Saturday, 05/24/08

Saturday morning of a holiday weekend. I don't take a lot of weekends off, so this one is special. I only wish that the house closing could have been before Memorial Day weekend. Think of all the things that I could have gotten done with 3 days off. Anyway, that was not the way it worked out.

So, Jose decided to go with friends to Culpepper VA for a carnival, so I thought I would check out Sears and see what the prices there are like for some of the items that will need to be purchased. So today was to look at grills, patio furniture, washer / dryers, LDC tv's.

I have a vision for the patio. It is to include a nice grill area. I purchased a couple of books a few weeks back about outdoor kitchens and how to build a patio. I got a lot of ideas from them.

I have been interested in the outdoor kitchen concept, but realize that this year it will not be possible to do everything, so I just want a nice grill. I spoke to Bill, the contractor who installs my retail kitchen's and who also cooks out a lot, and he has made the point for LP gas instead of natural gas. It appears that Natural gas will be about $350.00 to $400.0 to get plumbed, plus the grill will end up costing more. With the cost of an LP tank at around $50.00 and refills for around $20.00, it will take a lot of gas before I could justify the cost of the added natural gas cost. So, at least I want the tank to be hidden from view.

AS far as washers and dryers, Jose is pushing for the Steam concept. I spent a lot of time reviewing on line the differences and I agree that the Steam dryer is the way to go. In laundry fees alone, the additional cost will pay for itself in just a year or so, not to mention the fact that I won't need to run out and pick up laundry. I do not like to iron, so steam seems the way to go. Not sure about the washer at this point.

For patio furniture, I want a table that can seat 4 to 6 people and a conversation area with a fire pit. It would also be nice to have a raised bar area near the grill. At this point, I don't care if it is padded seats or separate seat cushions, wood or metal. I just know that I don't have an unlimited budget, but if I am going to enjoy the house this summer, I will need these things. They do not have to be top of the line to get started, but I don't want them to break down in a year either.

So my trip to Sears was beautiful. The sun was shining and it was not to hot. I opened the sun roof and windows and drove to Landmark mall. I thought I might go to IKEA afterwords. I stopped by the washer and dryer section first to look. The salesperson, Tony was very helpful.

I asked about LG and Whirlpool. He gave me his opinions backed up by what appeared to be knowledge about his products. He did not like the hinge on the LG items, but the washer is rated the #1 in consumer reports. He lead me to Kenmore and then to the Whirlpool. He showed both the top of the line and then next step down. I left thinking that the Kenmore Steam dryer with a matching regular washer would be the way to go, on pedestals. To put side by side on the floor, on pedestals or to stack. This is the question for another day.

From there I stopped by the LCD tv area. Sears seems to have good prices on TVs also. I believe the sales person to be Bernie, but I will need to find his card and make sure. Sony XBR's are priced well, but about the same as other places. Some items are on sale, others are not. What size do I go with. 52" or 46" or even smaller. The room is not large, but the 52" looks really nice. That would be my preference, but I may drop down in size due to price. I want 1080p and 120 megahertz, that I know. Bernie recommended the Samsung. New model and less price, but he did say that the Sony XBR has a great sound system built in.

Now, off to look at patio furniture and grills. I was impressed with the amount of patio furniture that Sears had. Prices seemed ok. Not as high as some places, but higher than some fairly nice stuff at World Market. As I was walking towards the grills, I noticed one of the outdoor kitchen grills. It did not have a price on it, but it was similar to one I saw at Home Goods that was about $2,000.00. The only difference is the case. It is brown to match a table set with stainless steel doors and grill. Granite insert tops. I asked about the price. The person was very helpful and went to look up the price. She came back with a shocking price of $299.00 for the grill section. This is a stainless steel, 4 burner with a side burner and rotisserie unit. I was surprised. The 2 side cabinets were $600.00 for the set. It even comes with a custom cover. This was hard to walk away from, so I purchased it with the in home warranty. This was a major decision, but I think it was a good one. I have been looking for weeks now and I believe it to be the best deal and with some work on the patio, it can be the first part of the outdoor kitchen concept. It may not all happen this year, but we will see.

