Standstill

It’s been a couple weeks since my last update, but I suppose that’s because there wasn't too much that I had to share. I got really busy with work and time just slipped on by. Baby bump got bigger though, take a look:

21 Weeks

Still at 21 Weeks

Today - 23 Weeks

Also, I finally got around to uploading our “work in progress” pictures. This first set was taken in late August when we were picking out paint colors and ripping out flooring.

 
   

Unfortunately, the floor prep took quite a toll on Chris. From using the jackhammer so long, he actually jammed up his trigger finger and gave himself tendinitis. A couple Airrosti visits helped a great deal, but he still couldn't do a whole lot. In case you were wondering, yes this is the reason Chris’s arm is taped up in the picture where he’s holding me and yes he’s the one who wanted pink. His injury really slowed us down when it was time to start painting, but at least he wasn't the only one working. I've been able to help since we’re using Benjamin Moore’s zero-VOC Natura paint and keeping all the windows open. Also, Chris’s mom actually painted our entire master bedroom while we were at work one day. It was the sweetest thing ever and we couldn't be more grateful. Chris and I finished out the detail work in there last week and finally have one completely painted room.

We also took apart the kitchen island (planning to make it 2/3 of its original size) and got most of the living room and kitchen painted. I had been worried about the double story walls and started interviewing contractors, but Chris insisted he could do it on his own and bought himself a 24 ft extension ladder. It makes me incredibly nervous whenever he’s on there but he doesn't seem to mind.

And of course all this work led Chris to hurt himself again. Thankfully it wasn't a fall, but oddly enough, it was his shoulder this time. He had strained his shoulder muscle very badly over a year ago (the spasms led to him being unable to turn his head for over a week) and it never healed completely. So this past week when it started aching, he would ice it after painting. He got a massage on Thursday, but that night when he went to move the extension ladder, he pulled something and now has a very stiff neck. When he went back to his masseuse yesterday, he was warned that his muscle was on the brink of tearing and that it wouldn't be wise to lift anything for the next 2-3 weeks. He really needs to take some time to heal.

So with that, we've pretty much hit a standstill. With me pregnant and him injured, neither of us is in a position to climb on two-story ladders or even haul around floor planks for that matter. It’s time to suck it up and pay someone to finish. Unfortunately all the contractors that we've talked to can’t start until late October or early November. I guess this means we’ll be living upstairs for at least another month. I was hoping we’d be done by my birthday but now can only hope to be finished by Thanksgiving. Meanwhile the empty lot next door not only has a slab now, but also a good portion of the frame as well. The first story of the frame went up in just one day. Sure makes me wonder if the neighbor will have an entire house before we have a floor!

The Porta-Potty showed up Friday 

Halftime

20 Weeks!

Chris says I don't look pregnant from behind

But it's a little different from the side...

Believe it or not, I’m officially halfway through my pregnancy. A lot of people have been asking how I feel and the answer is that I’m doing great. I lost a lot of weight during the first trimester because I could hardly eat anything, but the perpetual morning sickness and nausea started letting up in late July. The transition was pretty drastic, around weeks 12 and 13 I didn’t think it would ever end, and then at week 14 I was able to start eating normally again. Since then I’ve managed to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight! I also have a little more energy now and am keeping up just fine in my yoga and belly dance classes. In fact the two prenatal yoga classes I tried were a little boring since we spent more time sitting around and moving blankets/props than actually doing anything. So I went back to my regular flow class at 24 Hour Fitness and found that I could still do everything with a few modifications. After talking to the instructor it seems like this shouldn’t be an issue until I get too big to do anything other than prenatal yoga, so I’ll keep this up as long as I can. I can also handle a light jog just fine, but the last time I tried to run at my pre-pregnancy pace, my pounding heart and cramping uterine ligaments convinced me to slow down. So on Sunday mornings when Chris does his long runs with his dad (who’s running in my place in the San Antonio half marathon this November), I go walking with his mom. It’s been really nice and we’ve been hitting around 3 and 4 miles pretty easily.

