I Should Be Emptying The Rental House In 100 Degree Heat…

But, I’m just worn out and need a break. Even if a break means sticking to the computer chair while the vintage fan blows scorching hot air from outside into my face. Our inside thermometer reads 95. It’s misery and I get to load, pack, carry furniture and David’s Talentmaker  into a beat up U-Haul. Oh, and I get to singe my nose hairs with the vapors of bleach in hopes of getting a security deposit back. What a great day!

A perfect living room

Anyways, enough of my whining over a miserable heatwave here in the Pacific Northwest. I’m from the Southeast. I’ve seen these temps before but never without the modern marvel of a/c. So, while I sweat out pounds and pounds of liquid, I would like to share a room that makes me happy. I love this vintage modern living room. When I think of all of the hard work that I am doing now and all of the misery of the renovation ahead of me, I think about how it will all be worth it in the end. (Geez, I hope so. Talk to me in 6 months and still see if I say this stuff.) I like this simple room. I love the architectural details, the robin’s egg blue walls, the not so frou-frou chandelier, the wide planked wood floors. This room would be lovely in the nude, but it really looks great with help of the mid-century modern furniture. The lines are simple, the colors muted. And it looks like what we already have in our possession. It’s a nice way to make our 40’s-60’s furniture work with our mid-30’s house. I really can’t wait until we get to transform the place. Rumor has it we close tomorrow, but we’ve heard this before so it is hard for me to trust anyone. Until then I’ll be working hard, working on developing the ugliest heat rash ever, and working on keeping it all together. We still don’t know officially where we will be living. That being said. If you don’t hear from us in a while we are either homeless sleeping on the park benches by the ferry terminal, hiding in a remote cabin around Mt. Baker, or in our new house working hard and waiting for it to be internet ready.

-Victoria

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Lost in Mortgage Hell: Part Umpty-bajillion

This week is hell.  It’s 100 degrees outside and we have to move our stuff into the storage hooverville that smells like an outhouse.

Here’s the factors we are currently juggling in our sale:

1.  The underwriter is slow.  Once took 30 days to tell me that I botched a form.  Failed on promised closing date once already.

2. The broker has apparently never done this before and has not given the best advice.  Has told us we might close any day now for about 6 weeks.  No idea what is happening over there.

3.  The seller is about to get foreclosed out of the house for nonpayment of property tax for 5 years.

4.  We have no place to live after Friday because our current landlords are kicking us out to try and find a leasing renter.

5. The seller had to get all of his stuff out of his house as a condition of the sale, now lives in a completely empty house.

6.  The seller has no money and is getting chased by collections people.  He needs the money to pay them off or run away to Canada.  Oh and he lost his job, and his cat won’t eat, etc etc.

7.  The seller appears to be borrowing money from the selling agent.  This could get ugly.

8.  No news on where we are with the underwriter.  All documents were delivered this morning, and the file has now been in their hands 30 days.

9.  It’s a rehab house, and not especially livable until we get a plumbing in there at LEAST.

10.  It’s super hot, and no one here in the Pacific Northwest has air conditioning.

11.  We’re not especially getting along with our brokerage or our seller right now.  The brokerage is angry because I called the lender directly and got told my loan didn’t exist, then freaked out on them.  I’m mad at the brokerage because they accused me of fraud for screwing up a sheet that they told me to do (that I was not even supposed to be handling in the first place.)

Storage is $200/month.  The hotel we’ll have to get as of  Saturday is at least $89/night.  So in other words, if the lender can’t get this together by Monday of next week, this deal is completely and totally flushed- after 90+ days of hard, hard work.  We cannot believe we got into this stupid situation.  We were prequal’d for double the purchase price of this house, the seller wants to sell it to us, we want to buy it, everybody wants it to happen fast.  Except the bank- that being the entity that stands to make 100 times the money off of the deal that everyone else does.

So it’s gonna be a tense week, and the blog might be offline for a short while during the transition.  It might also end entirely because we don’t get the house, Victoria gives up, and forces me to go rent again.

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Charming White Bathrooms

Who doesn’t love an all white bathroom? It’s screams cleanliness and looks like it would simplify your life. It’s crisp and it has never been out of style. If you want to add color, than do it with accessories, towels and stuff like that. I’m thinking of doing the upstairs bathroom in an all white color palette. I hope to put up my vintage Brocade Home styled mirror, have shiny fixtures, white tile (a pain in the arse to clean), and walls that are a shade of white with the faintest tinge of gray. This has been my plan, if we ever get into that house to start remodeling. Anyways, I am trying my damnest to stay positive and thinking about French bulldog puppies, humid florals, carnival glass, and decorating. This makes me happy.

