Project Rehab

I have been itching to grab some ratty old piece of furniture that had been well loved and abused from some thrift store. My intentions once I got this piece of furniture were to rehab/repurpose it into something awesome and uniquely me. This weekend we did just that... well we at least started the process.
This hunk of wood is my new baby. We picked it up at Goodwill for 30 bucks. It is a 1950/1951 radio and record player by Capehart. It's a really neat piece. None of it is operable though. Glenn decided to test that and plugged it in. He consequently started a mini fire (according to him... I was somewhere else at the time this happened) and blew an outlet. Fun stuff.
You can see that the condition of all the wiring back here is questionable to say the least!
The bottom right panel houses this speaker, which I promptly took out. It definitely wasn't going to be of any use to me.
This is the panel covering the speaker. If you look carefully you can see the round outline. Don't you just love the cool diamond detailing? I know I do.
As you can see, this is the radio panel. It has an AM/FM tuner. It's really cool and I was hoping to be able to make it useful again, but considering I know absolutely nothing about wiring and the age of everything, it just isn't going to happen. Now I have to figure out a way to bang this panel out of there so I can make it a functional shelf.
Here we have the bottom left door of the piece. This is the only functional storage space at the moment. It has a shelf built in and an operational door. Thankfully I don't have too much to do to this part.
I thought it was so cool when I found the manufacturer's tag on the back. I was really glad it was still intact. I'm going to have to find a way to incorporate it into my design. It was especially cool to me because I was able to look up the model number online and find out the age of the piece. In case you are wondering if I managed to pick up some valuable antique at a steal, the answer is no. It's worth about what I paid for it. Oh well. When I am done with it, I will have a one of a kind piece that I love.
This is the fabric that covers the panels on the bottom. I thought they were some kind of mesh, but after poking around a bit I discovered that it is glued on fabric. You can see where the diamond shaped hardware was before I took it off. The fabric was apparently a dark red at one point before its age and light faded it to a tan color. I'll update it with some cool graphic fabric when the project is closer to being finished.
I absolutely adore the hardware. I may just polish it to restore some shine, but I'll most likely end up spray painting it glossy white or black.
You can see this piece is not in such great shape. It's going to take a lot of sanding and wood filler to get it into workable condition. You may be wondering what my master plan in terms of color is. Well my friends... wait for it... HOT PINK! Obviously.
I promise I will keep you all updated on my shenanigans. Today I begin prepping by lots and lots of sanding. FUN!

Love to all!!!

So This Is What Spring Looks Like!

Having lived in Arizona all my life with the exception of the last 10 months, I have never truly experienced seasons. Seasons to me have always been a blazing hot extended summer followed by a mild cool down for winter (otherwise known as not summer anymore.) Here in Washington, things are DRASTICALLY different.
Summer here was absolutely wonderful with warm days and cool nights and a handful of hot days that reminded me of AZ. Then fall came with it's cool days and much cooler nights. Leaves were changing and the jewel toned colors of the season were abundant. Fall was nature's way of telling me to start wearing pants instead of shorts and to quit wearing flip flops. I still wore flip flops. Winter brought us some verrrry chilly days with some downright freezing nights. We even got a few days of snow! I really enjoyed winter, as I just love to bundle up.
Now we are experiencing a stunningly beautiful spring. We finally seem to be getting the rain that everyone seems to thing is never ending here. I really should quit wearing flip flops until the rains let up, but I can't help it. Like I said to Glenn the other day, "You can take the girl out of Arizona, but you can't take the Arizona out of the girl." I live in flip flops and probably always will. I even wore them out in the snow sometimes!
I am really enjoying Spring here, it's absolutely beautiful. I have been utterly captivated watching everything bloom and seeing once lifeless plants burst with renewed life and color. What makes this especially fun for me is that our deck is wonderfully landscaped with lots of dimension and color. I got to watch the leaves change color, the trees collect snow on empty branches, and now blossom with color once again.

I just wanted to share some photos that I took on the deck of things that I find particularly beautiful at the moment.

Love to all!

A few videos of Rally

A Bit Of Good News

Well, there isn't really anything super exciting to share, but I do have a small update on the home-buying front. As I have said before, we decided not to change our offer on the house but rather sent a supplement along with our offer that proves why our offer is fair. That information was passed along to the investors via our negotiator. We have recently learned that the investors will be making a decision, either accepting our offer or countering, by Friday the 8th at the latest. Finding out a real date instead of some indeterminate time frame is good news indeed. I'll keep everyone posted.

Love to all!

A Prediction

Now I am not really sure why, but Glenn is predicting that today we will hear back from the bank. When asked why he would predict such a thing, he pointed out that it's because it's Wednesday and we will be at lunch together. He says that it will be a good day. It would really be great if he is right! Anyway, I just thought I would mention it in case we needed proof that Glenn can actually predict the future.

A Bump In the Road

I can't say we didn't really expect it but we have hit our first bump in the road in our home purchase. And no, I am not talking about all of the ridiculously obnoxious waiting. First, let me explain a little bit about how the process has gone so far.

It began with an offer on the house. Because this is a short sale home, our offer not only had to be submitted and accepted by the seller (it was) but it also has to be submitted and accepted by the bank/investors. In the meantime the house is actually set to foreclose. The first foreclosure date was extended until March 25th but has again been postponed until sometime in May. With that pesky foreclosure date out of the way, the bank ordered a BPO so they could evaluate our offer. A BPO is a Broker Price Opinion. Basically this is a lazy appraisal where someone drives by the house (or not) and determines it's value based on appearance and comparable homes. Once the bank received the BPO they were able to decide if our offer was fair. The BPO came back valuing the house at around 145-155K. Keep in mind they have no idea that the basement in this house is unfinished and that there is a completely unfinished bathroom upstairs.

So that brings you to where we are now with our little "bump." Our negotiator has been working with the bank's negotiator trying to close this deal, and in doing so our negotiator was able to find out that the bank did not like our offer, but they would accept something at or above 145K. Don't get me wrong, the house is great and all, but it is not worth that much money...yet. We are not willing to go that high. We spoke with our Realtor and he is adamant that our offer is fair. He advised us to stick to our guns and not budge on our offer. Because we are choosing t0 leave our offer as-is, we have to basically come up with our own BPO that disproves what the bank's BPO says and shows why our offer is fair. Our realtor and the seller's realtor worked together to create a list of comparable properties and they sent that off to the bank. We were able to view that list and it looks very solid. The average price of the homes they put together is 105K.

Needless to say, our confidence has been a bit shaken by all of this but our Realtor seems extremely confident. We just have to trust that he knows what he is doing, after all he is the expert! He hasn't led us wrong yet and has been completely honest with us from day one. Anyway, that is where we are now. At this point we just keep waiting and hopefully the bank will realize that we aren't low-balling them and will accept our offer.

Love to all!

Vote For Rally!

CLICK HERE!!!

Now that we have cable TV I watch a lot of HGTV, naturally. I saw a commercial advertising a contest for the cutest pet photo sponsored by Bissell. Of course I think I have the cutest pet so I entered Rally into the contest immediately. The grand prize winner gets:

• $10,000 to favorite pet charity
• $500 pet shopping spree
• BISSELL pet vacuum or deep cleaner
• Pet's photo on a BISSELL box

I would really really really love to be able to give back in such a big way to the shelter that was able to bless us with our wonderful puppy. All you have to do is register with the website, make sure to opt out of the emails and they won't bother you. If you could vote for Rally, we would really appreciate it. Voting goes for 1 week and you can vote once every day.

THANK YOU!!!!

CLICK HERE!!!