In terms of pregnancy aches and pains, I don’t think I have it too bad, but I do find my neck, shoulders, and back getting sore a lot more frequently – probably from trying to sleep on my left side all the time. A few weeks ago, Chris got me a snoogle body pillow and it’s been pretty helpful. He also surprised me with a prenatal massage package. I usually need him to rub out the tension in my shoulders before I can fall asleep most nights so I really appreciated it. A couple Saturdays ago, as he ripped out kitchen tile, I went to a prenatal yoga class at Get Babied and then stayed after for my first massage with a certified midwife named Mandy. It was beyond wonderful and I’m looking forward to seeing her on a somewhat regular basis. It’ll make for a happy mommy and baby.

I had my third prenatal checkup with Brielle on Monday and the baby’s growing - my uterus is up past my belly button now! Brielle was also able to feel the little one’s head through my stomach and when she showed Chris, he excitedly poked at it. The little thing was pointed down, facing back – hope the baby remembers this position come January!

In the meantime, all is going pretty well. It’s been a busy few weeks with birthdays, bridal showers, and baby showers. We’ve been pretty busy catching up with friends so not a whole lot has happened with the house. Chris is almost finished prepping the floors for the hardwood. He got all the tile and mortar scraped out this past weekend so once he gets the last bit of glue out of the future dance room, we’ll start laying down the new floor. He’s undercutting the hearth of the fireplace and patching up the holes in the concrete this week so this weekend I’ll finally be able to help. I haven’t been too involved so far because inhaling mortar dust and mineral spirits can’t possibly be beneficial during pregnancy, but that danger should be gone soon enough when we’re cutting up underlayment and clicking planks together.

Well that’s all for now, I need to get ready for this evening. We’re taking a belly dance field trip to a Beats Antique show at La Zona Rosa tonight. I hope the baby likes it! It won’t be its first prenatal concert since we decided to relive our early high school musical memories with the 2012 Summerland Tour in July featuring Everclear, Lit, Sugar Ray, Gin Blossoms and Marcy Playground. It also won’t be the baby’s last concert - with all the shows we have tickets for in the next few months, the little one is going to become very well versed in our indie ways!

19 Weeks

As of today, I am officially 19 weeks pregnant! Chris took these pictures before we went to the hike and bike trail at Town Lake this morning.

My belly button is already starting to stick out, kind of like a turkey that's almost done.

I actually felt the little thing moving for the first time two nights ago! It felt like someone was gently poking my stomach, except from within. It was strange since I was lying in bed and the side of my stomach that I felt movement in kept changing. I found myself wondering if there was just one in there, even though I was told there wasn’t. I guess there must be plenty of room to stretch out and somersault.

It’s actually pretty crazy how much the little one has developed in these last few weeks. According to my pregnancy calendar, the kid can now hear and suck its thumb! January is going to come too quickly...

Why We’re Still Not Unpacked

So a month ago we bought a brand new house that’s never been lived in before. We should be all settled in now, right?

Well, not exactly. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine house. But if we’re going to have a newborn on our hands in just a matter of months, when will we ever find time to make the place look the way we want? We’re taking on the project now since we won’t have as much time for it later. Not to mention, it would be a lot trickier to do anything once the furniture and belongings were in place.

The house is currently peachy beige (ceilings aren’t even white, why) with beige carpet, grayish-white tile floors, and a small section of hardwood.  I admit, it could be a lot worse, but it’s still not ideal. If they had put hardwood everywhere downstairs instead of just one tiny section, it would have looked great, but unfortunately the three different types of flooring material make for a fairly disjointed look. On top of that, it has random nooks and arches galore – okay not terrible, but they certainly don’t add any aesthetic value and are a pain to work around. I’m a fan of minimalist design, open spaces, and functional living. The new home may have a lot of square footage, but it’s certainly not utilized efficiently. We constantly find ourselves wondering what the home builder was thinking when designing the place.

