Mortgage Refinance and Appraisal

I kept the house in the divorce.  A "Special Warranty Deed" dated February 24, 1994 made me the sole owner of both the house and the mortgage.

After the divorce, it seemed reasonable to refinance the house, removing my ex-wife's name from the loan.  This was accomplished on 15 April 1994 with a new 30-year 7/23 mortgage of $159,200 at 5.99%.  This paid the balance of the first mortgage of $154,809.21 plus closing costs.  Closing costs included a 1% loan origination fee ($1592), title insurance ($1501), and an appraisal fee ($325), among other things.

A 7/23 mortgage is a variable rate mortgage.  The rate is fixed for the first 7 years, and then adjusts to a different rate for the last 23 years.  The rate would change on 1 May 2001, and could go as high at 10.99%.  The new rate is 1% more than the 30-year standard conventional fixed rate mortgage index of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), rounded up to the nearest 1/8 percentage point, but limited to no more than 10.99%.  While this is potentially a high interest rate, my expectation would be to either sell (both kids will be out of high school by 2001) or re-finance before that time.

(Update: the Fannie Mae index for May 2001 was 7.21, so my new interest rate would have been 8.25%)

The appraisal compared our house with 3 close by that had been sold recently, trying to adjust for the difference in age, size, and so on.

The appraisal tried to figure out exactly the size of the rooms.

and how they were used.

As well as what the house looks like, front

and back.

Outdoors and Upgrades

April 1993

More dirt for the yard and flower beds. 12 cubic yards of Landscape Mix from Whittlesey $234.36.


June 1993

Upgrade part of the sprinkler system in the back yard. Dug up rock from the center of the back yard and put in another sprinkler head, more dirt and grass sod. $38.62

August 1993

Replace the front door lock and handle. The original door knob was meant to be just temporary, so it finally came time to replace it with a real door knob. This is a big brass unit with buttons on the side and a built-in deadbolt. From Stripling-Blake. $529.98 plus $238.03 for installation.

August 1993

Repaint the house. Mike Thompson $1480.00 He last painted the house in July 1992 for $2790, but this time it was only one coat, not two. Again Kelly-Moore Color #364, Natural Cedar.


October 1993

The sprinkler control system was just tacked onto the interior garage wall when the sprinklers were installed. I re-did this by cutting out the sheetrock and framing a little cubby hole between the studs. I added another electrical outlet in the bottom of the framing specifically for the sprinkler control. In theory, I could add a door over it, but there seems no reason to do that.

Feb 1994

Cut down about 10 male mountain juniper trees -- I'm highly allergic to them. To replace them, I planted 2 peach trees, plus a harvester peach, a red delicious apple, a golden delicious apple, and a pear tree. Also 3 Rough-leaf dogwood trees.

March 1994

Put a new Oak shelf in the Master Bedroom closet. Eight feet long, 1x12, oak. $44.40

A little later, I added another one to the Master Bedroom closet ($13.48) and one to one of the kids bedrooms ($10.11). The builder had put in poles for hanging clothes. These were supported by metal brackets that are designed to hold a shelf above them, but he didn't put the shelf in. These three shelves were basically filling in all the shelves missing from the supports. These two later ones were pine, so they were much less expensive than the oak one. Partly this was cost; partly it was because they are not as long, so don't have to be as rigid. Each shelf was stained and poly-urethaned (two coats).

16 April 1993

A coat rack for the back bedroom closet. Brass hooks on a wooden plaque.

24 April 1993

A ceiling fan in the one room that still doesn't have one. I think Leanne had the ceiling fan, so all I had to do was install it. Needed a fan brace plus some wiring and switches.

28 April 1993

Install a wire shelf and hanger rod underneath it in the utility room. This was positioned up over where a freezer could be put. 20 inches deep and wall to wall.

Even More Making a House into a Home

July 1992

Planted two new trees in the small peninsula of dirt between our driveway and the neighbor's driveway. Bradford Pears. These have worked out beautifully. They are of moderate height -- maybe 20 feet tall, but very round in shape. In the spring and summer, they have large green leaves. They provide much needed shade for both our drive (in the morning) and the neighbor's (in the afternoon). In the fall, the leaves turn brilliant shades of yellow and red.

