I think our loan will go through

I finally think our loan will go through tomorrow. We still won't get our money until Wednesday. Some BS 3 day wait thing.

Anyway, our contractor has been nice enough to start work (and continue for 2 weeks) without much money. We have been giving him a little here and there. But nothing close to the tens of thousands of dollars that we owe him.

I am sure he will be thrilled to get a huge chunk of money from us. He initially said it would take a month. Which would make now the 1/2 way point. I think we still have a month left. There is still so much to do, If it is finished in 2 weeks I will think he is a magic man.

We still have:
the upstairs bath (everything)
the kitchen (everthing)
drywall in the living room & dining room
crowne molding in the living room & dining room
windows (delivered today)
siding
little minor things here and there

I will add more pictures tomorrow.

Why can't we just be made of money

We are not rich people. We do not have tens of thousands of dollars in the bank. If we did, our house would have been done over a year ago.

So, we took out a home equity loan.

When we bought our house we did a 80% loan and a 20% loan. We do not pay PMI. So, when we went to apply for the home equity line of credit, we were told that they (the bank) would have to "take over" the 20% loan. This is because they can not be the third leinholder. Ok- fine. we do even more paperwork. The process seems to take forever.

Well, on Sat we found out that the "value" of our house is $60,000 less than the actual value of the house. The value is based on a drive-by of the house, comps in the area, and the housing market.

Well, since the market is so bad right now, the bank TOTALLY undervalues houses.

What does this mean to us....well it means we are SCREWED!!!!! According to the bank, we only have about $50,000 in equity in our house. $25K of which has to be used to pay off the 2nd loan (the 20% loan). So, that only leaves us with about $25,000 to do $55-60,000 worth of work.

I am so upset right now. I have no idea where we are going to get the rest of the money from. We opened a Home Depot Home Improvement Loan - which will pay for the kitchen cabinets, the appliances, the floor, and any little things that we have to pick up.

We have no choice, but some will have to go on credit cards. Exactly what we did not want to do. I guess in hindsight, we should have found out how much we could get before we started work, but we were CONFIDENT that we would get at least $70,000. This was thinking that they would undervalue our house at $30,000 under market value.

The whole thing is just so upsetting. On top of the fact that our contractor has already started and basically has not received tons of money yet (this was his choice, not ours).

Where is the money tree when you need it :(

Old bathroom

I can't believe how much more open this looks!

New Bathroom

It is not this yellow. The Paint is a goldish beige

I guess we are just beige people

OK - we painted the new bathroom. And while the color was pretty, it just was not us and totally did not match the bathroom stuff that we had.

So, over the weekend the room was re-primed and then repainted. It went from Tiffany Blue to a goldish beige. After we painted we realized that it was almost exactly the same color as our bedroom.

I guess we are not really color people - well at least not on the walls. I will post pictures tonight.

You would think Insultaion Guys would wear warm clothes

Our house is about 100 years old. And, I am not sure who thought this would be a good idea, but none of our outside walls have insulation. That's right, no insulation.

So, part of the work that we are doing is blowing insulation into all the exterior walls. The guys show up today (it is about 20 degrees) with just jeans and a sweatshirt. You would think that guys that do insulation would know how to keep themselves warm --lol.

Couple of updates: when we took the siding off the house we found out that in each peak was colored shingles - very common in older Victorian houses. So, we were left with a tough choice. We could just ignore the fact that we found part of the original house and just cover it again with the white siding. Or, we could add the decorative shingles to our budget and "restore" the house to the orignal design. The second option will add about $1000 to our ever expanding bottom line.

Well, we decided to keep the look of the orignal house. We are going with the decorative shingles. We are also actually getting the same color (or very close) as what was on the original house (kind of a teal but closer to green). We were planning on getting shutters anyway, so now the shutters will be in green instead of black like we originally planned.

I am glad we are doing it - I think it will look great.

Here is a picture of our house before and then after the siding was taken off - in the second picture you can see the shingles on the top.

