For the Win

Remember in my post about about the kitchen I mentioned that we we're hoping to save some money on our appliances?

Well, we actually did it! I know that shouldn't be so exciting but saving money on something, just anything, was wonderful.

We hit up Metro Appliances & More a few months ago and found out they had a "back room" of damaged and close-out appliance models on sale. We weren't quite ready to purchase anything yet so we did a quick breeze through and then went on our way.

With the house under construction we decided to start keeping an eye on their website as their Edmond store kept a very accurate listing of what was in the back room. Paul happened to check their site earlier this week and saw a close-out double oven, 36" gas cook top and dishwasher that just had all had their prices dropped and they looked too good to be true.

So Paul and I visited the showroom at lunch on Monday, checked them out and bought all three on the spot. We spent HALF of what we had budgeted to spend on those three items. The oven was less than half the original price, same with the cook top and the dishwasher was discounted a couple hundred bucks. Plus, we didn't have to deal with any pushy sales people. Their staff is laid back and terribly helpful.

Gotta love a deal.

Well, we we're so stoked about our deal, Paul tweeted about our awesome savings and after that sweet little tweet, they surprised us with a $100 gift card. EDITOR'S NOTE: It wasn't actually the Tweet that got us the fame and fortune; Paul had recently "liked" something on their Facebook Page during a little "Like us and win" contest. Regardless, it's awesome.

 

Photo by Metro Appliance Warehouse

 

Well, hello kickbacks. My name is Christa and you are welcome to visit anytime you would like. You don't even have to call. Wink.

Considering we still have a refrigerator, microwave, exhaust hood and under-counter fridge to buy, not to mention lighting for our entire house, I know we won't have any issues spending the money.

This is not a sponsored post. We we're not asked to write or review Metro Appliance & More. We just got a great deal, tweeted, and then we were given a gift card. This post is just us telling you about our experience and recommending that you check them out or to keep an eye on their website for clearance items if you're in the market for a new appliance for cheap.

A New Roof = Full Steam Ahead

I was going to bust out a quick line of "The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire..." but thought it be best to spare you.

Our new roof was installed this week.

Materials were delivered to the site last Thursday. After we lost our outdoor furniture to some punks we thought it best to store everything out of sight. So, the shingles, flashing, etc. found a cozy spot in our garage.

The only catch to living in a super cool old house in the City (except for having to do the upkeep) is that your home more than likely falls in a Historic Preservation Zoning District. Meaning, you have to get approval for certain projects. Like a new roof.

We sent our paperwork in to the State (the City manages some, the State others) and went to our neat little meeting last Thursday afternoon with a sample in hand ready to receive our approval. A quorum was not present and therefore the meeting got rescheduled for a week later.

As a side note, we would never recommend an individual buy materials for a  project on a historic home that must receive approval from their local Historic Preservation Zoning Committee Board before actually gaining said approval. That being said, Paul previously worked in an administrative HP Zoning position at the City of OKC and reviewed certain elements of renovations/exterior changes and recommended approval or disapproval. While we had to appear before the State of Oklahoma's HP Board rather than the City's, we knew the selection we had made for our roof material was not going to raise an issue and actually took the sample necessary for review/approval from the materials delivered to us that morning.

We returned earlier today and received approval from the now present quorum with 2 minutes of starting the discussion on our house. Which was great.

Especially since we had the roof installed on Monday!

As a BIGGER side note, we would NEVER EVER, EVER recommend you have labor completed and paid for before receiving your zoning committee's approval. You could seriously be up a creek if they denied your request.

The crew arrived Monday morning and got to work immediately. We had them set up on their books for over a month and in Oklahoma, when you get a roofing crew you hold on to them for dear life. We we're not going to let our schedule fall any further behind because some committee members decided to shirk the responsibility they had signed up for. We could wait a week for approval, but we couldn't wait a week for the roof. Too many other items depended on it's speedy installation.

We have a very tall eave height (like 28 feet) and a relatively moderate pitch. I do not envy our roofers for the job they had to undertake.

Before

After

We decided not to re-roof the garage. For one, it was in better shape than the house. And our funding didn't allow for extra cash to be flying towards the garage at this time. So while the roof on our garage and the roof on our house won't match for the time being we know that chances of an Oklahoma hail storm coming through are rather large and it's replacement necessary. We also will one day put some money into that garage and a new roof can go on at that time if a hail storm doesn't happen first.

One last side note: One of our very good friends is involved in the roofing industry so if you are in Oklahoma City and need a new roof, we have a really great and legitimate (it's sad that I even have to add that caveat) company to recommend.

