Next Project

Old main panel

New Awesome Breaker Box

Now that our electrical work has been completed and we have more than triple the amount of power available to us than we used to, we've moved onto our next project, the closet flip. Why on earth would you flip a closet you ask?

Due to the layout of our house our laundry options were a little limited. We could either have a washer on one side of the kitchen, and a dryer on the other, or pay way too much money to move gas and water lines into the existing closet. Strangely enough, it was cheaper to flip the closets than to re-route all of the necessary pipes.

The flip consists of this: What is now a closet in the hall will become a flat wall, and the space to the right of the old closet doors, which is currently a wall, will become a closet complete with a sneaky pocket door. The 3rd bedroom, which is behind this wall will have basically the same procedure. What is now the closet will become a wall, which will serve as the back to the new closet, and what was wall will become a closet door for the 3rd bedroom.

Here are some mid-construction pictures.

Looking from the living room down the hall. Space on right used to be a wall, space on left used to be a closet.

Looking from the back of the house forward. The empty closet on left is the old one, which will now have a door in the room instead of the hallway, and the wall on the right is the new wall for the new laundry closet.

Washer dryer hookup in the new closet.

So far, it looks terrific. The only holdup now is that our pocket door frame has yet to arrive as expected. Its putting a bit of a delay on our construction, but to no fault of our awesome contractor.

Once the project is finished the house will have a designated laundry area that had never existed. What's that little house, you're trying to improve our investment already? Thanks buddy.

PS. Below is a picture of our beautified mesquite tree.

Greeting Cards by Egotrip

I'm proud to say in recent years I've participated in running events. My furthest has been 10 miles and my goal is to make that 13 in 2010. A majority, if not all, of the events I've attended include professional photographers scattered about the course to capture you for better or for worse. Some find my "appreciation" of these race photos entertaining, but I'm willing to guess no one would find them an acceptable option for a Christmas card. Why is it that race photo companies think my friends and family want to see Merry Christmas accompanied by a sweaty, struggling runner surrounded by other sweaty tired runners? Honestly people. Poor marketing decision.

Silly Quaker

While deciding whether or not to eat my oatmeal I noticed a question and answer segment typed on the package . “Does Quaker Oatmeal eaten uncooked provide the same benefits as when its eaten cooked?” What the heck kind of a question is this? I’d like to know who goes around opening instant oatmeal packets and tossing them back like a bag of M&Ms.

I thought about granola bars and considered perhaps this is what they mean by “uncooked oats”, but I wasn’t eating a granola bar, I was considering eating instant oatmeal. Last time I checked there were cooking instructions on the instant package, hence, not intended for raw consumption.

I’m sure the anticipation is killing you, so the answer to the question is “Yes”. For all those out there eating oatmeal out of the packet or tube sans any cooking, be reassured that you’re helping your health; however, unless you’re eating in a closet where no one sees you, you’re certainly not helping your social image. I'm not judging or anything, but honestly, raw oats?

Mesquite

We bought our house knowing we had 6 trees in the backyard. Two of which are way dead, one is a bit too close to the house for comfort, and the largest of the 6 is a massive mesquite tree that appeared to be growing at an unnatural 60 degree angle from the ground. Needless to say the mesquite tree was, no pun intended, our largest concern.

At some point this massive tree had fallen, or been knocked over and was resting on the power line for who knows how long. The massive roots that stick out of the ground look like a hand diving into the sand, seeking a buried treasure below. Out of concern of our slanted tree, its exposed roots and our future home we had an arborist stop by for a review of the situation. His professional opinion was that it would have to be removed. I wasn’t the biggest fan of his “professional opinion”.

Here is a picture of the tree. It took up about a quarter of the back yard and created a secret cove with its plethora of dead branches that had made their way to the ground but were still somehow intertwined with the live branches on the tree.

This Friday I returned home from work to discover Jonathan had been quite busy. Our tree was now rid of a majority of its dead undergrowth and was back to its former glory. Needless to say our backyard looked like it had lost some sort of tree battle and was now covered by massive tree branches, as seen below. (darn that one dead tree for being in the way of my photo!)




After a little over than two days of solid work on the tree, its really coming around. Despite its crazy growth pattern its quite strong, as proven when our “230” pound electrician lifted himself off the ground by hanging off of its trunk without any protest from the tree. Two trips to the dump later we are still hip deep in branches in our backyard. However, on a positive note, our tree is looking much healthier, we discovered a citrus tree somehow surviving sans sun beneath all of the mesquite’s over growth and we now have a ton of mesquite wood for future grilling.

