Light, Space & Time

So here in Charlotte, we are snowed in.

Good news: it’s beautiful outside. Bad news: I have too much time to shop online for housewares. We need to buy about six more lighting fixtures, and there seems to be an ever-expanding number of choices. Every time I begin to look at different lighting websites I fall into some what of a ceiling light stargate, where all sense of space and time becomes distorted and where I can lose hours, even days, of my life.

I have spent a disgusting amount of time obsessing over lights, and I am not ashamed to admit it. Lighting isn’t cheap, so comparing prices and finding lighting fixtures that I like for a  price that will keep me on budget can get a little tricky, but it’s absolutely necessary.

Have you been looking for lighting for your home? Below is a list of some of my favorite sites to find good deals on cool lights. Maybe you can avoid the wormhole better than I.

Websites for lighting fixtures:

• Overstock
• Joss and Main
• Wayfair
• Lighting Direct
• One Kings Lane
• Young House Love’s lighting at Shades of Light 

Different Styles

• Flush Mount – Fit snug against the ceiling so you don’t see anything between light and ceiling. These show very little. They are the nuns of lighting fixtures.
• Semi-Flush Mount – These tend to be off the ceiling a few inches. Still classy, these lights show a little leg.
• Chandeliers – High-class ladies of the night, these lights are all flash and leave nothing to the imagination. But we’re still drawn to them. And willing to pay.
• Drum Pendant – These hang low. They have a tendency to wobble to and fro. They also look like drums.
• Bowl Pendant – Same as drum pendants, but these look like bowls. No surprises here.

I ended up purchasing quite a few of the semi-flush mounts for rooms throughout the house, and a chandelier for the master walk in closet. Below are all of the lights for the house that I purchased thus far.

                                                                                                                                                                     

Do you have any recommendations for good places to find inexpensive lighting fixtures? Tell us – we’d love to share your ideas.

Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh, Sweet Tile O’ Mine

I’d never encountered this type of tile before. After this experience, I realize every time I see it again that if I stare too long, I’ll probably break down and cry. By the end, I felt much like Axl Rose now looks:

Seriously, Axl, maybe it’s time to give up the Navajo-blanket-turned-bathrobe look. Did you get that comped at Harrah’s Cherokee? Like a remote tribesman with an iPhone, another 80s icon has failed to cope with the forward march of time.

But I digress. This post is not about glorious ’80s rock stars and their not-so-glorious current state. No, this post is about something far more sinister. We’re here today to talk about my latest renovation nemesis: Saltillo tile.

This villain goes by many names: Saltillo, terra cotta, Spanish tile (that’s racist, by the way – it originated in Mexico), or as I call it, Satan’s favorite floor covering. Not only did this reddish, clay tile look horrendous in our blood red dining/kitchen area next to the similarly red brick freplace, but it’s also got a real bad case of the crumbles.

With my spirits flying high from my utter domination of our old cast iron tub, I set out to tackle this Kraken.

It did not go well.

I went through a variety of tools, including the classic chisel-hammer-tap-tap method that you see weak-looking men doing with obnoxious ease all over YouTube. I quickly progressed to an electric hammer/chisel that was perhaps even less efficient (and certainly much louder). By the end, the method I found most effective was to use my trusty claw hammer and brute strength to smash the tile as much as possible and hope that the impact would cause the adhesive to release the majority of the tile instead of crumbling and leaving bits of terracotta all over our subfloor.

Did I mention that the adhesive used in this kitchen was not thin-set mortar but a stronger, stickier mastic? It was. Did I also mention the previous owner used what seemed to be a double layer of adhesive? He did. Evidently he felt there was great risk in this tile trying to escape.

Below are some pictures of how this went along with a video at the bottom. The audio in the video is somewhat terrible, but I tried to give captions and a summary of what is going on. I also sped up the hours that went by with me smashing so you don’t have to endure the full pain of watching me struggle.

If you’re going to try to do a Saltillo tile demo job yourself,  make sure you have the following items:

• Chisel
• Claw hammer
• Good work gloves (very important – I wore through a pair of leather work gloves and, by the end, I had blisters on me fingers)
• Eye protection (Dexter mask optional)
• Ear protection
• Respirator (spring for the good one – you’re gonna kick up a lot of earthy dust)
• Patience
• Repressed fury

My First attempts were slow and cautious. Little progress was made:

 

Clearly I  was going to need to upgrade my equipment and efforts…

To make a long story short, here are the rest of the photos at various stages of destruction and exasperation:

If you’d like to watch the video, give it a go below. It’s funny now. It was not funny during the eight hours it took me to do this job. Estimated savings cost of doing this yourself: $1,000. Worth it? Jury is still out.

