven’t reached level 10 yet so we haven’t been able to experience the action, but hopefully it won’t be too horrible. Lisa’s video card fan died at some point (discovered when her computer kept turning off for no apparent reason) so we can only play on mine until we get an aftermarket cooler from iTech, hopefully before this weekend. I have to say, EQ2 looks fantastic on these new computers. Very crisp textures and excellent framerates even with graphics options cranked. I have to admit I’m sort of hoping that the PvP won’t pan out so much and we’ll end up going to our characters on Antonia Bayle, because I’m not sure how the lore/story/etc dynamic works on a PvP server (ie. is the playerbase as into it?).
~MikeR.