Country Living bathroom

The first bathroom is from Country Living Magazine. I like it because when I started searching for bathrooms online all you get are these humongous, monster bathrooms that are at least 1000+ square feet. My life will not have the jumbo bathroom complete with hot tub and an entire sitting room furniture set and a flat screen TV and wine bar. I will have a 30’s bathroom, tiny, efficient, but it can still be cute. I was happy to find a small, cute bathroom. It isn’t completely white but it is almost. I am attracted to this one because in my little mind I thought the tiles upstairs where white hexagon under the awful linoleum. When we walked back through, it isn’t. It is more like this tile. I was heartbroken. I wanted white tile with white subway tile. I wanted it to be the “original”. But, when I found this and saw how they kept that clean and neutral vibe, it made me happy. Maybe I can use that floor. It’s a tiny bath that is still cute and very functional. I love the gray shade add a few more squirts of white and I’ve got my ideal shade for my bathroom. It’s a cute and simple bathroom.

My "dream" bath

Sorry HGTV but I have never fallen for the colossal master bath bull hockey. I do not want to bust out A Picture of Dorian Gray and relax on a plum velvet chaise lounge, well, at least not in my bathroom. Bathrooms are for hygiene. Not as an oasis, go to a freaking spa for that. I want to go in with Ghost Busters attire and be able to bleach blast everything in sight. And I’d rather spend my dough on making a living space more efficient, investing in a studio, something that doesn’t get doo-dooed in. Plus, I have no desire to clean these fairytale bathrooms. If I had one I would pay somebody to clean the floor to ceiling tile and all those extra showers. I would rather have actual living space. My bathroom is a room that is necessary, not a room to make me feel rich or pampered. If I can’t have the solid black marble Valentino bathroom (or the mansion), then I’ll have my little functional white bath. This other bathroom is my “dream” bathroom. It’s large but still realistic. I love the tile, the tub, the little Saarinen side table. This is my “oasis” bathroom. But, the house we are supposed to be closing on someday, does not have clawfoot tubs. It was more of a “modern” home at the time with “modern” fixtures. The bathrooms aren’t really designed for clawfoots and I really don’t want to do a huge bathroom renovation. Not now. I just want a place to live.

-Victoria

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Moving Things To The Local Hooverville

Seattle's Hooverville 1937

Since we have no idea where we will be living as of Friday due to this insane mortgage business, we have decided to put our things in storage. This keeps it all together in case we have to rent a vacation home or a tiny month-to-month apartment. Also if/when we get into the house, it will keep our things from getting messed up during the rehab work and out of our way. I don’t need piles of lead paint and fuzz collecting on my boxes labeled “really cute and special dishes” or “clothes that are awesome but I can’t wear right now because my life totally sucks and all I’ll be doing this summer is sweating and peeling wallpaper”. Plus, the stuff has to be out of the current rental. We just need to put it somewhere. I have never rented a storage unit before. I know very little about them. After 3 days of hauling most of my belongings to this little rented garage area in the heatwave of the Pacific Northwest, I have learned much about the Storage Unit a.k.a today’s Hoovervilles. I guess I always thought storage units were for storing your possessions. Maybe you’ve been deployed or must leave town for temporary work. Maybe you’re recently divorced or your living situation has changed temporarily. Maybe you are in between houses, like our situation. Heck, maybe you just have too much stuff and you use this as your walk-in closet to store 300 pairs of designer jeans that you bought with your student loans. I don’t know and I didn’t care. I haven’t thought of it. Maybe you use this building as your meth lab since your neighbors have grown sick of the chemical and cat piss odors emitting from your garage. But, I didn’t think people actually lived in them. Well, I’m pretty sure that they do. Talk about off the radar or in hiding. We have a few “neighbors” at the unit. They park their bikes in the unit, eat fast food, relax on piles of sleeping bags, and read or as one gent likes to do, rip paper into shreds like that one creep from Stephen King’s The Langoliers but a bit more Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. I try not to think about them living there. It’s sad. There’s no restroom and the area does smell like dookie. It’s hot as hell. But, when you are unloading boxes of women’s studies books that you should probably be giving away to a thrift store anyways and you hear coughing fits in the unit a few “doors” down at 8:00 in the evening and there are no doors open or cars, it’s a bit freaky. I didn’t realize what little Hoovervilles these places are. They are much nicer than the originals. At least it is protected from the elements, there is a light and one electrical outlet so you can use your laptop like some of the residents. The concrete floors are icy cool when it is 90+ out. So, I wouldn’t say that it is as bad as the original shanty towns that popped up on private land in the 1930’s. I’m sure they are actually paying rent of some sort. It’s just weird and a sign of the times. I think did they lose their job and mess up their credit? Are they a sex offender that can’t get a job or housing? Are they running from bill collectors or the law? I should really stop asking questions and get to boxing up the odds and the ends that are left so I can go visit this little modern Hooverville in my neighborhood.

