i think thats where we left off... i suppose i could just look and find out, but wheres the fun in that? sounds like work to me ;]
so when last we left.... crap i am going to have to look to see what all i need to fill you in on... hold on...
...
...
...
...
...
...oh yeah, it is five, cool!
...
...
...
... ah. okay, so lets do this right.
[house erm... recon]
so when i last updated you fine folks, near the end of the previous post under the heading [substance] i notified you that the roof was finally finished ::dance!:: and we're very excited about that. =]
additionally, it hasnt leaked at all since ;] and we hope it stays that way indefinitely...
well, i also told you the interior was being prepped and cleaned for reconstruction to begin and while i didnt know it at the time... that wasnt exactly accurate.
as it turns out cincy had been getting a LOT of rain and if you remember, rainbow intl. is primarily a disaster response type business. [thats how we found them in the first place] well as it turns out, they were getting so much rain that all over the city people were having issues with basements flooding, sump-pumps breaking down [which caused basement flooding] and so on flooding this and that. well... rainbow ended up getting a ton of calls and basically made the call to abandon our house for 2 weeks to go help these other unfortunate souls and work halted altogether on our house. now we didnt know this at the time, but thats what ended up happening. luckily, our roof is in good shape and as far as i know our basement didnt flood, so no harm - no foul.
when i did end up talking to him again [early last week] greg apologized profusely for the circumstances and assured me that my project was now their primary focus again and that he intended to make up as much lost time as possible. honestly, i cant exactly be mad about it, after all, WE WERE IN THE EXACT SAME SITUATION, and besides, thats what they do. and we love them for it. =]
so since then, they have in fact started, and last i heard completed, the cleanup - further demo - prep work - etc -in preparation for the reconstruction to begin.
in fact, as of yesterday i found out that theyd started re-framing in places where they needed to rebuild walls and stuff and the electrician was working his way through the house as well! whoop!
so things are definitely back on track as far as the recon goes.
additionally, i had a nice long conference call with greg and the rainbow estimator middle of last week and we did an in depth review of their estimate, going over just about every item to make sure that we were on the same page. and cool thing we found out, we're basically getting a new kitchen! =] all new cabinets, counter-tops, island, plumbing - all of it! the only thing they arent replacing is the appliances, but those were all second hand junk anyway ;]
so that certainly increases the value of the reconstruction. and in addition to that we're also getting a few things here and there added in that werent really on the list originally, but hopefully we can get covered, so when this is all over the interior of this house is going to be almost completely brand new!
[now the not so good news...]
we're not happy about this buyer. so far they have been completely unwilling to work with us in any way to negotiate compensation for all of this new work thats being done and the added value of the work to the house. we've made dozens of attempts to get them to work with us, even going so far as to give the buyer anything she wanted as far as customization when we started the recon process, but she has been nothing but silent. either her realtor hasnt passed along anything to her [in which case hes a pretty shitty realtor and not representing her best interests at ALL] or else shes really just not interested in working with us at all. either way, we've had enough of the bs, and we're looking for a way out of this contract. the realtor has assured us that there will be interest in the house when this is all over [we've had 2 already!] so if we can get this thing back on the market, its looking good.
if that wasnt enough of the bad news, if we cant figure out how to get out of this contract, based on preliminary estimates of what we know is going to happen, the realtor is estimating the value at the house at about DOUBLE what we agreed to sell with this buyer. that is just so far beyond not fair or legit or anything right that i cant stand it. so if it comes to it, we WILL find a way out of this contract with this buyer even if it means getting lawyers involved. however, that probably wont be necessary. we've been doing a lot of research and as far as we can tell we have a number of options for an "out" based on the way we handled [or didnt, as it were, lol!] the contract throughout this process. nothings been decided yet, but we have 2 very good possibilities to get out of this contract right now [one i just found out about half an hour ago!] so we're feeling pretty confident. if it comes down to it though, we'll do what we've gotta do to make this right.
[other non-house stuff]
so thats really it for an update on the house, things are going well with the recon, and will hopefully work out well with the contract in the near future.
other than that, life has been steady. karen is working a lot, im working a lot, outside of work we're doing the norm. im still working out consistently and i think ive lost some weight even though the number on that scale hasnt budged yet [muscle weighs more than fat you know...] but im feeling good about it. if nothing else i feel better and my clothes fit better [actually, some of them are starting to sag a little] so i know something is happening.
coming up in the near future, Karen has a show as part of the galveston art centers monthly "art walk"s where shell be exhibiting a bunch of art shes been working on since moving back to texas. anyone in the area is welcome to attend, and you can read more about that... here.
and heres a little taste as well.
[image courtesy of the artist]
alright kiddos. i think thats it for now. feel free to comment if you'd like to know something else, or e-mail me... whatever. =]
out.