How Do You Buy a Foreclosure?

Good afternoon. We had one of our followers contact us with a question yesterday, and we wanted to respond here because it’s a common question that we get at Lodestone Real Estate. The question is below:

Can you give advice on how to purchase a foreclosed home? My wife and I missed the opportunity of a lifetime because we had no idea where to start!
Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon. 

I’m sorry you missed the opportunity, but trust me, it happens to the best of us. You’ve asked a big question here. There is a lot of noise out there about buying foreclosures, flipping and investing in real estate. We’ll try to cut through that noise like a machete through bamboo [We will eventually link to a story about how we are managing our bamboo problem].

Here are some things you need to know:

1. Not all “foreclosures” are created equal. When people say “foreclosure,” they can mean a lot of things. They’re not all really foreclosures by the technical definition. There are REOs (what we bought), short sales and true foreclosures. What do these mean? I’m glad I asked.
   • REOs: these are the most common types of “foreclosures” that your friends and family are buying. REO stands for “real estate owned” and occurs when a lender has taken possession of the property, often listing it on the market just like any other home. Common sellers include banks and commercial lending institutions, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and HUD. You can find these properties in your local MLS and also by checking out Homepath.com, Homesteps.com and HUDhomestore.com
   • Short Sales: Also known as the Devil’s Backbone of foreclosures. Short sales occur when a homeowner is behind in payments and tries to sell a home for less than what is owed. These homes are often listed for very low prices. Thing is, the lender has to approve the offer amount. This happened more frequently in the trough of the Great Recession because banks were dumping risky assets. Those days are gone. Submitting an offer on a short sale can take months for lender approval and you still may get a “no” from the lender. If you go this route, make sure you have plenty of time and patience in inventory.
   • Foreclosure Auctions: When a lender or lienholder foreclosures on a property, it is often auctioned off at courthouses and private auctions. These often get auctioned sight-unseen and are rife with risk. It can be done, but this approach is best designed for the seasoned investor who is flush with cash and comfortable with the risks.
2. Getting a “deal.” The reason everyone wants to buy a distressed property is because they think they can get a deal. This is true – sorta. During the worst years of the recession, banks were dumping assets and lenders were accepting all sorts of low-ball offers. Did you miss out on that? So did most people. Those who capitalized on that were well-positioned with lots of cash or liquid assets and were able to pounce on the opportunities offered by the Great Recession. In general, once you’re comfortable that there’s a recovery underfoot, you’ve missed the party. By the time this article is published in the Observer, all the best deals are gone. The market is recovering though, and rates are still very low, so if you really want a deal, be ready, be patient and make sure you, your lender and your real estate agent are prepared to act quickly when the time is right. You are going to miss some deals. It happens. There will be more. Be patient.
3. Tips & Tricks.
   • Find a real estate agent who has experience buying foreclosures and REOs. I’m biased, but the folks at Lodestone have closed hundreds of foreclosure and distressed property sales. Contact Lodestone for more information about how to start that process.
   • Watch the REO sites mentioned above. Look for properties that have been on the market for 90 days. Fannie, Freddie and other lenders become increasingly willing to negotiate as time passes. Our home was on the market for 120 days when they accepted our offer at a 25% discount to the initial list price.
   • Do not pay the initial price for an REO that needs significant repair. Do your diligence and know what makes sense for the repairs you’ll have to make. Don’t fall subject to the winner’s curse and overpay just because you want to say you bought a “foreclosure.” Lenders will market these at the top of the market for the first few weeks to see if anyone will bite. Be patient.
   • Take a seasoned project manager and/or contractor with you who can give you a rough estimate of repair costs and identify issues that you may otherwise miss. You won’t have much time for this once you’ve had an offer accepted (Fannie and Freddie require a short, 10-day diligence period). Know what you’re getting into.
   • Be ready to back out and lose a little money if you discover something that makes it a bad investment. When you perform inspections, you’re paying for that information. If that information shows you something that is going to be costly or interfere with your planned renovations, you need to be ready to walk.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. If you’re interested in working with me as a client, don’t hesitate to contact me. We have a lot of strong investment opportunities that we see every day and would be happy to help you put your money to work.