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Another thing that seems like it is an issue over and over again is the previous work we already did. As many of you many know, my Dad was helping us out when we first started doing work on the house. (And Melanie - I know you read this - do not share this with Dad). We is just seems like there are a lot of little and some not so little things that were done incorrectly or a "weird" way.

Now, some of the things are minor cosmetic stuff - but others a bigger things. Here is a list of what I can think of that either had to be re-done or things that are not "right" but we will just have to deal with it.

The Washer/Dryer - the hook-up are in the wrong order. Usually the washer is on the left....not for us. This is not a huge deal, we will just have to flip the door on the dryer. But, we would not be able to get a front loading washer - you can't flip the doors on these.

The toilet - I don't know the tech stuff, but it is in the wrong spot and kind of close to the wall. Plumbing extensions had to be made and we will just deal with the closeness..

The Vanity light is not centered over the vanity. This is not a huge deal because we are going with a three bulb light - so the outlet will just be off center - but you won't see it..

The door to the bathroom - he created a non-standard doorway that would have required a custom door. We built the room from scratch so he could have built anysize he wanted. We had to take out almost all of the "new" framework just to create a new door, we also had to move the electrical because the door was in the wrong spot..

The new kitchen window - the window is not in the center of the room. We are just dealing with this.

The mudroom floor - I guess chunks of the beams were removed to level part of the floor. But by doing that the rest of the floor is not level at all. We have to rip out the entire floor and totally build a new one..

The shower head - well the placement of the shower is great......for Colin. The showerhead is so low that when I stand in the shower, the shower head is right at eye level. Again, great for Colin. There was nothing we could do here - the tile has already been done. Plus, this will only be the spare bathroom and we would probably not ever take a shower in there..

I know there is more, but that is all I can think of. It just sucks that we shelled out a lot of money on things that we have to pay more money to get done again.

I have a 2 bathroom house!

Now, the bathroom is not done, but I have 2 working bathrooms! I used the toilet just because I could. Then I realized that there was no toilet paper in the room LOL.

So, the only things that need to be done is the final sanding, paint, closet door, mirror, new window (next week) and then decorations!

These guys are working super fast! In addition to the bathroom, the laundry room is drywalled, the siding is gone, new electric in the dining room and living room....I feel like I am missing something.

They only have been working for a week! And, they have so much stuff done so far.

When they took off the siding, we found out that in all the peaks of the house was decorative shingles in a victorian teal color. After seeing that we would like to keep the look. So, now we are trying to decide what color to do the peaks. The whole house will be white, so we are thinking a nice dark brown - they darkest color available. Whatever color we do the peaks will be the same color as the possible shutters and the porch.

So, here are some pictures - note: the kitchen is now the new bathroom/laundry area.

I feel like I should say my "new house"

For the next month or so, most of my updates will probably be about the house. So much is going on. Picking out every detail, every finish work, everything.



It is actually good, it will keep my mind off of everything else. About a month from now I will talk again about getting pregnant.



I will post some pictures this week. So, stay tuned!

Work has started

My last post said that work would be starting today. It actually started early - on Wednesday. The contractor wanted to get started because another one of his jobs was outside and it was pouring so that meant he could work inside on our house.

It was sad to see that on Wednesday when I got home that most of the frame work in the bathroom was gone. They took it down to re-do it. It is amazing how much 2x4s make a room look like a room. Without the boards there it looked like we took a million steps backwards.

BUT - when I got home yesterday, the frame work was back up and the bathroom was completely covered in drywall.

Today the tub will be tiled and the laundry room will be drywalled. I can't believe it. I took some pictures this morning, so I will have to load them tonight along with any pictures that I take today.

We are starting work on Friday!!!!

We had the contractor come over yesterday to give us a in depth proposal for all the work we will be doing. We added a bunch of stuff that was not detailed in the write-up (did not add additional price though) and even though our loan has not gone through yet, they will be starting on Friday!!!