15 July to 30 July 1992

Thompson Painting, Drywall and Handyman stained and sealed the outside wood. Under the eaves, and around the windows and doors. The wood gables on the left, right, front and back. Kelly Moore Color #364 Natural Cedar. $2790.00

22 July to 29 July

Install ceiling fans in both kids bedrooms. Fans, pull-chains, lights. This was easier because I could get access in the attic to the electrical and framing work in the ceiling. Removed the old light fixture, and put in a new electrical box and fan brace. Ran extra wire and put in a new switch box, so that instead of the old single switch we now have two switches -- one for the light and one for the fan. $124.68.

21 Sept 1992
17 Oct 1992

Bought two wooden shelfs (at Target) and installed them in the Master Bathroom and the middle Bathroom. These are solid oak shelfs, with a little rail around them, to keep things from falling off. $37.98.

October 29, 1992
Upgrade the sprinkler system. There were some dry spots in the yard, so I asked Gorbet, who put in the sprinkler system originally, to come back and add some more heads and move heads around, as necessary to get better coverage. $123.03


November 7, 1992

Bought a cubic yard of Garden Mix from Gardenville for the yard. $30.24.

Bathroom Repairs

July 1992

For some time -- 2 years -- we had noticed problems with water in the shower area. After a shower, we would find water outside the shower, in a corner on the tile. The problem was a leaking shower pan (under the tile). The water would leak into the space under the tile, on top of the concrete slab, and then migrate out from the shower. This caused water damage to the bathroom shower walls, and even into the bedroom.

All the tile had to be replaced around the shower and tub.

Frank Leitzel was the general repair person. He first removed all the damaged tile from the floor and walls. Instead of the pre-fab shower pan (the part under the tile that had leaked), he installed a fiberglass pan, custom made to the shower.

Then we had to re-install the tile. Myrle Brooks did that. He did a "mud-set" of the tile, which should be better, in the long term, than the standard "thin-set".

The hard part for us was finding the workmen, and picking out the replacement tile. Naturally, it being 6 years after the house was built, the old tile that we had picked out was no longer available.

The general repairs were 1325. The tile installation was 850. The tile cost 514.68. Our house insurance covered a lot of the repairs for the damage. They paid 4400.28 for the damage. Unless there is more that I don't have records for, it looks like they paid us 1810.60 more than the cost of the repairs.

More Making a House into a Home

In addition to major projects, there are continuing efforts to make the house into a home, by personalizing it to our own needs. Most of these are small jobs, but they add up.

Sept 1987

Added a shelf in the utility room over the washing machine. This is mounted on the wall to the garage, and provides a convenient place for bleach and distilled water, and other laundry items. $44.57

August 1988

A coat rack for mounting on the wall in the front entranceway. Four brass coat hooks on a wooden board.
$35.00

7 Feb 1989

Wire shelves for hanging on the inside of the pantry closet door. The shelves are only about a tin can in depth -- maybe 5 inches deep and 18 inches wide, but its 72 inches tall, so it pretty much fills up the back of the door. and provides 8 or 9 shelves, for cans and boxes.

Dec 1989

Put up a shelf in the Utility room to hang things. This is a white wire shelf with 4 hooks underneath. Originally, it was for hanging up the kids' book bags after school, but eventually it became used to hold the plastic bags from grocery stores, and dog leashes, and extension cords. $31.16


16 Dec 1989

Added a switch to the outlet in the front of the garage. We plugged the exterior Christmas lights into this outlet, so it was convenient to have it switched, so that we could easily turn the lights on and off. $10.68

Dec to Jan 1990

James Conner, my ex-wife's nephew, designed a landscaping for the big bed in the back yard, and then implemented it. He cleared all the rock from the bed, added mulch to the soil, and dirt. He modified the sprinkler system and then put in plants. The idea was two layers -- Nandina on one level and another plant on another level. With the native trees that were already there -- a couple of cedar, a Mexican Laurel, and some Shin Oaks -- above it all. Over time, the Nandina has taken over the lower levels, so now it is just Nandina below and the trees above. Linda calls it "The Jungle". It's quite dense and overgrown. The cat likes to go in it and hide away, emerging from the jungle when she wants to come in. $112.81 for dirt (6 yards of garden mix from Whittlesey Brothers), $15.52 for mulch. $207.42 for plants. $148.00 for labor.