I Can’t Put My Arms Down

I’m originally from Ohio. Dealing with cold weather is what we Ohio-ans know best. However, once you have left the North, you start to realize just how freaking cold it is. Having been in the South for several years, I have lost my cold-weather conditioning. I have become a complete wuss when it comes to cold weather. Anything below 40 degrees makes me, along with the rest of Charlotte, shut down completely.

As luck would have it, the week that Piedmont Natural Gas was scheduled to turn on the heat in the new house, Charlotte was experiencing record-breaking low temperatures. Piedmont was scheduled to arrive that day somewhere inside the narrow window between 8am-12pm. Perfect.

Trent just so happened to have an “extremely busy” day helping other lucky clients buy and sell houses and was not able to keep me company while waiting for the technician. Shocking.

Never one to lose hope, I showed up at 8:00 am sharp. I recalled my frigid Ohio upbringing, and I came prepared to deal with the weather:

To reiterate, when cold weather hits any southern city, it causes panic comparable to what I imagine would be brought on by a zombie apocalypse. Piedmont Gas had a gazillion emergencies and even though I was bordering on hypothermia, these other emergencies took priority. No worries though, Piedmont did show up. Around 2:30pm. Right on time.

Luckily, yard work kept me warm and busy while waiting.  I did find some silver linings to this icy day and have a few tips if you run into this situation.

Silver Linings

• Raking leaves in freezing temperatures has it’s benefits. Though I wasn’t able to actually “rake” the leaves, I could, however, use a shovel to pick up piles of frozen stuck together leaf clumps and put them into the bags . This is actually very efficient for clearing piles of leaves. Sorry there is no photographic documentation of this effort as my arms had frozen from the elbow down. Side note: do not fill the bags all the way. Frozen/wet leaves are super heavy.

• Waiting 6.5 hours for a technician allows you to get some serious yard work done – 30 bags of leaves and the early stages of of tackling the monkey grass. Seriously, wtf is monkey grass? It doesn’t even smell like a monkey.

•  Trying to thaw your body out in freezing temps by doing yard work turns out to be a great work out. I’m seriously going to be so buff.

• My technician was awesome sauce – which allowed me to forget how much I cursed at Piedmont in my head all day and swore to hate-blog about them when I got home. He was incredibly informative and shared some great stories about his past life as a baseball player. We bonded, and it made my day.

Tips 

1. When scheduling your appointment, ask the company where you are on their schedule. Are you scheduled at the very beginning of the day and definitely need to be there at 8 AM or are you near the end and should consider taking a day trip to Belize prior to their arrival? Also ask if they can give you a 30 minute warning phone call before they arrive. They will chuckle and say no, but it’s worth it to ask and laugh along.
2. Be prepared for the weather.  The night before, you should check out the weather report. Nothing is worse than waiting for hours on end and also being physically uncomfortable.
3. Have a plan to stay busy while waiting. Time goes by much quicker when you mentally prepare for the situation and plan additional chores and honey-dos. This way the time you are waiting for the technician will not be wasted time.
4. Have the company’s phone number on hand in case you need to call when you start to wonder whether the cold weather has gone to your head and you simply imagined that they told you they would be there within that four-hour window. They can tell you if the technician is running on time or running late. Spoiler alert: they’re running late.
5. Patience, patience, patience. It is no fun waiting hours on end for technicians. I know it sucks. But it helps to look at their side. They aren’t having fun either and being nasty on the phone or in person will not help anyone out. Trust me, I tried it.

Trent’s Tips

1. Make sure you have a girlfriend when scheduling appointments with vendors. Waiting for any vendor is not fun. Unless they’re bringing pizza. And even those guys now have an online tracker that gives up-to-the-minute details on when that pizza will be in your mouth. On the day the gas guy is supposed to come, ensure you fill your day with endless meetings in climate-controlled rooms and apologize profusely to your girlfriend for the unfortunate scheduling conflict. Try to look sincere.
2. Ask the gas company to describe their technician’s general appearance. Ask for a sketch-artist level of detail. No matter how late he is, if he is an ex-baseball player with lots of stories and helpful, gassy advice for your girlfriend, you’re gonna be pretty gosh-darn grumpy when you find out he looks like this:

 

Tub Thumping

Have you ever had the opportunity to fight an armored gladiator to the death in a coliseum and then turn to the stunned spectators to ask whether they have found your actions amusing?

Me either.