In very small ways our little house has been steadily paying us back for its purchase. It started out with loose change during the cleaning process, and now has progressed to wood for grilling, and perhaps next year it will supply us with fresh citrus. Keep up the hard work little house.

Updates to Huppdates

New look, same Hupptastic content. Thanks for reading!

Finally here

If you glance to the left of this text you'll see a whole new Huppdates slide show. That's right, you may now witness the glory of buying an "As is" house that went into foreclosure and had been vacant since February. Some of you may find yourselves having to push your jaw closed because its fallen open in awe, and not the good awe. No worries, its a natural reaction. A bonus to keep in mind... what you are seeing is what the sellers considered "cleaned". From what neighbors tell us it used to be way worse. Yech!

In a little over a weeks time we've removed a ton of nastiness from the house and are making solid progress on putting the house back together, exactly the way we want it. Sooner rather than later I'll start loading up before-and-after pictures as rooms get completed. Stay tuned, and stay classy.

The first weekend in our home was spent more outside of it, than in. We started the weekend bright and early Saturday with a mildly successful yard sale, the profits of which paid for our meals for the entire weekend. When the stream of yard sale trollers came to a slow we loaded the truck and headed to one of two Phoenix "Transfer Stations". We managed to visit both stations during the weekend and both were equally impressive. (Below are a few pics from our travels to and from the Transfer Stations: sweet retro sign, sharp church and odd building)

I'm no dump novice but these transfer stations proved to be a whole new refuse experience. On approaching both sites I noticed, despite being about a foot from the gate, I hadn't smelled the garbage. Not until you're inside the actual transfer station is there an odor, and even then its quite manageable. After driving through the initial gates and weaving about an impressive mini highway system we arrived at the actual transfer station building. Now, just because its a transfer station doesn't mean it has to be ugly or bland, no, no, Phoenix does it right. These lovely structures are complete with extremely high ceilings, tons of clearly numbered bays and even windows along the roof line. Its not often that I'm impressed with with what my tax dollars pay for but as for the transfer stations, hats off to you City of Phoenix.

In addition to our dump trips we met with a contracted IKEA kitchen designer who helped us plan out our kitchen layout as well as a general contractor who not only provided great ideas and insight on our many projects, but also contact information for plumbers and drywall repairmen who will help us do our home remodel right. Hooray for doing things up to code. We also made time to swing by a few of our favorite "retro" shops and came across an awesome cat. His name is Puchinni (sp) and he is an Odd Eyed Oriental with a purr that would put a classic mustang to shame.

On a sentimental note, throughout the cleanup and demo of our home we've discovered random personal items of past residents. Random change, stickers all over the place, and a chain of plastic phallic beads, have been among our treasures, but the best of all was found on Sunday when we further broke down the kitchen cabinets for disposal. Pink wedding napkins. I'm not sure if "Dawn and Ron" were residents or friends of our home, but their very 80's napkins declare they were married on July 1, 1989. Here's wishing you many happy years Dawn and Ron, that is if you're still married...

Freaky Friday

After a night of Sydney jumping on my head while trying to get to the window over our bed I woke up with the Golden Girl's theme song in my head. Who wakes up with that random song? Sure its pleasant, but honestly, its a show about 70+ year old women. Not necessarily the way I want to start my day. Perhaps the snowbirds arrival is starting to affect me subconsciously.

Then as I drove to work and listened to the Fort Hood story on NPR I started crying. Yes, its a tragic story, but the burst of tears was quite unexpected. It got so bad that I had to turn off the story before I started balling.

Its been an odd start to a day that I sure hope improves with time.

Tragic Fortunes

"Emotions can be sweet and sour, so can your meal." -Real original

"Be careful! Bees with honey in their mouth have stings with their tail" - what I think this confused english is supposed to mean is that I should keep my eye out for backstabbers. Awesome.

What would life be without fortune cookies?

Kitchen Demo

Sunday 11/1/09

After picking up our bed frame and returning the trailer that we had expected to return 12 hours ago we got home and started kitchen demolition. I’d say the total cabinet demo and stove removal took about 4.5 hours. After the unsuccessful removal of a few of the laminate tiles in the kitchen we rented a laminate ripper upper machine (not-so-official name) from Home Depot and finished removing the gross floor from the kitchen and the laminate from the 3rd bedroom.