I can't believe that it is finally happening. We will get our tax refund I hope this week so at least we can give him something. Now, it will be full speed ahead picking out stuff.

In the end the whole project will cost thousands and thousands of dollars. But in the end, the house will still be worth so much more than the purchase price plus renovations.

The contractor is confident that the work will take less than 6 weeks. He thinks more like 4 weeks. The house will not be "done" at that time. We still have our own work to do (stripping the molding, painting, decorating, etc) but the work that we can do ourselves will be DONE!

I was so excited last night that I almost cried.

Random Post

This post is going to be a mod podge of stuff.

First:
I had my Progesterone (P4) blood test done today. My arm is getting pretty black and blue from all the bloodwork. One thing that has really helped me is bringing my own band-aids. I know this might sound silly - but I have pretty sensitive skin. And, the bandages that they use are the medical-super sticky-never come off kind. I really think it make the bruise worse. I would have a bruise and then have a rash from the bandage.

Sometimes it seems like they had better clear bandages - but it was hit or miss. I tried to just press the cottonball down for a few seconds, but the nurse always wants a band-aid. So, I starting bringing my own. It works for me.

I guess the results will be in either this afternoon or tomorrow. I will not get a call with the results unless the P4 is low. If the P4 is low, then they would Rx progesterone.

My clinic never call with bloodwork results unless it is a problem. I guess I like it this way. It prevents me from over thinking the numbers (aka googling the results). I did ask what my E2 was though, but they had to call me anyway to tell me to trigger - so she had the results in her hand when she made the call.

I guess for pregnancy tests (beta) they would call no matter what.

Second:
I am sure Colin's boy-scout troop thinks he is poor.

The troop is having their troop dinner this weekend. It happen to fall on the same night that I planned to have dinner with all of my sisters. The sister dinner was planned way before the troop dinner so Colin will be going by himself to the dinner while I entertain my sisters.

The troop dinner is a pot luck....every time we go I make and bring something. And although I have not had a kitchen for the past 19 months, what I bring is always homemade. I do all of my cooking on a hot plate or the BBQ grill - yup - even baked goods.

Anyway, Colin is at the meeting and a troop mom says to Colin, "Colin, since your Mom and Dad are not coming, why don't you just bring brownies?"

Colin replies, "I can't, we don't have a stove in our house". And of course he did not explain that we are renovating the house and that his mom still cooks (every night mind you).

So, I am sure this mom thinks we had our gas turned off or something. I might have to make a fancy meal just to prove that I can still cook in my non-existent kitchen.

Third:
Speaking of Non-existent kitchen......I HATE my house. Totally HATE it. You read correctly, I do not have a kitchen. I have not had one in over 19 months.

When we bought our house we new we had to put a lot of work into it. We started doing major demo. We ripped out the kitchen thinking we would put a bathroom and laundry room in it's place. The kitchen would be moved to another location in the house.

We spent $15,000 on a variety of things - not all home repair stuff though. The $15K went towards demo, dumpsters, new electric for the new bathroom, new plumbing for the bathroom, framework for the bathroom, drywall, paint (upstairs), bug exterminator (3 times), closing costs, one new window, labor expenses, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't rememeber.

When we spent that money, we thought that at least we would spend that much less when we finished all the projects.

Well, I guess that is not the case. So far each contractor that has looked at the house is not even take all of our work into consideration. It is like, "hey, thanks for doing all the hard work, however it does not change the price"

We have decided to go with the one company that I got a great vibe from and who is about in the middle price wise. They are coming over to give us a detailed proposal. Which is great, considering we still don't know if we got the loan and if we did how much it will be.

Our loan officer is on vacation all week, so we will not know until she returns. And even at that point, we might not get our money for a few weeks. It is just so frustrating.

I just can't wait for it to be done already!!

Added labels to everything

Someone who reads my blog suggested that I add labels to each post - this way it would be easier to find related posts. Good idea.

