Two weeks ago, we sat in a classroom in the corporate offices of Estridge with about 30 other people while the president of the company explained that there was no money, that our homes might get finished, and they would not be honoring the guaranteed buy-out agreement that we'd signed in September.
Essentially, the buy-out agreement says that Estridge will purchase Don's house at a set price if it doesn't sell by the time our new house is done. With the news that they weren't going to honor that, we knew that it changed the entire financial picture and could even mean that we wouldn't be able to close on the new house.
Over the next several days, there were multiple news reports about the financial instability of the company, where it was headed, and what the impact would be to the 41 people who had homes already construction.
With so many unknowns and the very real possibility that we may never get to live in the home we've spent 13 months designing, saving for, and dreaming of, I alternated between panic and wallow. Fortunately, Don is far more level-headed and reasonable in these situations. He's stayed positive and reminded me over and over again that nothing was certain, and that we needed to this wait this out.
Meanwhile, our house progressed. We met with the electrician to mark where each outlet should go. HVAC systems were installed. Fire caulking was done. There have been no real delays in the building process.
Last night we met again with an Estridge VP. We came out of that meeting about 80% sure that they've worked out a resolution to our guaranteed buy-out concerns. We'll know more in the next 48 hours or so. So it's not quite time to celebrate yet, but it's definitely some of the best news we've gotten in the past couple of weeks!
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
A Change of Address
On March 17, 2006, I closed on my first house. Exactly five years later, I got and accepted an offer from someone wanting to rent that house on a long-term lease. The house has been on the market since November, and while showings had been steady, there just isn't much moving on the real estate market here. We played with some numbers and determined that renting out my house could be a very good option for us. Within 24 hours of listing it as a rental property, four people were interested in seeing it.
The tenant wanted to move in very quickly, which meant I had to get my things out very quickly. Originally, we'd planned on having a POD delivered and then stored until we were ready to move it to the new house in a couple of months. With the uncertainty of whether we'd ever actually have that opportunity, we decided at the last minute to just rent a U-Haul and move my things into Don's basement. After all, I didn't have that much stuff.
As it turns out, I have a lot of stuff.
That's the second truckload. Don and our friend, John, had already unloaded the first truckload into Don's garage, living room, dining room, and den. This was after three carloads of stuff was dropped off at Goodwill. Don's mom, Candy, was a HUGE help throughout day - making those Goodwill runs, cleaning out the refrigerator, scrubbing the bathrooms, and steam cleaning the carpets. Her being there easily took hours off the time I would've been at the house. I'm so grateful for her help!
We were done before it was dark, and seeing the empty, clean house reminded me why I bought it in the first place. I'm so glad I have an excellent tenant moving in tomorrow. I have no doubt that it will be in good hands, and I'm optimistic that the rental scenario will be a positive thing. Here's to hoping it's the start of a string of good luck! We leave for Las Vegas in about 36 hours, so a little luck couldn't hurt!
Moving ...
I'm several posts behind, I know. I still need to post about Estridge's news and how it's affecting us, updates at the house, and adventures in furniture refinishing. To put it mildly, we're busy. And overwhelmed.
This weekend, we moved my furniture and lots and lots of miscellany out of my house. While I've been living at Don's house for some time, I still had most of my stuff in my own home, 8 miles away. With an awesome, long-term tenant moving in this week (I need to post about that, too ... someday), I had to empty out that house pretty quickly.
There's more to come on why we chose to pile it up at Don's house rather than a storage unit, but for now, here's a sneak peek at what we're living with.
As badly as we need to sell Don's house, I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have any showing requests in the next 48 hours.
This weekend, we moved my furniture and lots and lots of miscellany out of my house. While I've been living at Don's house for some time, I still had most of my stuff in my own home, 8 miles away. With an awesome, long-term tenant moving in this week (I need to post about that, too ... someday), I had to empty out that house pretty quickly.
There's more to come on why we chose to pile it up at Don's house rather than a storage unit, but for now, here's a sneak peek at what we're living with.
As badly as we need to sell Don's house, I'm crossing my fingers that we don't have any showing requests in the next 48 hours.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Likely Ceasing Operations - A Repost
Update Monday, March 28: I originally posted this on Tuesday, March 15, before we knew much of anything. I removed it from the blog a few minutes later. If you read updates through a reader, you may have still seen it. The past two weeks have been very interesting. Tomorrow, I'll post an update.
Earlier today, 86 days after we broke ground on our home, we received an email from the President of Estridge, Paul Estridge Jr., summoning us to the corporate office for an urgent meeting this evening to update us on "where Estridge is headed in this banking climate and how that could impact you and your home going forward."
About an hour later, I saw this tweet from the Indianapolis Star:
This is the text of the article that it links to, and there is apparently a larger, more in-depth story in tomorrow's paper.
Earlier today, 86 days after we broke ground on our home, we received an email from the President of Estridge, Paul Estridge Jr., summoning us to the corporate office for an urgent meeting this evening to update us on "where Estridge is headed in this banking climate and how that could impact you and your home going forward."