Several impracticalities have been bugging us lately. Take for example something simple like light switches. Every single one of them is placed just a little beyond comfortable reach (unless you have really long arms). Fumbling in the dark sucks, especially with arms fully extended. Also the kitchen is the most poorly laid out cooking space I’ve ever been in. It looks grand, but it is not designed for anyone that actually prepares food. To access the pantry, you have to open a large door into a small room, maneuver your body around the door to close it to grab what you need from behind the door, and then try not to run into the door trying to get back into the kitchen (so now I want one of these). Once you’re in the kitchen, a long island sits directly between the stove and the sink, tripling the distance one needs to walk to get from one major work area to the other. When you’re cooking, you take for granted how much you travel between those two spots until you find yourself running into something every time you try to do it! I think the island will be perfect though if we remove a third of it. While we’re at it, we’ll need to address the shelving that’s detaching itself from every single base cabinet – why is this even a problem in a new house? And don’t get me started on the pretty yet so very unpractical appliances. Instead of installing a full range, they took a wall-mount oven and placed it at waist height underneath the stove. Sure it looks good, but you have to stoop to eye level with the tiny thing to set it, and then hop around to keep the vents at the bottom of the unit from burning your feet while you’re cooking. I’m not exaggerating – the fan blows scalding hot air into the kitchen while the oven is on and then continues to do so for an hour after it’s off. Never mind that it never drops below 100 degrees in Texas in the summer, Whirlpool says this standard “feature” in its newer ovens can’t be shut off because it extends the oven’s life. And the dishwasher sucks too. It can’t dry things and smells awful. Everything stays perpetually drippy and steamy, one of our glasses even started growing mold! We haven’t spent much time on the phone with Whirlpool on this one yet, but that’s something to pursue soon. Our seven year old appliances in the old house may not have looked as nice, but at least they were built with some practicality in mind!

The weird inconveniences don’t stop in the kitchen. The elevated back patio is covered and that’s great, but unfortunately it’s about the size of my cubicle. It looks kind of stumpy behind such a large house. And it’s not like there was a shortage of space for them to extend it. On the floor plan there’s actually a dotted line indicating where a normal sized patio can go, but I guess if you’re building to sell it’s better to go the cheap route since the listing would say “covered patio” regardless of the size. So now if we want to make it a usable covered patio, we’ll have to find a way to match the building materials of the roof and drill rebar into the sides of the base to extend out the concrete. Not an urgent priority, but something else to attend to at some point in the future.

All in all, these issues are very minor compared to the older homes we saw. After writing this out I feel like we have it pretty good because this kind of stuff would be the least of our worries anywhere else. Hopefully we’ll get the floors changed out and the house painted in the next couple months. We already have the bamboo acclimating now, but prepping the floors is going to be a lot more work than the last time we did this. Ripping up tile is tough, but it’s super easy compared to pulling up glued down wood. We currently have a mess of splinters stuck to the slab in one of the rooms. Had the builder opted for floating wood, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Good lesson in flooring: go with glue down not only to save money, but also to seriously punish whoever attempts to remove it one day. Chris has already put some serious sweat into this and there’s more to go. I guess the other option could have been to rent a ride on floor eater for $1,300 per day, but if we could afford that we probably wouldn’t have needed it since we’d be too busy with other things like sipping lemonade on the porch of our custom beach house.

So here goes with the home improvement journey. We originally got pushed back in our plans to start since we were waiting on a contractor to widen the entrance between the living room and the dining area. After he left us hanging, we hired someone else and were really excited that the wall was finally coming down. If I wasn’t pregnant, this is something we would have attempted ourselves, but it’s a good thing we didn’t because when Calvin started yesterday, he realized that the wall was way too full of wiring, plumbing, etc. to be moved. We were disappointed, but it wasn’t a total loss since he did move the kitchen light switch onto the correct side of the wall (it was in the living room before, why). So now the ball’s back in our court. We’ll be able to get rolling once we undercut the stone fireplace to slide the wood underneath. Wish I hadn’t just read that during construction it’s easy for masonry to be built with that gap in place ahead of time, ugh. Anyways, we’re looking forward to finally starting.

Can’t wait to share the results!

The Fire in Wells Branch

As if becoming pregnant wasn’t serendipitous enough, finding our new home was also connected to natural forces. Like I mentioned earlier, all of the neighborhoods that we were interested in were built in the 1970s or 1980s. Unfortunately, all the homes we could afford in those neighborhoods needed serious remodeling if we were to live in them. So when we discovered that there was a newly constructed house for sale in an older, established community, we were a bit confused. We soon learned that the serious drought last summer contributed directly to a fire that destroyed two neighboring houses in Wells Branch. Luckily no one was physically harmed, but both houses were leveled and one was rebuilt. The home that was rebuilt first was the one that we bought. The other one is just an empty plot of land right now, but it looks like they will be putting in a foundation soon.