So, I went back and put labels on each and every post - and I guess it will be much easier going forward.

I also added the links to the right hand side of this blog.

IUI today

I had my IUI this morning. Frank's post wash was 34 million! It was funny - the nurse says to Frank, "nice job, Frank, those are some good numbers" I was laughing so hard - it was so funny.

So, let's hope that those sperm can meet up with my one or maybe two eggs.

Frank was allowed in the room the entire time - which was kind of nice. It was weird, in the "laying down" stage after the IUI, we just talked about stupic stuff - as if we were sitting at the kitchen table. We talked about an estimate that we have tonight, what we are having for dinner, our tax appointment on Sat, etc.

It was just so casual that it made me feel less nervous.

The IUI was kind of uncomfortable for me. When the doc inserted the speculum, he was moving it around and around and around- apparently my cervix was not cooperating. So, he had to use a different speculum. Once he got the right spot, it was over in less than a minute.

I have slight cramping now, but not too bad. So.....swim, swim, swim!!!!

Blood work for E2 is back

I just got the call. My E2 (estradiol) level is 362. I will trigger tonight and then do IUI on Wednesday.

According to this chart - 362 is a good number. My doc said it was a good number. So I guess I'm good.

YAY for IUI #1

Day 13 Scan and Bloodwork

Went in today for U/S and B/W. Today is cd13.

I have 2 measurable follicles.

Left - 14 mm (seems pretty small to me)
Right - 20 mm (big enough - I have no idea)

So, I was given my "collection cup" and the doctor will call this afternoon when my bloodwork comes back. The Doc will let me know when to trigger with the Ovidrel. So, I guess depending on my LH level, my IUI could be as early as tomorrow or anytime until Thursday. So, we will have to wait and see.

I googled "mature follicle size" and it seems like you need at least 18mm - but 20 still seems small to me. And the 14 is really small. So, hopefully both will grow nice and big so when I trigger I have at least 1 really good one.

5 Minutes 14 Seconds!!

That is not a typo. I had my HSG today (all clear) and I had been told that my clinic has a state of the art HSG machine and it only takes less than a minute to do the whole test.

I tend to stretch the truth a bit, so I really thought they were full of BS. So, I posted about it on my favorite message board - specifically to those who use the same clinic. They all said it was a super fast test.

So - I timed it. My appointment was at 2 pm. I did get there a little early because it was pouring rain today so I gave myself some extra time. I got there at about 1:40.

I left the office at 2:15 - but......I signed some paperwork, went to the bath room, did a pregnancy test, , chatted with one of the nurses, did the HSG, had my injectable class, went to the bathroom again and left.

I started my timer on my cell phone the second the nurse shut the door and I started to undress.

I got undressed, the doctor came in the room about a minute later, feet up in the stirrups, speculum in, cleaned the cervix with some kind of pink soap, shot some super shooting dye in, took a few pictures, DONE.

The doctor leaves with nurse and I jump off the table to get dressed. I did stop the timer before I got dressed - I thought it was unfair to count that time.

The total time - 5 minutes 14 seconds.

The HSG shows no blockages and a nice looking uterus.

I did have initial cramping during and immediatly after the HSG. And I started "spotting" (heavy at times) right after the HSG. I am watching the spotting to see if it turns into heavy bleeding. Right now I would call it more than spotting, but not heavy bleeding. Kind of like the bleeding you would get on day 3 of your period.

I got a paper that said some spotting is normal, but if I am heavy bleeding to call the office.

But, I did not feel faint, or in a lot of pain. So, overall it was a good experience.

I do more prep work for my RE than I do for my husband

I seriously do more prep work when I will see my RE than I do to have sex with my husband.

I shaved every inch of my legs, did a super trim "down below", totally lathered in lotion, etc.

My husband is lucky if I shave my legs. It not that he doesn't care, he just cares more about having sex. LOL

My HSG is at 2 today - so I will probaby update this entry after the test.