Nov 1990 to April 1991

Built a workbench in the garage. Mounted a 2x2 on the wall with lag bolts on the sides and back walls. Then used a metal bracket to attach another 2x2 to the front, forming a horizontal frame mounted to the walls. On top of this put a 3/4 inch piece of plywood cut to fit. Made two surfaces this way, one about 20 inches from the floor and the other 36 inches. Did the same along the other wall, so that the workbench is an L-shape. In the front corner, I used a steel angle-iron piece to bolt to both sides of the L-shape, as a support, but not massive or intrusive. Most of the plywood was covered with polyurethane (2 coats), but
I also used a left-over piece of Formica counter top to cover one surface. $49.13. $18.05. $6.45. $108.26. $16.31. $20.74.

Behind the workbench, on the walls, I mounted 3/8 inch plywood sheets, so that there was a solid surface for nails, and hooks, and hangers, for holding tools and such.

This combination gives me two storage shelves -- one on the floor and one on the lower shelf, plus a nice workspace on the top shelf, with my tools and supplies hanging on the walls. Of course, over time, more and more stuff got left on top of the workbench. I've been collecting the silverware baskets out of discarded dishwashers to hold tools and such, and a headboard from a water bed sits on the top of the workbench as a shelf unit. As a result there is very little work space, but there could be, if I just cleaned it up.

Bookcases

April 1988

When the house was built, the first room off the front entry way was the "living room". I planned to use this as an office. And because I have a fair number of books, I wanted to make it a combination office and library. Since I didn't know what I wanted for books shelves, we left the room empty, but I did ask them to raise the ceiling as high up as they could go. Because of the way the roof was laid out, this meant we could take it up to 10 feet, an extra 2 feet over the normal 8 foot ceiling height.

Now, two years after the house was built, I ordered some built-in bookcases. Preliminary inquiries showed that I couldn't just go to a cabinet maker and say "I want built-in bookcases, floor to ceiling, in my office." I needed an actual plan of exactly what I wanted. So I had spent some time looking at books and movies and designed my own bookcases. Then I took those to several places and asked if they could do it, would do it, and how much it would cost.



I picked Daniel Musselman, working under the name of "Interior Woodworks" on Todd Lane, in Austin, Texas. He did an excellent job! I signed an order on 21 April 1988 and finished the job on 23 June 1988 by installing the bookshelves in the house. These were pre-finished (two coats of polyurethane), solid wood (oak) custom bookcases, costing $4184.00.



The shelves stretch across one whole wall, and then extend out on both of the adjoining walls, basically 5 sections 3 feet wide, 15 inches deep, and 10 feet high. (So there must be a 15 inch by 15 inch square of unused space in each of the two corners. The shelves are all adjustable, except for two fixed shelves at 34 inches and 90 inches from the floor (for strength and rigidity). On the left and right sections, the bottom area (below the 34 inch fixed shelf) have cabinet doors. They were made as just frames, and I purchased two pieces of "glue chip" obscured glass from Renaissance Glass, $42.88, to fill the frame, on 1 August 1988.

There are three electrical outlets behind the book shelves, and I cut holes to allow them to still be used. I bought Myrtlewood outlet covers for these three outlets in Oregon (3 for 2.75 each = $8.75). These blend in nicely. (It's sometimes difficult to find the outlets, they blend in so well.)

One issue, of course, is getting to the books on the top shelves. For that we need a ladder. Not just a ladder, but a rolling library ladder! In October, I ordered a custom made "#1 Straight Side Oak Rolling Wood, Track Mounted Ladder with Natural Finish" from the Cotterman Company in Croswell, Michigan. The order was placed on 3 October 1988 and it was shipped on 31 October, with delivery on 16 November 1988. The ladder was $303.50 plus $57.67 in shipping costs.



Once the ladder was delivered, I installed it.




These bookcases fit perfectly with the hardwood (oak) flooring. The only problem, long term, that I have had with them is that I keep filling them up with books! I have thought about extending around the room, but doubt that I could get as good a job as these.

Initial Landscaping

October 1987

With a new house, the builder tends to clear the lot and build the house. When he is done, they bring in top-soil to spread around the house, and in our case, grass (sod) on top of that. They work on building the house but not much more. So we had pretty much a boring, neutral front and back yard. They did leave some of the native trees, but not a lot of them.