The fire originally sparked in the neighbor’s backyard just last summer on Monday August 22, 2011. The neighbor had used a charcoal grill earlier in the day, and it is thought that an ember must have blown onto the dry grass. He was asleep when the fire began raging, but was luckily awoken by someone pounding on his door. There’s footage of the fire here (our property is on the left): http://www.kvue.com/home/Investigators-look-for-cause-of-Wells-Branch-destroying-a-home-damaging-another-128220638.html

Interestingly enough, the couple that lost the property next to ours found a very spiritual take on the whole disaster. This story gave me chills, watch the interview here: http://www.kvue.com/home/Wells-Branch-couple-counting-blessings-after-house-fire-128274198.html

All in all, this seems like a fitting place for a new beginning. Even the street address is symbolic – 2013: the year we expect our first child to be born.

Becoming Landlords

I never envisioned us becoming landlords so soon. Maybe one day when we paid off a house, but not now. So when the suggestion of renting out the condo came up, it seemed totally out of the question. I anticipated a lot of stress and headache with managing a property. It could be worth it if we were making a profit, but as of that moment in time, the rental value of the neighboring properties was significantly lower than our personal expenses in owning the condo. After totaling the property insurance, HOA dues, taxes, and mortgage payments, we kicked ourselves for not having rented all along. We were paying more each month to own than our neighbors were to rent! After a hefty down payment and five years of home ownership, we had no equity to show for it. In fact, we now owed more on the mortgage than the condo was even worth. That’s what we got for buying it at the peak of the real estate market before everything crashed. And we were stuck with very few options.

Chris and I dejectedly admitted that we were going to lose more money on this condo no matter what we did. So we could either take a large hit up front by selling it right then, or we could rent it out and spread the loss out over time. Considering we would need cash readily available for our inevitable upcoming expenses, spreading out the loss was the more viable way to go. Also, this way we would at least get tax benefits and slowly work towards paying off the mortgage while waiting for the market to improve.

In calculating how much to charge in rent, we were surprised to learn that the monthly expenses of living in the new house in Wells Branch would actually be lower than the cost of the condo even though the new loan was over $50k more. But because the interest rate was 3.65% instead of 5% and because there was no more HOA, suddenly we would be paying a lot less money for a lot more house.  We also realized that if the rent we charged on the condo was similar to the monthly cost of the new house, it wouldn’t feel like we were losing as much since our expenses wouldn’t change a lot.

Yusuf got our condo listed on the rental market and we had showings in no time. We knew that we were priced higher than the neighboring units, but after we checked out the competitors’ pictures, we were certain that our place was worth the extra money. On top of having extra features and being more spacious (a lot of the listings claimed to be bigger than they really were), our place was just all around nicer. We had spent a lot of time, effort, and money making improvements to our place and it really showed that we were renting out a home that we cared about – not some dump. By the end of the week we had a lease signed. We were worried about the kind of renters we would get, but after meeting them, our fears were put to ease. The new tenants were sweet and seemed responsible, not the type to destroy a place (hopefully).

The week of July 25, we moved out and they moved in. The former owners of the Wells Branch house were kind enough to allow us to move our stuff in before closing so we were able to take things over in carloads instead of having to do everything in one day. Since then, everything’s been pretty good in landlord land, hope it’ll stay that way!

House Hunting

Chris and I started house hunting about a year ago. We were comfortable in our two bedroom townhouse condo in north Austin, but we knew that in the next few years we would start to outgrow it. We thought it would be better to buy another place sooner than later since interest rates were so low and also because it would be good to take care of renovations before getting pregnant. Also, we were getting increasingly dissatisfied with the property management for our condo community’s HOA and thought it would be best to sell and move on (avoid Pioneer and Paul Meisler - contact me if you want reasons why). Unfortunately our home search dragged on for quite awhile since everything within our price range was either too small, too far away from things, too rundown, or in too undesirable of a neighborhood. Luckily our realtor was super encouraging about us taking our time as he put up with our super tight search constraints and our endless changes in what we wanted. In fact, if you ever need a realtor in Austin, I highly recommend Yusuf Johnson.

