Omg today has been a whirlwind and it’s barely noon. Last night we heard from our realtor that estimates had been pulled and to do all the painting required by the appraiser, it is going to cost $3300! The contractor won’t do spot-fixes; he’s quoting each exterior wall, the deck, the window sills, the Japanese bridge, around the garage door and the cement walkway entirely. Like holy shit. He’s also saying he will charge $850 to remove the fence rather than paint it.
All this morning we’ve been back and forth between the two realtors, the lender, the seller and the appraiser. Long story short, the seller is throwing her $500 contribution (outlined in our purchase offer as her cap) to remove the fence, and then we have permission to come do the sanding and painting ourselves this Sunday with friends/family and whoever else we want to hire.
It is absolutely easier to remove the fence, and we actually were going to do this ourselves. It’s sagging, splintering and peeling paint all over. If we only have to pay $350 out of pocket to make it gone - good. We think we can probably get that done cheaper but not sure how fast, so we might just go with this quote from the seller.
Now, everything else - aiyiyi. The bridge is a feature in the Japanese garden and without it, the space looks incomplete. However, we don’t want to shell out cash right now to sand and paint it - it’s a huge pain. Instead right now the plan is to remove it. The appraiser says it has to be gone from the property completely, so I guess it’s coming back here to our current house just to get it gone! We honestly don’t know the status of the wood - if it’s crumbling we will dump it, if it’s just peeling paint, we will get it prettied up and returned in April when we have a bit of time to breathe.
The window sills that have some peeling paint, MisterMoonbeam says he feels like he can handle those. Sand, paint, done. We just need to color match the paint. We own a big ladder so I guess that’s a plus.
The front cement walkway has chips of paint missing, and it’s painted a solid black. I think both BugGirl and her boyfriend are going to tackle that this Sunday - again, sand, paint done. It’s not a long walkway and it shouldn’t take terribly long.
I’m going to have my son and DarkKnight work on scraping the spots on the side of the house and around the garage to get rid of the few areas of peeling paint there on Sunday. I’m not sure if we will need a second ladder or not.
The deck is rather large and the bulk of the work needing done is there. The boards seem okay, but again, paint is peeling. None of us are keen on getting down on our hands and knees and scraping all damn day, and we think we’ve found a solution - outdoor carpeting. It will cost us a couple of hundred dollars, and the appraiser said he’s fine if we cover it up. We either need to use spray adhesive or staple the sides down. The intention is to just get this done and do the work right next summer, so we are going to staple it down. I guess that’s me and SirGawain and my bestie’s job.
I’m guessing we should be able to get all of the work done on Sunday with everyone working together, and for much less than what the contractor wanted! The good news is we can put all of the paint and scrapers and the carpet on the Home Depot credit card, as that’s in DarkKnight’s name. Then we can pay it off the day after closing with MisterMoonbeam’s paycheck. I’ve been running numbers in my head and on paper all day.
Ahhhhhh
We also paid $35 to schedule an appointment on Tuesday for installers to come out to our current house and measure for carpet in MisterMoonbeam’s office. That space is turning into a bedroom for BeanBoy when we leave, and the hardwood has damage from the cats. We’re covering that up. $350 estimate but it will be firmed up once they get the measurements done.
Now that we are home - after a purchase of several medium size boxes - MisterMoonbeam and I are going to finish packing the game room this afternoon.