-Victoria

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Lost in Mortgage Hell: Last Month’s Worst Case is this Month’s Best Case

So after 90 days, I called my lender today.  Not my broker, my lender.  I wanted to see what my lender would say their average underwriting time is.  I fully expected to hear a generic response like “we don’t talk directly to borrowers.” or “14 days but sometimes a lot more.”  Something that useful.

Instead, I got connected to a really nice, helpful human being almost immediately.  I told him about our situation- we were going to be homeless and we desparately needed them to get the lead out and get this done.  He was really nice about it, and totally understanding about how real the threat of homelessness is.

Then he went to look up our loan, and couldn’t find it.  He was so sure he couldn’t find it that after double checking, he referred me to the WA Office of Financial Institution’s office.

At this stage, I came completely unglued.  I called my realtor and told her we were all the victims of fraud, and that this loan had been strung out for ages on complete lies.  My realtor called my broker and asked them about it- they denied it and called the lender to chew out whoever it was who told us that.

Then we got a letter in the mail from the title people disclosing a pending foreclosure against the house.

Then we got an email saying that we need to go to the office and sign two things that we signed as PDFs in Photoshop- the contractors are reinvolved, the consultant is reinvolved- this sucks.  Now I have to go wake my sleeping wife and rush to Belfair to sign something I have already signed.

It’s been a great day.  I wish I was dead.

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Sage Green “Library” Living Rooms I Like

Robert Smith in a library looking living room.

I have decided to do the living room a little bit “stuffy” and the rest like a library. I still need for this to be a functional room. The built-ins will hold all of our books, surprisingly we have shed ourselves of many during this move. On the back wall I hope to put our 2 large Ikea Expedit bookshelves on the back wall to house records. This will be our “library”. Our place to relax in front of the fireplace, listening to exotica records and reading Pacific Northwest mushroom guides. I want it to be a cozy/functional but still very formal and put together space. I have found 2 sage green rooms that seem to pull this off. The first room is mainly a picture of Robert Smith. You could put anything in this room and it would look good (even Robert Smith) with all of that woodwork and trim. I do like the green color and it works nicely with the warm wood floors. I suck at arranging furniture in a room. This is my weakness mainly because I haven’t lived in a place long enough to acquire all the furniture needed for a room. The needs have been so different for each space we’ve rented. I kind of like the chair in front of the books like this. You just reach over and grab one and look through it. It is a cozy reading nook.

What is there not to love about this formal green living room/library. I’ve learned many valuable lessons on my path to first time home ownership. Many things have been stupid mistakes like “this mortgage broker is a d-bag and can’t do his job” or “maybe you shouldn’t purchase a home that is packed to the brim with some guy’s crap”. I have also learned much about design as a sort through pages and pages of decorating blogs. I have learned that rooms with 15 foot ceilings look awesome no matter what. Such as this room. If could have anything in it and look awesome with all of those amazing structural details. I just really like this room. This green looks very nice with the dark accents and high contrast zebra rug. It’s a formal room but it is still really, really functional. There is a computer in there, a desk. They even have clutter out with a coffee mug and it still looks polished and elegant. It’s just a matter of having everything where you need it. Oh, and having a totally awesome house with tall ceilings and awesome trim. The house we are getting has simple, wide trim. It’s typically of the 30’s and I’m excited about it even if it isn’t as embellished as these rooms. I can make it that way. Millwork is not dead. You just don’t see it too much in modern hastily made cookie cutter homes. I know the addition of millwork isn’t a priority with a rehab home but I hope that one day we’ll at least finish one room with fancy trim like this.

