State of the House

I recently refinanced the house as part of our separation agreement. This removes the responsibility for the house from Rita in case something happens to me, financially or otherwise. It’s a big sigh of relief for her as this isn’t over her head plus the refinance lets me lower the payments a bit.

I wasn’t in all that much of a hurry to get it done although our agreement says by Jan 2015. I started back in January or February with a recommendation. Contacted them and started getting stuff together. They needed the separation agreement so they could see what I was paying Rita plus the normal pay stubs and tax records. I had to clear up a couple of items on the credit report, no biggie. Plus the separation agreement wasn’t 100% accurate since it was before Rita got her place in Virginia. So I updated it with accurate information, sent it to Rita for approval and Notary stamps and forwarded it along with a letter explaining what changed and why. The county wouldn’t let me submit an updated separation agreement, only updates to maintenance. Since that part didn’t really change no update could be done. Rita also had to submit a quit claim deed giving up her rights to the house.

Anyway with the paperwork done and approved by the underwriter, the refinance went through on September 19th. I stopped in at the finance office and signed or initialed 70 or so documents. I was expecting to pay about $100 but in fact got back $641. The payments are lowered about $200 a month plus I get to skip October’s payment. I am expecting an escrow dispersal from Wells Fargo as well of around $1,500.

Plus Rita got a job starting around October 20th. This helps her because she’ll be self supporting plus her income will be a bit more than the support checks I’ve been sending her. She’s on her feet again 🙂 I’ll be able to do some of the more one time costly updates to the house vs the little bit at a time updates I’ve been doing. And since she’s getting paid, she’ll be sending me her mortgage payments until she can take over her mortgage (I’m paying it now as it’s in my name). It may take a little while but that’ll get done in a year or two.

From the house perspective I’ve been gradually replacing the ancient carpet. The last carpet guy said it was at least 20 years old based on the pad he pulled up. I’ve replaced the downstairs living room carpet, one of the downstairs bedrooms, and the master bedroom carpet. I just paid to have the second downstairs bedroom replaced which completes the basement as far as carpet. I’ve also been replacing plugs and switches since the existing ones have been painted over several times. They’re also quite old and in some places either broken or just don’t have enough tension to hold a plug. Not good at all.

I intend on replacing the carpet in the dining room with hardwood; a medium light/dark color. Plus there’s a spotlight in the ceiling vs a chandelier. I checked out the local lamp store and found one that I like the look of. That’ll be the next purchase (with the October skipped mortgage check). Once that’s done, I’ll have the last two bedrooms and living room to do and that’ll be completed.

Next year I’ll be looking at putting a deck over the concrete patio. It’s 10×30 I think and has sunk in different spots. I can put a simple deck in for a reasonable cost and with the new materials, I can have a beige deck (matches the house) with a green pattern (matches the shed). Should look pretty good. I also have a treehouse picture I scraped from Facebook that I’ll plan and execute. Plus putting in the patio in front of the shed and trim around the west side of the house for the flowers and a pad for the two trash cans.

Other than that, painting the bedrooms downstairs, building gaming book cases, getting the basement organized, and of course the plug and switch replacements. Mostly minimal but time consuming stuff.

There are a few more things in the works but farther out.