The New New Addition

So we are homeless right now.

OK, that's totally not true, and not really even funny to joke about. We are actually technically quite home-full, following the purchase of an adorable little cottage in Mountain View last May. The days of May and June are pretty much a blur to me, but essentially it's where the story starts, so I shall review.

May 1st: See cute little 3BR, 2BA fixer upper house on the market in Mountain View

May 3rd: Our realtor gets stealthy call to come put our bid in at 9pm on a Tuesday against multiple other offers. We win!

May 16th: Escrow closes! We are home owners. Times 2. Uh-oh, must list Palo Alto condo!

May16-June1: Frantically "stage" condo

June 1st: List Palo Alto condo, move into in-laws' for "the weekend"

June 3rd: Open House for condo

June 6th: Multiple offers (thank you, Palo Alto real estate market!), we accept an awesome new family to take over our condo.

June 16th: We get the keys to our new Mountain View house, and start packing like wild hyenas because...

June 22: Escrow closes on condo!

And here's where the story slows down. Waaaaaaaay down.

Because remember back when I mentioned the "fixer upper" characteristic of our new house? I was not exaggerating. It is not in great shape. "Livable," sure, but then again, both Itay and I lived happily in Isla Vista for several years, so that term covers a pretty broad range. Let's just say that my mother-in-law declared she would not let her grandchildren live in the house unless we did some major work. So since we had been staying at her house for about a month already, we (naively) thought, "OK, why not just extend our stay a month or so and do a quick facelift on the place?"

Enter architect.

For future reference, if you are indeed financially and/or emotionally committed to only doing a "QUICK" facelift on a house, do not speak with an architect. Because they will come up with some really dreamy possibilities for your home, and when the money/time constraints are evaluated, you will only be crushed to realize what you COULD be doing if you decided to move out and couch surf for a year while eating only Top Ramen. And sell your kidney.

Needless to say, the architect came back with a KILLER plan for the house, which actually didn't increase the "footprint" (high on our list of requirements, as the lot is not huge and a yard was probably the #1 reason we decided to uproot our two little boys and move). It did involve moving several interior walls, pretty much all the plumbing, and replacing the floor and roof in one room. No biggie.

Then the contractors came. Their evaluation before we put our bid on the house had been that it was structurally sound with a few minor repairs suggested. Now that we really got down to business, they started calling that "Plan A." BUT, if we really wanted to ensure that we weren't inhaling fumes embedded in the walls from years of cigar smoking and/or methamphetamine production AND if we really wanted to feel secure that our house wouldn't spontaneously combust one night as a result of ancient faulty wiring AND if "not falling through rotted flooring" was a quality we really valued in a house, then "Plan B" was really where we wanted to go.

And, no shocker here, Plan B was more expensive. By a lot. So we took a pause to reflect and try to figure out what we could live with for a while. Maybe just throw some cheap carpeting down over the rotten wood floors. And the linoleum and moldy tile floors in the bathroom. Well, maybe we JUST redo the floors. And put a bookcase where that corroded dishwasher now sits in the kitchen. And new doors on the cabinets so they'd actually close... OK, so just the floors AND the kitchen, but that's all. Well, that and the electrical - we HAVE to update the electrical box, and you might as well update the wiring in the walls just to be safe when you do that, and the easiest way to do that is to replace the drywall, and....

So after weeks turned into months of hemming and hawing, we finally just decided to go for it and figure out the "how are we paying for this again?" as we went along. And now it is mid-October, our plans are all submitted to the city, our contractor is almost lined up and we'll be breaking ground on the project any day. I am finally allowing myself to get excited! I can't wait to see our little home taking shape and since I LOVE a good before and after story, I am going to do my best to document ours!

And so it begins... The New New Addition!