-Victoria

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A Tea Party Everyday

I thought this was cute. David says it is lame but that is why he isn’t getting his very own boudoir and I am. I was poking around marthastewart.com because I love her Frenchie babies and I have to support anybody that loves Frenchie babies, and I found this. Yeah, it isn’t the most functional jewelry storage option and I’m sure you’ll  hear the clinking of china every time you open the drawer, but I like it. I am looking for any reason/excuse to purchase fragile glass wear type items, a weakness of mine. I love little tea cups and saucers and this is a great way to utilize those nice mismatched ones that I find at thrift and antique stores. It is like a tea party everyday. Maybe I’ll use this in my very own boudoir.

-Victoria

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Hooked On Hooks

Anthropologie antler hook

I am not a fan of hooks because they expose your stuff. I feel jackets, hats, etc. should go in a closet, not to be seen or heard. On the other hand, David is hooked on hooks. I guess it is better to see a hoodie hanging from a hook than piled on the floor (the other option).  When you live in an old house, you no longer take closet space for granted. You learn that your storage options are limited. Things don’t “hide”, you make closets. You make do and this means we use hooks. David wants hooks in the new place even though it has much more storage space. Actually the closets aren’t too bad for a house from the mid-30’s. I’ve been searching for “acceptable” hooks. Anthropologie will occasionally get something that I really adore. Such as the silvertone antler hook, that is on sale for $15. I also like antlers, actual antlers and even this silvertone one at Lekker is creepy and I like it. But, they are really costly at $120. I’d rather try to find real antlers to convert into hooks for coats, etc.

Antler hooks.

I also imagine that any old hardware/knobs used as hooks would look nice. Stuff that I could find at bargain stores or even on sale at Anthropologie.  We have plaster walls and I’d rather drill these into strips of wood and then attach them to the plaster. I could use lots of things such as crystal doorknobs, faucet knobs, bent spoons, anything I want. Even beach pebbles. I would make my own like the one you would find at Viva Terra ($49) because I enjoy choosing rocks and I know mine could be cheaper.

Beach pebble hooks.

This would be the most eclectic hook option and most likely the cheapest, but this would take the most time. I have to collect and search for those things and then actually execute this little project.

Another option is to use plain hooks. That’s what we have now and it gets the job done. You can find these anywhere from Target to The Container Store. They contain lots of hooks and usually retail for under $30 depending on the size.

Plain ole hooks

Luckily, I noticed that many of the doors, behind their faux fur, have perfect metal deco hooks attached. They are lovely and the originals. They’ve been painted over but I imagine we can get that off with a batch of lovely chemicals. They are beautiful and match the knobs throughout the home. I couldn’t find any that I could love more. In fact, I am sure to search the local antique stores and salvage stores for more and may inquire about repro ones. We are lucky enough to have Vintage Hardware and Lighting in Port Townsend. Now they have some dramatic hooks. And don’t get me started on their lighting.I’d rather use cheap-o hooks and splurge on lighting. I’m not hooked on hooks.

-Victoria

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Pink Rooms Can Be For Grown-Up Gals (& Guys…)

Martha Stewart's all pink cottage.

As you can tell if you look at the First Impressions entry, this home has not had a woman’s touch in well, at least 40 years for sure. No lady would put up with the custom van look for their home. Since I am married, I’ve always tried to keep the  decor gender neutral to respect David’s presence in the home. This hasn’t been difficult since David always has an opinion and is actively involved with this kind of stuff. I think I may be rebelling against the disorganized masculine mess that we will be calling home, I’m going pink. Yep, pink. Yep, we don’t have a little girl with a princess complex and we aren’t planning a nursery. I want pink. I’ve been “attracted” to these pretty pink rooms for sometime, keeping them in little inspiration folders, but never thinking I would do it. I’m getting a teeny tiny room to turn into my “boudoir”, my little nook of all things that I enjoy smelling, touching, and looking at. This will be the new home for the fragrance collection, Gig prints, and soft lush fabrics. This room will be pink. It took me a long time to determine the color, haha, actually it was a choice that would otherwise be too painful due to my indecisive nature, I let the mistint gods make the decision for me. It matched my ballet pink top at the moment and it made sense. It is a color that goes very nicely with my complexion. This is my “big” girl’s room and I might as well go over the top XX with it. David has no complaints since this “room” is what many would consider a walk-in closet, tiny and out of the way. (Oh, the door is getting painted raspberry, courtesy of the mistint gods).