But recently, I did don this same ancient Roman garb when presented with the opportunity to demolish the cast iron bathtub in our house. If you’ve never had a chance to determine whether or not you are literally stronger than iron (it turns out I am), I highly recommend you try smashing a tub. It doesn’t even have to be a tub you need to demolish – just go find a tub in your friend’s or parent’s place and sneak in a sledgehammer. Trust me, they will forgive you when they see how powerful you are.

For a few pointers on how you can overcome the strength of one of the hardest materials known to man,* keep reading below. Special thanks to Tara for the heads up on how to tackle this – this isn’t exactly the safest task in the world.

Tools and Gear You’ll Need:

• 12-lb. sledgehammer
• Mason’s club hammer (I prefer the steel Blacksmith hammer – it’s like a pointy, child-size sledgehammer)
• Old blanket or cloth tarp
• Safety goggles
• Earplugs or other hearing protection
• Respirator (optional – depends how much you mind breathing tub dust)
• Strong arms or additional personnel to help you haul off the scraps

Step 1: Remove the glass doors and the poorly installed frame. This requires a small amount of brains and a screwdriver. Easy enough that I won’t bother explaining. Just don’t drop the glass doors on the tile floor. They are heavy and tile and glass don’t play nice.

Step 2: Wet the blanket or tarp and lay it over as much of the tub as possible, making sure to cover the outer edge completely. This will keep porcelain and iron shards from flying all over the place. Like in your mouth and eyeballs.

Step 3: Use the Mason’s Club or Blacksmith hammer to crack the center of the outer rim. You will feel like you are hitting it insanely hard. The tub will laugh at you. Keep smashing. If you have space in the bathroom, you can try to use the 12-lb. sledgehammer but be wary of nearby walls, sinks, etc. Once the outer rim is cracked, continue to smash along the tub’s equator until you’ve effectively split it in half. Like so:

Step 4: Continue to smash the now weakened tub into pieces small enough that you can carry with your exhausted arms. Notice below I’m using the big-boy hammer at this point. What you can’t see is that I’m sweating profusely and struggling to breathe through my Peters Sarsgaard-brand SARS-guard. It’s also important to keep using the wet blanket each time you swing the hammer as a precaution. It’s annoying but believe me – there’s a lot of sharp debris flying around.

Step 5: Seriously, be careful swinging sledgehammers in tight spaces. Thankfully we’re going to be getting rid of the sink too. Turns out I’m a little smash-happy.

Step 6: Finish what you started, revealing some sort of animal nest that has been constructed between the tub and the studs. Raise the animal as your own. Hope that it produces eggs or milk that can be consumed for nutrition.

Step 7: Tear off your Hulk-a-Mania tank top and let the world see what you’ve done.

*Not an actual fact – there are many materials harder than iron. I’m one of them.

You Leaf-Bagging Son of a B*tch

Hi. Our names are Trent and Alyssa. And we have a leaf problem. Every time we seem to get control of it, somehow the leaves just show up. It’s not that we want them to – we just can’t help it. We’ve tried to quit. But it seems hopeless. The meetings seem to be helping…

Below you’ll find a step by step guide to Alyssa’s leaf-bagging strategy. I think it’s pretty genius, but that could be simply because I’m partial to burritos. Nonetheless, I’ll be referring to Alyssa as Bagger Vance every autumn for the foreseeable future. I’ve told her she should go to the special school for leaf-bagging wizards: Bagwarts.

Tools and Gear You’ll Need:

• Ryobi Lawn & Leaf Bag
• Small Tarp
• Rake
• 55-Gallon Contractor Bags
• Gloves (only if your hands aren’t already hardened like those of a grizzled sailor)

Step 1: Set up your Ryobi Lawn and Leaf Bag

Step 2: Get a small tarp – this is a 6′ x 8′ tarp* folded in halvsies. Put it on the ground. Beside the leaves.

Step 3: Rake the leaves onto the tarp. It is usually better to have your wife or girlfriend do this while you take photos and drink a beer.

Step 4: Pick up the corner of the tarp to roll it up. Like a burrito.

Step 5:  Start making that leaf burrito.

Step 6: Pick up that delicious deciduous delicacy

Step 7: Put the whole thing in the Ryobi bag.

Step 8: Pull up the sides of the plastic bag to prevent spillage.

Step 9: Pull out the tarp, relegating those leaves to a bewildered state. Stupid leaves.

Still confused, dum-dum? Check out the video for more heart-pounding action:

*Note: I say the tarp is a 9′ x 12′ in the video. I lied. It’s a 6′ x 8′.