The Pool

   Something on our wish list for our Texan home was a pool. Tony grew up with swimming in a pool in his backyard in Florida,  I have always enjoyed swimming in a sparkling, clean pool, and Uriah is obsessed with water. We find water to be relaxing, a fun way to exercise, a way to beat the Texas heat, relieve soreness in the spa, and a way to draw people to our home to come and visit :) (OK, maybe that last one is just wishful thinking.) When we lived up North, we knew people who had swimming pools and enjoyed them, but for us it didn't seem worth it to only get to enjoy it 3 months out of the year. The pool season is significantly longer here, especially if you have a heated pool. So we took the plunge (pardon the pun) on our first pool when we bought this house.

  One of the wisest investments you can make at the end of your home buying experience is a home inspection. Often a professional can pinpoint necessary repairs and help you ball park the importance of the issue and the price to fix them. We found this process very valuable with ALL the properties we have purchased. Our inspector made us a good size laundry list for this property.

   This home had one little curve ball that could not be inspected...the pool. As I mentioned before, we bought the pool blindly. It had a cover over it, and underneath it the water was so murky and swamp like you could not see the bottom. Our inspector normally would run the pumps and test the pool equipment, but judging by the sludge in the bottom, he felt it would not be conclusive if not damaging to the equipment. So, it continued to be a question mark.

Not much to see here, folks!

Still covered up...

Pool covered up at inspection. 

   Many times, even pools with green colored water can be fixed with the correct amount of chemicals. But after peeling back the cover, we knew there were not enough chemicals on this PLANET to fix it. The water was absolutely disgusting. We couldn't see the bottom, but what we could see looked like sludge. There were even tadpoles swimming in it! Most importantly, because the internet does not come with Smell-O-Vision, you will have to take my word for it, but the smell was horrendous. Our neighbors admitted to throwing bleach bombs over the fence to help keep the smell and the mosquito population down. (We still love them. In fact, we might love them more:)

First glimpse at the pool with the cover off. Not pretty, and missing some tile.

Close up of the water. That is the first step. You cannot even see the second step 4 inches below it. 

More gratuitous before shots, but you can see the waterfall and the spa here.

Picture from the spa looking toward the house.

The inside of the spa. Hard to see in this picture, but there were beetles all inside the spa.Yuck!

  Plan B was to have a drain and clean done.  During a drain and clean, they drain the pool (duh) and then power wash the inside and clean it (double duh) with a chlorine mixture. If it is not the desired color at that point, you can have an acid wash done. In an acid wash, they pour muratic acid on the sides of the pool and the acid bleaches the plaster so it has a bright clean appearance. An acid wash is not recommended more than once or twice in the lifetime of a pool's plaster, but can buy you some time between plastering.

  While looking for a reputable pool company on Angie's List, I narrowed it down to three companies. (Side note, we LOVE Angie's List! It has been a life saver in finding honest, reputable companies in an area of the country where we don't have a friends and family referral.) They all had a significant range in price, so in the end we went with the cheapest, who also was the most helpful explaining the process. He gave me a price over the phone, sight unseen and sent his crew the next day.

  Just in time too... Tony was working in the yard when a women introduced herself as being from the Board of Health! Apparently, they had sent multiple notices demanding that the pool be emptied. This home was a HUD property so we don't know if the management company ever got these requests, or if they chose to ignore them. Doesn't matter, it was our problem now. Tony let her know we were having it drained the next day. She seemed relieved to have it taken care of, and welcomed us to the neighborhood.

  The crew set up a sump pump in the bottom of the pool, which emptied into the sewer. They said they would leave it running overnight, and come back to clean it the next day. The crew ended up being a young married couple. They both mentioned that they had never seen a pool with the water being the color red, but our definitely was. As to why, we got our answer the next day.

With the sun shining on the water, you can see the reddish tint to the water.

 Those poor people who had to clean our pool! After it was drained you could see there were 6 inches of leaves at the bottom. It  took them two full days to muck out all those leaves, and they filled at least 20 garbage bags full. (I was very grateful I did not go with another company that quoted me a price per bag!) I really wish I had taken a picture of all those bags, but sadly I did not. They also found a dead critter. I do not need to know details, people!

Look at all those leaves! The pool is actually about six deep feet towards the back, but you would never be able to tell because it is FILLED with leaves! The white cord is our Polaris cleaner (I call him Johnny 5). Surprisingly, after soaking him in bleach he still works great :)

  The following day they power washed the inside and cleaned it with a chlorine base. Although it looked much better at this point, it still needed the acid wash to look clean and sanitary. It was cool to watch them use the acid wash. It bubbled and hissed, and worked like a charm. It was finally a white pool. They also said once we get our chemicals balanced, it will continue to bleach the stains out over time.

Right before the acid wash.

Here is the spa acid washed, but the pool below is not. Easy to see the difference. 

Still working on the acid wash.

Steps in progress.