OCTOBER 22 2012 NOTE: WE'VE TURNED OFF COMMENTS ON THIS POST. ALL 11 COMMENTS THUS FAR HAVE BEEN SPAM "INTERNET MARKETING" COMMENTS FROM ROOFING CONTRACTORS AND SALESMEN FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY. WE DON'T GET IT, BUT YOU'VE OFFICIALLY ANNOYED US. SO IF YOU ARE HERE LOOKING TO LOG YOUR NECESSARY MARKETING HOURS, YOUR BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE.  

Project Update: Month 2

It's already been TWO months since we purchased the house and started our renovation. AHHH! Here's what we've been up to for the last month:

 

 

 

 

Things have been ticking along but the next month will really start to show to show forward progress. We worked on removing the ceilings from the first floor, set up plenty of appointments, caught a show in Wichita Falls and then had a birthday celebration in Chicago.

General Project Update
Schedule: Behind (but that's what happens when you take two weekends off, am I right?) We'll catch up, eventually.

Budget: It's hard to say at this point. I am working on the 2nd draw request and this one is a doozy. Most of our money goes out the door during this portion of the project (new roof, HVAC, insulation, cabinets, et cetera, et cetera). The real tell will be the third and final draw and the finishing touches of the house.


Paul's Update
Exhaustion Level: Extreme, but it's leveled off in the past week since I really haven't spent much time at the house.

Stress Level: Higher than it used to be... maybe partially due to Christa's level of stress being high. :)

Overall Feeling: Tired of not being able to relax all the time... ready to get moving on building things and putting things together. Demolition is only fun for a few days and then it gets boring. I'm a builder, not a deconstruction expert. Excited to see some progress though with 80% of the demolition done; the big things are gone and it's starting to look like the space we want it to be.

Looking Back: I would have budgeted more time, and maybe money, for demolition when we created the schedule and budget. I would have scheduled the dumpsters for a long time and then called for a pick up if we were done early; instead I had to hurriedly call for an extension on the second dumpster because I didn't schedule enough time.

Looking Forward: Excited to have HVAC installation and the roof replacement start next week, as well as electric and plumbing fixes. Ready to get to work doing some framing and other labor to make it feel like we're really moving forward.


Christa's Update
Exhaustion Level:  High. Not from physical labor but the amount of things I've got going on. At some point, the stress level begins to affect the physical level and as it turns out I'm there.

Stress Level: High. The house is moving along and while it stresses me out, I have a big, expensive test to take at the end of September that is really making me sweat.

Overall Feeling: Nervous.

Looking Back: More pre-planning. Paul's a planner for goodness sakes. While we felt like we we're crossing our i's and dotting our t's we missed some commas and semi-colons. Not really missed them, just didn't get them in the right places. I'm used to doing a lot of work upfront (and not so rushed) so that the construction portion flows like a machine (at least on my end). That hasn't been the case. We we're in such a hurry to make sure the house was ours, we rushed through our planning stage. We're not hurting because of it necessarily, we're just not benefiting. If I could go back, I'd tell myself to chill out, do the proper planning on the front end and if that meant losing the house, then maybe it wasn't meant to be.

Looking Forward: While house systems and a roof installation is neat and it's what I was looking forward to last month, I'm getting excited to see our new cabinets. I placed the order last month and they should be arriving in the next two-three weeks. Green kitchen. Ah! 

We Took a Break

"A break?!"

I know, I know. I can hear it now.

"They've only been working on the house for over a month. They have a long way to go. What made them think taking a break was a good idea?"

Ok, so maybe none of you are saying that. But it's what we struggled with. We we're running on low. Dangerously close to empty. Paul's level of physical exhaustion was mounting, my stress level the same. We decided it best to go ahead and take a rest before proceeding any further.

So last weekend we jogged down to Texas to visit my parents and a morning of shopping in Dallas. Four very short days later, we packed up and went to Chicago to celebrate Paul's Grandmother and her birthday. It was a Dood family reunion with family members coming from all around the world (quite literally). And both weekends were totally worth it.

It was so good to see my family and spend time relaxing at their house.
It was equally great to see all of Paul's family (some we haven't seen since 2006 and 2008) from Montana, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and New Zealand. Addison met all sorts of new family members. In fact, I met two for the first time myself.

But now, we're back. And the house is still there.

We do have a long way to go but the breath of fresh air has helped and we are ready to get moving.

The next few days are going to be filled with coordination, meetings, site clean-up and paperwork BUT things start ticking next week.

Our new roof goes on, our HVAC installation begins and things will beging moving at a rather fast pace (they'll have to or we'll be living in a trailer come January).