About an hour later, I saw this tweet from the Indianapolis Star:
This is the text of the article that it links to, and there is apparently a larger, more in-depth story in tomorrow's paper.
The Estridge Group said today that it likely will cease operations unless it is able to find private investors or a new line of credit.
The 43-year-old Carmel homebuilder said its “philosophy has always been to pay the banks first in order to maintain our lines of credit, and now it’s the banks that are killing us by killing the lines of credit.”
Estridge has 25 new homes that have been sold but it said it can’t build them because the banks won’t loan money.
“Unless we can find a private investor or a commercial bank to give us a line of credit, we will have to shut down,” the company said in a statement.
If that happens, another builder will be brought in to finish houses Estridge has under construction and the company will return deposits to those who have money down.
We are one of those 25 homes. This is to be continued, of course ...
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Wet
Typically by now, I'm so over winter that it could rain non-stop and I wouldn't complain just because it wasn't snowing. Unfortunately, that's about what it's been doing, so our back yard looks like this:
We have a moat! We were over at the house over the weekend and I snapped this picture of Don using the giant squeegee to push some water out of the basement.
With the back door not being installed yet (though I'm told it was installed earlier today), and the high winds we've had with all the rain, there was just no avoiding the water coming in.
Meanwhile, I'm less than excited to see this on the radar this afternoon:
At least it isn't snow.
We have a moat! We were over at the house over the weekend and I snapped this picture of Don using the giant squeegee to push some water out of the basement.
With the back door not being installed yet (though I'm told it was installed earlier today), and the high winds we've had with all the rain, there was just no avoiding the water coming in.
Meanwhile, I'm less than excited to see this on the radar this afternoon:
At least it isn't snow.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Shower Sadness
There has been some confusion and concern over the shower in the master bedroom for the past few weeks.
Namely, it's tiny.
When we were choosing a floorplan, we walked through every model home that Estridge has in the area, including some that weren't actually models, but someone's home. There were parts of many of them that we loved, but none of them were exactly what we wanted. We met with Mr. Estridge himself one afternoon and discussed what we had in mind. A few days later, his architects had completely redesigned the plan, especially on the second floor. This included a complete overhaul of the master bathroom to include the extended tub that we wanted, an enlarged closet, and less unfinished storage space. We loved it. It was exactly what we'd been picturing, and included a window seat and multiple showerheads. I was sold.
What we failed to notice, however, was that the bathroom resdesign meant a much smaller shower stall. It makes sense. We probably lost 18 inches by upgrading the tub, and those inches have to come from somewhere (the tub was on the opposite wall, under the window, in the original design). To compound our ignorance, our purchase agreement that lists all of our finishes - everything from carpet selections to what faucets we chose - lists a shower base measuring 34" by 48". Plenty big, and similar to what is in Don's house now.
As we watched the framing happen, we did question whether or not that area was big enough for that size pan. We were gently reminded that "everything looks smaller during the framing process." We accepted that and let it go. After all, our purchase agreement clearly showed the dimensions.
Fast forward to a few days ago. Through a series of emails, it was determined that our signed purchase agreement was wrong. That shower base would not possibly fit in the space. We considered not using a fiberglass base at all, and tiling the entire thing so we could extend it out further into the room. We learned that would add more than $3300 to the cost of the home. We passed (though we may do that on our own sometime later).
We're disappointed that our upgraded master bath won't be what we'd envisioned. We're disappointed that we didn't realize earlier that our signed purchase agreement was incorrect. And we're disappointed that no one at Estridge noticed the error sooner, or alerted us to it once they discovered it. It took us digging and pushing the issue, only to learn that we really had no reasonable options at this point.
So, this will be our shower.
It's itty-bitty, but at least we'll have a bench!
Namely, it's tiny.
When we were choosing a floorplan, we walked through every model home that Estridge has in the area, including some that weren't actually models, but someone's home. There were parts of many of them that we loved, but none of them were exactly what we wanted. We met with Mr. Estridge himself one afternoon and discussed what we had in mind. A few days later, his architects had completely redesigned the plan, especially on the second floor. This included a complete overhaul of the master bathroom to include the extended tub that we wanted, an enlarged closet, and less unfinished storage space. We loved it. It was exactly what we'd been picturing, and included a window seat and multiple showerheads. I was sold.
What we failed to notice, however, was that the bathroom resdesign meant a much smaller shower stall. It makes sense. We probably lost 18 inches by upgrading the tub, and those inches have to come from somewhere (the tub was on the opposite wall, under the window, in the original design). To compound our ignorance, our purchase agreement that lists all of our finishes - everything from carpet selections to what faucets we chose - lists a shower base measuring 34" by 48". Plenty big, and similar to what is in Don's house now.
As we watched the framing happen, we did question whether or not that area was big enough for that size pan. We were gently reminded that "everything looks smaller during the framing process." We accepted that and let it go. After all, our purchase agreement clearly showed the dimensions.
Fast forward to a few days ago. Through a series of emails, it was determined that our signed purchase agreement was wrong. That shower base would not possibly fit in the space. We considered not using a fiberglass base at all, and tiling the entire thing so we could extend it out further into the room. We learned that would add more than $3300 to the cost of the home. We passed (though we may do that on our own sometime later).