I suggested that if we had any paint leftover then we should paint the downstairs powder room the same color, pretty pale pink. (It matches the kitchen counter, which I will be keeping, too darn cute and retro).  And to my surprise David agrees. I would of never have guessed this in a million years, I was prepared for a moan. David isn’t Mr. Macho, but he is a guy. I think he agrees because A. it is cheap and every penny saved is a Sputnik lamp earned and B. I think he sees what happens to a house when there is no presence of a lady (yep, I’m going to excluding Miss Larger-than-Life mural babe, even though she is a female presence in the house, she doesn’t count). We already decided this is where the signed H.G. Lewis poster will go. Exploitation media should make any home less feminine…

The room above is the living room from Martha Stewart’s pretty much monochrome pink cottage, this resembles my mistint the most. And from what I understand, this mistint may be because of Martha, she is mum about the color used in her cottage. It’s top secret, her Bush’s baked beans family secret. I think she can’t make a buck from it so she doesn’t care.

Southern room.

The second room is from a southern home magazine (Southern Accents?). This pink is much bolder than what I plan on using but I love it. Maybe some day. I would pair my with much more stuffy and formal and “traditional” furniture with eye scalding shades of acid with black or espresso accents. Seriously, the more I look at this pic, the more I want to do the living room this color. I have found a million other pink room on the world wide web. I do love them, especially when they are mixed with lots of nice antiques and all the lovely vintage things I collect. I have a good feeling about the pink rooms that we will have. I really do and if we hate them then there is a nice mistint somewhere waiting to go on top of it.

-Victoria

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Foyer Pleasure: What To Do With The Foyer

I have never lived in a place with a “foyer”. I have no idea what you do with these spaces and I don’t know their function. I guess I’ll have this set up for the ticket booth for the entrance fee for what we have as a freak show of a house. My “foyer” is not grand but by definition it is a foyer. We have a closet by the front door to hide coats in, this is good. I’ve been looking for ideas for this space and I’ve found 2 that are OK. You see, I don’t want a table there, even though that makes sense design wise. I just know whatever I put there will be cluttered and I hate clutter. I see David coming in and putting random stuff on it from keys to beach pebbles to like microchips/computer crap. I see myself throwing the mail there and trash from the beautiful things that I will mail order. So if we get a table it must have drawers!

Adler foyer

The first foyer is a Jonathan Adler. I love the simplicity of color. It’s light and airy but it is still fun because of the robin’s egg blue chair and the little owl. I like the feel of this one. It feel proper but it still feels “young”. (Our foyer is not this grand, this is much more open and larger). I guess I fret about the foyer because it is such a first impression. It is the first thing that people see when they enter the home, heck, even if you just answer the door and say you can’t come in. I want it to look nice and give a positive first impression. I want it to lure people in and say “I bet their house is cute. I want to see the rest of it”. So, I feel a bunch of pressure to make it look nice and put together.

Anyways, back to the Adler foyer. I am a sucker for painted floors. (Still do not know if I’ll have those). And I love the black painted stairs, very dramatic and bold. There is a lamp in there but I don’t really know why since there is a light source up above and that lamp really doesn’t provide the best lighting for reading if you decide to relax in that cute chair, but anyways. I’m not a designer…

Ned Marshall foyer

The second foyer, and Ned Marshall foyer,  is much more formal and proper. It says if you dare track mud into this home, then you are dead meat. It’s an upstairs “foyer”, we have one of those too, geez, didn’t even think about decorating it either. Anyways, I am loving gray these days. It is a great neutral that makes everything regal. I like this foyer because of the 2 chairs and table. It gives me a reason to refinish chairs, one of my favorite things in the world to do. I think there needs to be books on the table, geez, give your audience something to read while they wait. I love the white furniture, and once again the floors. These floors are dark. We’ve decided to not do this to ours, mainly because I am scared that it will be too dated. So, I guess we’ll be keeping the original 1936 light oak where we can.

So yep, these are some of my foyer ideas and inspirations. Since we haven’t officially started the home restoration, I just have to collect ideas while I can. No hammer in my hand yet.

-Victoria

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