We actually met Yusuf and got to be friends with him long before we even thought about moving, but it would be hard not to befriend this guy. He’s just so genuinely warm and personable. But on top of that, he’s very good at what he does. I was amazed at how low-stress and low-pressure the whole process ended up being for us. Also, he was super accommodating of our busy schedules and last minute plans. Before I get too carried away in raving about him though, let me tell you about our search.

The biggest problem Chris and I ran into was that we wanted to live in a cute neighborhood near central Austin, but we also wanted a suburb-sized family house (4 bedrooms + loft+ study + open floorplan + garage). Unfortunately, all of the homes that fit that criteria cost at least three to four times more than what we were willing to spend. It didn’t help that we also wanted to be near a park or a trail and in a good school system. Time and time again we got frustrated with the search, finding that the only places we could afford required absurdly expensive renovations. And even then, most of them lacked the open floor plan I wanted since they were built back when boxy homes were the norm. Before I got pregnant, we almost put an offer in on a home in Oak Knoll, but didn’t follow through after we realized that the immediate upgrades the home needed would cost more than what we had in savings. Every few months we’d throw in the towel and drive up to Avery Ranch to talk to the builders there about custom homes. But with each time we visited Round Rock, we just got that much more frustrated because the base prices were so inflated. On top of that, we knew that with anything we got custom built, we wouldn’t see a return on for a very long time since builders in that area can offer way more incentives than an owner trying to sell. And the new construction in that area isn’t going to stop anytime soon.

June 23, 2012: Chris and I decided to pick out a lot in Avery Ranch. Yes it wasn’t ideal, but it seemed like the only remaining option. All of the houses in Oak Knoll that we’d been looking at for the past year needed a LOT of work. Everything a reasonable distance from work and downtown was also in the same shape. Now that I was pregnant, it was really important that we get a newer home since I was in no condition to be working on major home renovations. Unfortunately the Avery Ranch development we liked best had starting prices that were unreasonably high, so we went down the road to a less expensive development and started looking at lots with no backyard neighbors. We thought we had an okay lot picked out, but we soon realized that we wouldn’t be walking distance to a park or trail. The only reason we initially considered living in a subdivision like this was to have easy access to a community pool or some area where you could meet other young families. But because this location didn’t have any of those things, on top of being a needlessly far drive from central Austin, we sadly admitted that this just wasn’t going to cut it.

That afternoon when we got home, I declared that it was over. I said to Chris that we’d have to stay put to raise the baby because what we wanted didn’t exist. I was sick of looking and was tired of wasting our time. I also couldn’t stop stressing over the fact that our condo was worth much less than what we paid in 2007 before the housing market crashed. We would have to pay a large difference to the bank if we were to sell it. As I fumed about the situation, Chris got back online and resumed browsing Redfin. I thought it was pointless, but within minutes, he said he found our new house.  When he talked about it, it sounded too good to be true. It was a brand new construction in Wells Branch, just the right size and price, located less than 2 miles from our condo.  It backed up to a 5 mile running trail and was less than a block from the community center, pool, playground, and sports fields. The mortgage would be something we could handle on one salary if I needed to stop working, and we wouldn’t ever have to be house poor. On top of that, it only added a minute or two in drive time to the places we frequently went to.

We went to see the house the first thing the next morning and Yusuf told us that unfortunately there were already two other offers pending on this house. The realtors were going to review the offers that day, but Yusuf asked for them to wait until we had visited the home. Just minutes after we walked around the place, we were sure that this was the only home that could work for us. We told Yusuf that we were ready to bid and he asked us countless times if we were sure. We were.

Over the course of that very same day, Yusuf got everything set up for us. We decided to bid over the asking price so we’d have a better shot at getting the house. In a whirlwind of emails, pdf contracts with digital signatures, and cell phone pictures of checks, we had submitted the offer without leaving our house. That very night, Yusuf called and let us know that our offer was the one that was accepted. The closing date was set for July 25. We were in disbelief! Just the day before, I was convinced that we wouldn’t find a place. And now, less than 24 hours after initially seeing the listing online, we had a closing date! We were excited that we would be moving in a month, but also a bit concerned because that would leave a very short amount of time to figure out what exactly to do with the condo!

More details on the new house and the old condo to follow…