We're disappointed that our upgraded master bath won't be what we'd envisioned. We're disappointed that we didn't realize earlier that our signed purchase agreement was incorrect. And we're disappointed that no one at Estridge noticed the error sooner, or alerted us to it once they discovered it. It took us digging and pushing the issue, only to learn that we really had no reasonable options at this point.
So, this will be our shower.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Laundry - with reader participation!
Don and I have very different laundry habits. He'll do a load every other day, if not every day. I can go weeks before I'll run out of clean clothes to wear. Then I'll spend an entire day doing load after load to get caught up.
Don also prefers to use his laundry room as a closet and dressing room to avoid those exhausting trips up and down the stairs.
So, it should be no surprise that we have differing opinions on the laundry situation at the new house.
The floor plan calls for a lovely laundry room on the main floor, right off the of the mudroom. It will have lovely shelving, a separate lovely wash tub, and eventually a lovely counter and maybe some lovely cabinets.
See? Lovely.
However, Don is convinced that we'll ultimately wish we'd put the laundry room on the second floor near all of the bedrooms. I've taken several informal polls of friends and family, and the results are pretty mixed. So, we compromised. This house will have TWO laundry rooms. One for each of us, I suppose!
Fortunately, there was a perfect spot for a second level laundry room that didn't require changing any layouts or making any rooms smaller. It just meant adding some extra plumbing and electrical work. I'm sure it's far more complicated than that for the people installing it, but it seems pretty minor to me.
The dryer vent in that photo is in the wrong place, but it's been fixed since the photo was taken.
I've persuaded Don to put our washer and dryer in the main-floor laundry room to start. If we hate it, I'll agree to move it upstairs. In the meantime, the rough-in for the upstairs will be entirely concealed and we'll use that space for storage.
So, here's the question. Which laundry room would you use? I've created a little poll over to the right of the page. Voting is anonymous, so we won't know who chose which side!
Don also prefers to use his laundry room as a closet and dressing room to avoid those exhausting trips up and down the stairs.
So, it should be no surprise that we have differing opinions on the laundry situation at the new house.
The floor plan calls for a lovely laundry room on the main floor, right off the of the mudroom. It will have lovely shelving, a separate lovely wash tub, and eventually a lovely counter and maybe some lovely cabinets.
See? Lovely.
However, Don is convinced that we'll ultimately wish we'd put the laundry room on the second floor near all of the bedrooms. I've taken several informal polls of friends and family, and the results are pretty mixed. So, we compromised. This house will have TWO laundry rooms. One for each of us, I suppose!
Fortunately, there was a perfect spot for a second level laundry room that didn't require changing any layouts or making any rooms smaller. It just meant adding some extra plumbing and electrical work. I'm sure it's far more complicated than that for the people installing it, but it seems pretty minor to me.
The dryer vent in that photo is in the wrong place, but it's been fixed since the photo was taken.
I've persuaded Don to put our washer and dryer in the main-floor laundry room to start. If we hate it, I'll agree to move it upstairs. In the meantime, the rough-in for the upstairs will be entirely concealed and we'll use that space for storage.
So, here's the question. Which laundry room would you use? I've created a little poll over to the right of the page. Voting is anonymous, so we won't know who chose which side!
Thursday, March 3, 2011
At Least We'll Be Clean
Over the past few days, we've seen the plumbing pipes and tubes go in. It's nice to see something other than two-by-four after two-by-four. Now we have red and blue tubes to break things up a little bit.
Then they started installing the bathtubs. I had no real reason for it, but somehow I figured these tub and shower stalls would come in much, much later in the process. Nevertheless, they're in.
That is one of the upstairs guest bathrooms, and I got the shower curtain for it for Christmas. It's already packed away, but I've considered going over and hanging it up. You know, just to liven things up over there.
That is the tub in the master bathroom. We splurged on an extra-long tub (we're tall!), but it's difficult to tell from this picture with no real frame of reference. The shower stall will be to the left of that - more on that in a separate post coming soon - and the toilet is in a little room off to the right of the tub.
It's not the greatest picture (all of these pictures were taken on Don's iPhone, actually), but that's the shower stall in the basement bathroom. I love the little seats.
Up next - laundry!
You can click on the pictures to see them bigger. It's kind of cool to see all the inner-workings going up, knowing that it's all going to be covered up very soon.
Then they started installing the bathtubs. I had no real reason for it, but somehow I figured these tub and shower stalls would come in much, much later in the process. Nevertheless, they're in.
That is one of the upstairs guest bathrooms, and I got the shower curtain for it for Christmas. It's already packed away, but I've considered going over and hanging it up. You know, just to liven things up over there.
That is the tub in the master bathroom. We splurged on an extra-long tub (we're tall!), but it's difficult to tell from this picture with no real frame of reference. The shower stall will be to the left of that - more on that in a separate post coming soon - and the toilet is in a little room off to the right of the tub.
It's not the greatest picture (all of these pictures were taken on Don's iPhone, actually), but that's the shower stall in the basement bathroom. I love the little seats.
Up next - laundry!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)