Holly’s Weblog

We are FINALLY having our open house for clients, subcontractors, friends and family on Sunday, March 22 from 1-4pm. We’ve staged the house and I just have a few tweaks left to do to it. The landscaping should be finished on Tuesday…then I place the house on MLS and our first ‘Broker Tour’ might be on Thursday – it will be the one specifically for Willow Glen agents. I’m an official Realtor now! I have the pin and certificate to prove it! Now for the scary part…selling the house. Today we discovered another, ANOTHER!!! house on Franquette is “coming soon’. That will make 4, for heaven’s sake! And that doesn’t count the one that’s still being worked on but looks close to being done… The other 3 are at the crowded end of the street where there are lots of cars parked on the street all the time because of the businesses at that end. I think the employees must park down Franquette. We’re closer to the middle of the street so we don’t get cramped like that.

Anyway, we’ll have pix pretty soon!

Murphy’s Law must govern my life! Not big things going wrong, although there was the potential for something big.

The appliance guys come and start working and right off they notice that the oven isn’t gonna fit in the cabinet. This cabinet was ordered based on the spec of the oven so…WHAT?!?!? Anyway, problem averted by the appliance guys, G.A. Installations, offering to fix it, not free, I wouldn’t have expected it to be free. Thank God the opening was too small and not too big. I told the guy to make sure he measured twice and cut once! Then they go install the downdraft stove and the vent for it (in the floor) is about 6 inches too far…not fixable but not a showstopper, either. The mechanical guys will come back and create a vent in the correct location. THEN, the plumber switched the hot and cold valves under the sink so the dishwasher has to be connected to the cold water, for testing. Mr. Plumber will be coming back anyway to put in the fridge water line, which we forgot about, so its not a big problem. >whew<

The gravel underlayment for the pavers were delivered today…big truck, little street but the driver can really thread a needle. Definitely, I think that guys really love having to do ANYthing involving a bobcat! They are digging up dirt, putting the dirt in a pile, then putting the pile of dirt in a trailer and then spreading the gravel around. The landscaper was by and his guys were marking off where the pipes were going to be laid. Lots of coordination! I am very glad that we hired two companies that are very used to working together. We don’t have to be the go-betweens.

well, recycling, really… The paver installer came yesterday with his little bobcat and was excavating all the asphalt. He called and asked when the junk in the backyard would be removed…darn it…we were hoping he could get rid of it. So Andrew and I went to the house and Andrew backed the truck down the driveway and we filled bags and boxes with styrofoam and cardboard (the little stuff that could blow away) and lots of other boxes were flattened, bits of metal scraps and plastic bags that all the products come in, took away the old front door and scraps of plywood and stuff like that. Filled the entire bed up to the roof! They take everything except appliances, electronics and liquids. I was amazed that they take everything else! Rick and I had actually argued about it…he was right and I was wrong and here it is in writing for everyone to see – write it down on your calendar cuz it don’t happen too often

Anyway, that was a relief cuz now there are but a few things to get rid of – we didn’t know whether to get rid of the old siding or not and there was a pallet we didn’t see until we’d already packed it all up. And it only cost $66.xx!! Wow…at that rate we will never get back our stupid CDDD (Construction Demolition Debris Deposit). We had to pay the City of San Jose about $3000 and then we give them receipts from our trip to the dump/recycling and we get reimbursed for our receipts. Its supposed to help people recycle vs just dumping the stuff. Since you pay to have it dumped OR you pay to have it recycled and if you recycle some money is returned to you. But there is no way will we have $3000 worth of receipts! And we recycled virtually everything! The asphalt and metal roof might make a difference, I suppose. The metal roof we gave to the roofing workers to recycle (they appreciated it!). I dunno…

Anyway, I’m glad that’s done and more landscape work will happen tomorrow. I scheduled the appliance installation guys for Tuesday and the cleaners come on Thursday and Friday to work on the inside. They can’t clean the outside until after the landscape is done so that will happen the next week. We’ll begin staging the weekend of Feb 6. We might actually be ready for sale by Valentine’s Day. We are thinking of having the open house party the following weekend. I can’t believe it!!!!!!!! wow

We actually have to remember to turn off the lights when we leave! Hard to believe that we did without them for so long.

Rick has been creating blocks of wood that slant with the siding so that the outside lights have a more vertical base rather than an angled one (due to the angle of each plank of siding)…while there is a product that does this, its more for east coast houses with siding of a certain distance between them and ours was done to match the existing siding so its a further distance – naturally! Poor guy…not hard to do but tiresome. And, apparently, the lightbulbs we bought (at $2 per light) are so cheap that they are buzzing in the fixtures – there weren’t a lot of options of bulbs at the store, we just bought one that was a good price and, we thought, a good name…NOT! phooey…

The electrician is working diligently and the plumber guys are working, but not so diligently…when the boss is away, the mice spend a lot of time chatting with each other while they are installing a sink or what-have-you.  Or maybe I just don’t realize how long it takes to install things…shrug…

The landscape is now a week behind schedule…thanks to the rain. They are supposed to begin demo of the old asphalt tomorrow afternoon.

Its easy to get irritated about all this because I want to be DONE and on to the next phase…the last few things feel like they take forever!

And, of course, 2 of the latches for the sliding glass doors are missing…I have to find them or find replacements… aargh…they are only about 2.5″ x 1.5″ so they are easy to overlook.

Still, things are looking more and more finished every day! And when its done, we’ll start looking for our next project! Providing, of course, that this one sells and gives us our investment back