OT - EEEEEE I'm going to look at houses Wed!

OH COOL! Do tell every detail... you know how I am about househunting stuff! I like my vicarious thrills... :)

-Kalera

I'm ridiculously excited. I've always rented - first apartments in complexes and then the last few years houses. So I've never done anything like this. I wanna go NOW!

I'm so ready to have a place that's mine, a place to call home.

I'm also open to any suggestions!

Kathy K

How fun, Kathy - good luck!!! My advice on the packing? Throw out and/or give away absolutely EVERYTHING you possibly can. Trust me - you'll wish you did when you finally move!! We pretty much just moved everything, and now I am pulling my hair out trying to find things and get settled.

Carol in SLC Some of my stuff:

If you can stand living in a dump for a while and you're handy, you could try to find something that's a "cosmetic fixer"... they're few and far between these days because most people realize that painting, ripping out old carpet, and replacing a few fixtures will get them lots more money in the long run, but you do find what I call "bucket guy" houses (after a guy I knew who ripped all his gorgeous antique light fixtures out of his house and threw them in a bucket, and put in new cheapo lights, because he "didn't want to deal with" having them rewired) where the owners don't want to/can't deal with doing the minor repairs and just want to get OUT. My house was like that, and for the time being I've painted the faux wood paneling and can live with the shiny black vinyl floor in the bathroom. If you have the time/skills to paint, replace faucets and doorknobs, and other fairly trivial stuff like that (like living with a kitchen straight outta the 70's) you may be able to score a more ideal house in a better location than you could otherwise.

I know it sounds obvious, but I wanted to throw it out there anyway, just in case you were avoiding "fixers".

PS. My tip of the week, after hanging out with Alex the Electrician: depending on your area and the house, a full rewire may cost only around $2000-$3000, which can usually be worked into the contract... so don't let bad wiring scare you away from a good house!

-Kalera

On Tue, 12 Oct 2004 16:10:34 -0400, Kalera Stratton wrote (in message ):

And if you're having _any_ sort of rewiring done, upgrade the service panel. Our first house had a 60 amp service, which is totally inadquate in a modern house. We had the choice of upgrading to a 100 amp service for $900 or a 200 amp service for $1,000.

We picked the 200 amp service, of course, and had the electrician split every circuit to its own circuit breaker. Made life about a thousand percent easier. No more blown fuses, and all the circuits were marked, so I could flip the switches without trying to figure out which one was blown.

Kathy N-V

P.S.: You can save a ton of money by doing all the "plugging and switching" yourself. Electricians hate doing it, because it takes time and they can't charge a lot for it. The electrician will check your work and make the final hookup to the service box. It's very easy, and since you work without the power hooked up, there is no danger.

I am SO excited for you!!

~~ Sooz To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. ~~Joseph Chilton Pearce