For those concerned with the kitties, they’re doing well. Toby takes this kind of life transition a little harder than Sydney, but is doing ok. Since we were planning on keeping them in one room until after the kitchen was completely cleared and cleaned we set them up in our bedroom. We let them explore the house for a little bit, but Toby didn’t want any of it. He preferred to stay in the room and hang out in his carrier until either Jonathan or I entered the room to reassure him that everything was ok. Sydney on the other hand is all about exploring her new place. My guess is that it will take Toby close to a week to start to get comfortable. Eventually we will let them out into our backyard, but not for at least a month or more. I’d like for them to figure out this is their home for good before letting them out into the big bad world.

Halloween does not make for a good moving day

Saturday 10/31/09 (Note to self: Halloween is not a good night to be towing a trailer and moving into a residential area at night.

8 AM: Pick up a few more supplies at Home Depot and pick up our UHaul trailer.
After our first load to our new house the plumber arrived. He was there to fix the water heater, and install the toilet and new sink in the master. At first he attempted to tell us the entire house needed to be re-piped, which was later recanted after taking a better look at the copper pipes. First thing that’s gone right.

While unpacking trip 3, we hear some not so friendly words from the plumber and learn that the on/off valve for our water has snapped off, on the city side. Our water was stuck in the off position and now the city was going to have to replace the valve before we’ll have running water. The thought of a baby wipe “shower” before work on Monday wasn’t too comforting. The city water emergency line told me they had one emergency crew in all of Phoenix and of course they were currently on a job Although we were next in line, it was still estimated that we wouldn’t see help for another couple of hours. The initial call was made at 2:00.

Trip 4 we make together (our plumber was still working at the house), but after unloading my singlehanded trip 5 we decide to wait it out together. We use our time wisely and work on the house and hand out Halloween candy. The highlight of the night was a killer bunny. Awesome!!. Sometime after 8:00 the emergency crew arrives with two huge trucks, the larger of the two towing a gigantic tractor. We learn that they had just be dealing with a main break. Sure I suppose that could have taken a little longer than the usual emergency call. Within about 15 minutes they were able to fix the problem and again we were back to civilization with our running water. Hooray!!! We made it back to the apartment for our last load and to clean, and of course we don’t have the proper tool to take apart the bed. Our bed frame enjoyed one last night in the apartment.

Keys Please

Friday 10/30/09
7:00 we got up, made our way to Lowes to purchase a new toilet and waited patiently for an expected call around 10:00 informing us that we could pick up our keys. All the forms were signed and ready to go and all they just needed to be entered into the county registry. 10:00 rolled by without a call. Then the usual hustle ensued.. Long story short we had to sign three forms, one for the lender, and two for the title company that had either been missed or had gone missing. To add to the stress it was close to noon and we couldn’t s get a clear answer on whether or not the selling bank had signed off on the sale. They are on the east coast, time was ticking. Sometime after 2:00 we got word that the sellers had indeed signed off and all of the paperwork was ready to go, and that that we were next in line for the final checking process at Wells Fargo. Finally around 4 something we heard that our title guy had submitted all of our forms and now all we had to wait for was for our forms to be registered. Around 5:15 we got a call from our awesome agent that the keys were ours!!! Time to celebrate right, nope, time to get to work.

From 5:18 until midnight we worked on removing all of the carpet and rotten floor mats (three bedrooms, hallway and living rm), removing the non-working toilet and all of the floor tile from the master bath, removing and cleaning the master bath floor with soy based chemicals and a floor machine, removing carpet tack strips from every foreseeable wall in the entire house and vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming. ,

2039

Thursday 10/29/09
Today’s task was to sign a billion and one forms at the title company. The appointment started at 1:00 but of course, like everything else with this house, the appointment didn’t start smoothly. When we arrived to “the signing table” we discovered that some minion at Wells Fargo assumed we wanted the put down the lowest amount possible for our down payment and completed our loan forms wrong by increased our loan by $7,000.00 Thanks but no thanks. Luckily a process that can usually take a few hours took about 20 minutes at which point we singed our lives away, for the next 30 years. 2039 is a rather unattractive number if you ask me.