The first task was to put a fence around the yard. We contracted with Viking Fence for 414 feet of 6 foot 1x6 cedar pickets on wolmanized pine 4x4 posts with 2x4 runners. The contract was signed October 9 and they were done by October 13. $3300.00

Next, we worked with a landscape company, Powers' Landscape, to layout beds, trees and plants. Malcolm Short built short stone walls around the flower beds. This used a white limestone rock that matched the house. $780.00

Then Powers' came in and installed Flowers, trees, dirt, mulch, and stone as needed. $2799.76 on June 12 1988.



I was particularly interested in the trees. I like trees. They add a lot and are relatively low maintenance, at least compared with flowers, which always seem to need work. We got two Live Oaks, a Spanish Oak, two Drake elms, 2 Chinese Pistaches, as well as Redbuds and Crepe Myrtles. The Redbuds have not survived, and we lost one of the Chinese Pistaches, but the oaks have all done well. Of course it took decades for them to grow to full size. The other beds, flowers and bushes have come and gone.

The front lawn was problematic. We are basically on rock -- Texas limestone. And because the house is downhill from the street, there were issues with the front lawn. It seemed to me it came too much out from the street and then dropped to the house. So I hired my nephew, or rather my ex-wife's nephew, James Conner, and he spent the summer (1988) digging rock out of the front yard. With just a sledge hammer and a pry bar, he took out a lot of rock and re-contoured the front yard. This cost $230 for labor (32 hours) plus $149.40 for a load of dirt (6 yards of mixed soil) from Bert's Dirt to fill in after his excavation.

Now, since this is Texas, it's hot and often dry. To keep things alive, we needed a sprinkler system. Gorbet Sprinkler Company designed a system for our lot with 11 zones and 74 pop-up sprinkler heads. $3550.00 in June 1988.

And finally, in July (after the sprinkler system was installed), 3 pallets of St. Augustine grass to cover the front yard. $169.94 from Farmer's Lawn Grass and Nursery. Plus $284.46 (6 April 1989) for dirt (12 yards of mixed soil from Bert's Dirts) to even out the lawn. We have continued to put dirt and compost on the lawn to try to improve it. This has been a long term issue.

When it does rain, it can rain hard. With a large one-story house, we have a large roof area, so we get a lot of water off the roof. We had gutters installed by Sears. $509.30. They had a number of problems. It took them 2 tries before they got things fixed well enough. The main problem was the angle of the gutters. I figured that if they were supposed to work as gutters, then if I sprayed water on the roof with a house, the water would run into the gutters and then down the downspouts. This seemed to be a foreign concept to Sears, and the first two times, water sat in the gutters instead of running off.

Back Yard Fence

 We need a fence.  What with deer running thru the combined back yards and, of course, the kids, it seems like a good idea.

We called Austin Fence and they came out and measured the yard.  We decided to run the fence along the entire back yard and the back of the extra lot next door.  Six-foot cedar picket fence.  Nothing fancy.

Austin Fence gave us a contract.

Since we added in the back of the extra lot, the total comes to $3112.50.

Improving the Wooden Gables

May 27, 1987

The house is a one-story design with a 100% stone veneer exterior. Partly that was required by the Deed Restrictions for this subdevelopment; partly it was because we wanted to minimize the cost of maintenance for the house. No painting the house. Long lasting.

But it is not all stone exterior. The areas above the windows, the doors, the garage doors, are all a cedar wood siding. Rough cedar -- I would have preferred a finished surface which would have a wider range of finishing options, but there was no choice. I assumed finished, and the builder assumed rough, and with no communication about it, I showed up one day and it was all up. And rough.

The other area of wood siding is the gables. Although the house is one-story, the roofs peak on either end, and over the garage and the back and the roof peak is about 2 stories above the ground. There is a triangular wall area here, and this triangular area has a wood siding.


The builder, instead of using real wood for these gables had put up some kind of plywood siding. It looked really tacky, and was not weathering well. And this was only a year after it was put up.

So we decided to put a real 1x8 "lap&gap" cedar over the top of this plywood siding. I tried to do this myself. I bought the wood $318.36 from Stripling Blake. But it's fairly difficult to get to this area. I should have rented some scaffolding, but even with what I had, I worked on it all day (Memorial Day) and got nowhere. It was clearly time for a professional; I was out of my league.