I felt that I should leave and go home now, so I did. Walking on the concrete did make me tired and I was not feeling up to par at the beginning of the day.

I basically spent the rest of the day planning the patio on 2020.

History

Good Morning,

My good friend and previous work associate sent me a link to her blog. As I looked over it, I realized that this would be a good way to document the experience of purchasing a new home. A little history to date.



My father passed at the end of March, 2008. It had been his wish for me to purchase a home. To be perfectly honest, I was afraid to make the move. After Dad died, I thought that I needed to heed this advice and started the process of purchasing a home and to stop renting! So the journey begins.



I started by going to a few open houses to see what was out there and where the prices would be. I needed to determine if I would stay in Washington DC, move closer to work or make a major move to another city, line Minneapolis MN. If you know me, you should realize that this was a major thought process all by itself. Sleepless nights just to decide where to look. I looked at all the pros's and con's. I decided that since I have a good job, working for a good company, that I did not want to start over again at the grand old age of 50. So, that narrowed it down to DC and the surrounding area. With the cost of gas rising each moment and realizing that homes that were in my price range within the city would be in neighborhoods that were questionable, I started to look closer to work. I had found a Mortgage person at an open house in DC, Mike. He called me and did a workup over the phone and gave me a number that I would qualify for. I had to revise my original thoughts about monthly payment. Seems that my thoughts were a little under reality. Once I was over that hurdle, I called an agent whom I had sold products to at Allied. She had just had an operation and was not able to work with me in the time scale that I wanted, so Mike recommended that I give Sandy a call. I spoke to her over the phone and then scheduled a meeting to talk about my wants and needs. Jose joined me on this task and has been a great sounding board along the way. I decided to use her as my realtor and we began the process of finding a home, in my price range in a neighbor hood that I felt would serve me till retirement. I do worry about decisions a lot, but I make them fairly quickly. I found a house in Springfield. It is move in ready and much better than the ones that I looked at before. I thought that I would need to buy a bank owned or foreclosure property to be able to afford it, but Sandy coached me through the process of putting in an offer on this one. It was countered and I accepted the counter. With the back and forth process and the time delay due to the fact that the property owner is 91 living in Virginia Beach, I was a nervous wreck. Then, dealing with the mortgage company and their needs, back and forth. Both Sandy and Mike have been great in the process, but due to my nature, I have worried about every aspect. Since I had taken some time off in Feb and March to be with Dad, my income which is less in the winter due to the industry had not made a comeback till this month. I had to get Fred to write a letter to confirm this for Mike and his underwriter. I believe that all is now fine and closing is scheduled for Thursday, 05/29/08 at noon. Mike finally told me to go have a glass of wine and relax for the weekend. Sandy called me and told me the same thing, so I have relaxed a little.



I have spent every night and many evenings thinking about what I want to do to the house once we get moved in. A new kitchen, patio furniture, grill, TV room furniture with an LCD tv, new bed for my room, a washer and dryer......it keeps on going. Seems like a lot, but I live in an appartment. The only new furniture I have purchased since Darnell passed away 15 years ago, (my partner of 20 years), was a new dinning room table, buffet and living room tables. I must remember that I do not have an unlimited budget, but I want to be able to entertain again in my home. Living in "The Heights", now called Brookland Ridge for the past 5+ years has had it good points and its bad ones. Mostly, bad. Parking is bad, so I don't invite people over for fear that they might be towed away. I am looking forward to having "Path Encounters" group meetings again at my home. First event planned is for 07/26/08, the weekend before my birthday. A house blessing / birthday party. Bascially, all afternoon on Saturday and who ever is left over on Sunday, we will prepare brunch on my "new" range in my "new" kitchen. At least that is the plan. Lets see how it all works out.



For anyone who reads this, I understand that it may be a little random in my thought pattern, but I am looking at this blog as a daily diary. It is just my thoughts and what is going on in my life. You do not need to agree or disagree, but all opinions will be viewed as helpful hints along the way. Because I did not start the blog till many weeks after the process, I will have a few posts at the beginning just to bring things up to date.