  It took us two days to fill up the pool. When it was finished, we called the pool guys back. They added the chemicals, cleaned our pump, and had to replace a few filters, but nothing major. When they tried to run the water through the pool heater, but it leaked everywhere. We had them reconfigure the plumbing temporarily. We will need to replace the heater at some point, but summertime in Texas is not the time. (FYI, it was 100 degrees today.)

Here is the pool filling up. The dark spots are still leaves! 

Water is a little murky, because the chemicals were just added.

Still filling up, still has lots of leaves in the bottom.

Still murky and has leaves in the bottom.

Water is clearing up, and Johnny (the pool cleaner) got most of the leaves.

  In the winter, we will need to do some other maintenance on it. Namely, repairing the missing tile around the spa, and possibly having it all re plastered and re tiled. The plaster is thin and peeling in some places, and we are looking at this as a way to update and modernize the pool. In the meantime, the pool feels great! I love listening to the waterfall and floating around. The water is clean and we are going to enjoy it this summer and fall, as is. Pool party, anyone?

This is what the water looks like now. As you can see, those trees are the reason for all the leaves.

Gratuitous after  shot. Water is very clear now.

This is the life! Me floating around with the waterfall going. Just need a cocktail :)

The Foundation

  Again, I have to apologize for not getting blog posts done quickly! I was going to try to blog real time and share each step with you, but the truth of the matter is...we are crazy busy and there was no time! Also, during my son's second birthday party, my camera battery completely died. Where is the charger you ask? In storage in Indiana! Grrr... (Be prepared for lots of phone pictures. ) A lot of our projects ended up overlapping (which is confusing) and it is hard to quantify the time we spend preparing  for each project. It takes a lot of organization to coordinate contractors, manage budgets, and still keep our little buddy happy while not letting him touch anything in the new house until the new floor is in. Yeah, that didn't go well... Also, only one person was asking for updates anyway. (Hi, Mom!) So I will be giving a recap of each project from here on out. So without further ado...The Foundation!

   I may have mentioned this before, but one of the reasons we got such a good deal on this place was because it had foundation issues. We knew this going into it, and were willing to make the repairs. In Texas, the soil is so dry that eventually everyone has foundation problems. In fact, our Realtor said he has clients that would rather buy a house with it already fixed than take the chance on new construction. We knew this would be one of the first repairs we had to do. There were many cracks in the drywall, the doors didn't shut properly, and even the bricks on the outside were splitting. The company that we chose got excellent reviews from Angie's List, was competitively priced, and provided a transferable lifetime guarantee for their work.

    Prior to moving to Texas, I had no idea how you would begin to fix a foundation. Here it is no big deal. Basically, they dig all around the low spots of your house, (they use some electrical doodad to find them)  send a man in the newly dug up hole to pile up concrete blocks called piers, then they jack the house up with a hydraulic lift, add more piers, some cement, and presto...you have a level house! The crew they sent was 10 guys and they had to shovel by hand 16 holes. If none of this made sense, here is the explanation in picture form :)

Here you can see half the crew getting to work digging up the  east corner of the house. If you look closely, you can see the side fractured brick line.

Here are the pier bases they put in the bottom of each hole.

The round concrete peg-like shapes are the piers. As you can see, we needed quite a  few. 16 to be exact. 

They had to tear up part of our front porch even. Don't worry they fixed it :)

More destruction on the other side of the porch. 

Someone had to supervise...notice how clean he is.

Hard to tell in a picture,but this guy is average height and not sitting down setting piers.

Here on the right, you can see the jack they used to lift the house up.

More progress on the porch. 

Our poor plants took a beating, but survived to tell about it. 

Quite a few holes had to be dug in our raised bed in the front. 

Here they are finishing up, putting all the dirt back. 

They even had extra fill dirt to line the other side of the house. 

    It took them all day 8-5, but I was amazed how quickly they worked. They said they raised the house an inch and a half. It doesn't sound like much, but already we can see a  big change in the house. Doors that never opened right suddenly are, and cracks are much smaller and less noticeable. Ironically, the new locks we had just changed needed to be adjusted. Because of the new shifting they no longer lined up. A little tweaking and we were secure once again.

  Although, our house is all squared away now, we were told we can expect to have more or less cracking for up to 6 weeks while the house is resettling. We were debating on having the inside of the house painted while it was empty, but it doesn't seem worth it if we were going to be getting more cracks. We will have to see how all of this works out.

   Just so you are all clear, we are still living in our apartment while we complete the bulk of the renovation. When we move in, we will not be completed, but we want a bulk of the dirty work behind us. Namely, scraping and re-texturizing the ceilings, building a wall and a closet, reconfiguring the kitchen lay out, and of course new flooring! Our stuff has been in storage for 4 months, and although we are anxious to be reunited with it, we know at this stage it will just get in the way. We are hoping to get our stuff in about a month, but that only works if everything else lines up perfectly. So far we are on schedule, but in home improvement you need to expect the unexpected! Even still, we are so happy to be working toward our our new dream home, one project at a time.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

   My last post kind of kept you hanging. Sorry! It was my intention to come back sooner with house details, but closing got pushed back again, again, then we had a name issue to fix, had to wait for an addendum  ect... to make a long story short, we just got a closing date. We close next week, and I, for one, am so excited to get started!
   Remember when I told you Tony and I didn't want a fixer upper? Well, isn't my face red, because that is what we have on our hands. For those of you who don't know, Tony and I are pretty handy. We have flipped before and typically go into a house with the intention of changing it to make it more personal anyway. This has significantly slowed down ever since our little man has joined the party. So this time, we decided if we were going to do a fixer upper, we were going to hire most of the work out. So keep that in mind as you hear about the house...