We contracted with Gary Simon to do the work (Simon Construction). He did a great job. He used the material I had already bought, but rented some scaffolding and probably had a helper. $1088.30.
Plus, of course, $30.35 for trim and $78.17 for some 2x6's that were useful as part of the scaffolding.

Lesson learned: There is a limit to what I can do myself. Sometimes it just makes a lot more sense to hire a professional. I can do reasonable simple stuff, but to get a good job -- particularly for something that shows like stone work or carpentry it helps to have the proper tools and experience.

I can learn the skills, but it can take some doing. I learned basic framing redoing a garage when I was a graduate student, and could leave my mistakes behind when I left school. I learned to do sheet rock work when I worked on my brother-in-law's house, so I didn't have to live with my mistakes. I learned to do PVC sprinkler work on this house, but almost everything is buried, so it isn't supposed to show.

Making a new house a home

July - December 1986

There are a lot of minor things that need to be done to a new house to make it your home. Things that while minor may add up in the long run.

July 23 -- Add Brass Coat hooks to the Closets. Four hooks at 3.49 each. $13.96 Target.

August 2 -- Foam insulation (Great Stuff in a spray can) for the wall openings behind the Dryer Vent, the A/C opening for the wiring and tubes to the compressor, the electrical breaker box. $4.88

August 2 -- Add 1x4's about 3 feet and 6 feet the length of the garage. This provides something solid to put hooks into for hanging shovels and hoes and rakes and such. $21.00

August 2 -- Pour concrete around the water meter and cutoff access openings. Commonly these are just stuck in the dirt and over time, shift and collapse. By pouring concrete around the openings, they are stable and well-defined. 4 bags of ready-mix concrete at 2.09 each. $8.36

August 9 -- Install a garage door opener in the garage. $174.67. Sears.

August 30 -- Rebuild the wall behind the kitchen fan. The builder had botched the wall -- just sheet rock behind the fan over the stove. I rebuilt the wall and caulked the whole thing to keep bugs and debris off the stove.

September 27 -- Add a fire extinguisher to the utility room and a smoke detector to the kitchen. $40.02. Target.

September 27 -- Insulate the two hot water heaters with a fiberglass blanket. $27.66

October -- put medicine cabinets in each of the Master bathrooms and middle bathroom. These are built-in medicine cabinets that go into the wall, and have a mirror on the front. We prefer wood to metal. Hold the medicine cabinet where you want it to be and trace around the body. Then cut the sheet rock off along those lines. Be sure to avoid an area where there may be electrical lines or plumbing in the wall. You can try to figure out where the wall studs are and position it between them, or you can put it where you want and reframe the hole if it is not between studs. Put a header above the hole and a footer below it. Then just slide the medicine cabinet into the hole, and nail or screw it to the studs on either side and the header or footer. $226.16. Furrows.

December 7 -- Put white wire shelves just above the floor in the closets, for shoes. $38.83. Handy Dan

December 13 -- Take off each of the electrical outlet covers and light switch covers and put a foam template behind it, to seal out the cold air (or the hot air in summer, but in December, it's cold air). $6.33. More in January 1987. $9.89.

December 17 -- Install a Damper on the top of the fireplace chimney. We don't expect to use the fireplace much and when it is not in use, we would like to seal it off from the outside. This damper sits on top of the chimney, outside, up on the roof. A spring keeps it up, but there is a wire and a handle down in the fireplace that will pull it down and completely seal off the top of the chimney. $242.00 by Superior Chimney Cleaning.

March 1987 -- Adding hooks to the closets was fairly easy. Buy the hook, find a stud behind the wall and screw it on. But we also wanted to put hooks on the inside of the door to the main closet, so the kids could hang up their coats. The door is the standard hollow-core door with just a thin plywood veneer on both the inside and outside, nothing to screw into, except around the edges, top, bottom and sides. So we got a piece of molding at the hardware store. In our case, a scallop molding. After finishing it to match the door (stain and polyurethane), we could glue it to the inside of the door and then put the hooks in it. $38.88




April 4, 1987 -- Replace the front door light switch with a timed switch, so that the lights come on (and go off) automatically. $22.48.