Outside of our new house!

  The Good
  One of the first things that struck us about this house was the location. As I mentioned before, Tony is still not certain which plant he will be working at, so our best bet was to stay centralized. Our house is in Richardson, Texas which is south of Mckinney (where Tony currently works) but north of Dallas. His commute is 30 minutes, and it is 30 minutes to downtown Dallas. It is located 5 minutes of Highway 75 (the main traffic lane going north and south) and 5 minutes from the George Bush Turnpike (which circles the Dallas/Ft. Worth area). In short, it is a commuters dream, and gives us more flexibility if circumstances or jobs change in the future.
  The other awesome thing about the location, is that we have a park right across the street from our house! One of the sacrifices we have had to deal with is smaller lot sizes in Texas. This house is no exception, but having the park and playground right across the street makes us feel like we have a big yard. We don't even have to mow it! It is a good sized park with jogging trails all around it, two playgrounds, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, basketball courts, and a fishing pond. I would compare it to Foster Park (for the Fort Fun locals :).

Park sign. 

This playground and pavilion is right across the street.

Move of the playground. 

  We wanted a house with room to grow. The house has plenty of room for our family currently, our friends to visit, and family to snow bird.  In addition, it does have the swimming pool and spa we wanted, but takes up the whole backyard. (Good thing we can kick a ball across the street.) The only compromise we had to make was the three car garage. It would have been nice to have all that extra storage attached, but it has a large shed which will work just fine.
  For it's size and location, it was significantly under priced. We knew it was a HUD house. This typically means the property had some distress and was neglected until the bank foreclosed on it. You never know what condition a HUD house can be in. We have seen gorgeous ones with granite counter tops and wood floors, and we have literally seen one with a turd in the toilet  (No joke.) Generally, these houses are priced well, because they need some work. This one is no exception, but very manageable. We put in a low ball offer, and surprisingly the house was ours.

The Bad
  Although we feel we are getting a great house in an ideal location for a good value, it is going to be a lot of work! The house was built in 1982, and most things are original to the time period. If you don't know what that means, I will tell you: wallpaper, brass hardware, almond appliances,  out dated bathrooms, closed in kitchens, and our personal favorite popcorn ceilings!
  All of those are things we have had to tackle in other renovation projects. A new one to our list is the pool. As I mentioned, it was a HUD house, so our pool currently looks more like a swamp. We have tadpoles. NO, I am not joking. We are calling in the professionals on this one! Buying a house and not being able to inspect the pool (due to its swamp like conditions) was a risk, but we have budgeted for worse case scenario.

Covered porch to enjoy the pool.

Under the tarp is the pool, the spa, and a waterfall feature.

Where's Waldo? Can you spot the ducks on top of our pool?

View from the fence to the back door.

The Ugly
   If those aren't enough to scare you off, I have one thing that I know will...1,000s of sq feet of BLUE tile and BLUE carpet! Seriously, it is everywhere. And it is cracked, it is stained, and it smells, and was that ever in style?!?! Needless to say, we are replacing it.

Loft. Not sure what I want to do with these steps. They remind me of choir risers.

Upstairs bedroom.

Living room. It is bigger than it looks. Half and half flooring makes it look  puny!

 Hopefully the next set of pictures will give you a better idea of why we fell in love with this house. The bones are good, the location is great, and by the time we are done with it, it won't be recognizable. The next few weeks will be busy as we try to get the major projects completed so we can finally get our stuff out of storage! I will keep you updated with before and afters as we keep on going.

Laundry room. Off the kitchen, door is the garage. So excited to have a sink!

Built in china cabinet in the kitchen. To the left is the pantry. Uriah photo bomb. 

Wall between the kitchen and the family room is soon to be gonzo!

Kitchen. I have big plans for this space. I think this will be the most dramatic room yet!

Dining room. I love all the molding in this room. 

Master bedroom.

Funky room off the master bedroom. Not sure what we are doing with this space?

Foyer. All the stairs I am going to have to vacuum! Hi, Tom :)

Foyer view. That light fixture has got to go!

Loft area. We are thinking of closing off the top loft area for a "man cave" for Tony.

Loft. More choir risers. What would you put along that awkward wall?

Door from loft to second floor porch. 

Walk in attic. So much more convenient for storage than the pull down stairs. Chevy  Chase, anyone?

Room over the garage. An addition that feels like an addition. Needs some TLC.

Steps of the addition to the pool below. 

Rec room. We are thinking of making this a playroom for Uriah. 

Family room. Love the fireplace, the built ins, the moldings, and the soon to be view of the pool. 

Foyer. Lots of closet space to fill!

Garage and shed.