That’s great news.
@dragonmom Didn’t you have a main line shut off valve inside the house? I actually have two in my house. One before the water meter and one after the meter in case one should fail in an emergency. Maybe it’s because in my part of the country the idea of finding a Buffalo box under a snowbank might be impossible.
They are not going to live in the house. The entire house needs to be scraped, peeled and painted, all new windows and sliding doors, kitchen replaced and all new flooring. Those types of things cannot happen with elderly occupants. Their furniture is massive, large scale and heavy. It would be impossible to keep moving it around.
Maybe their buyers will agree to a short term post possession rental agreement? It’s not like the seniors would trash the house! We did that after selling our Chicagoland house to a developer and left a few thousand in escrow until we left. Our agreement was rent free for up to six months; just paid insurance, utilities, etc. - doubtful anyone here would do that!
But that would only work if their buyers didn’t want to move into the house ASAP.
They can always stay with your agent, right? :))
Not going to be coralbrook’s problem.
A lot of stuff discussed here is not coralbrook’s problem but we all discuss it anyway.
They have negotiated 3 weeks rent back after the close of escrow. But, because the start date is a moving target, and, they are managing the hiring and scheduling of the other subcontractors, I don’t think they will be able to move in for at least 6-8 weeks. Especially because I think the Mom wants cherry wood cabinets and those will have to be special order. It will take at least 5-6 weeks just to get them delivered before the kitchen can start getting installed.
I keep trying to remind them that windows and kitchen cabinets need to be ordered and can take between 4 to 6 weeks to arrive. Knowing our luck… it will be the Hurry Up and Wait game for the windows and cabinets and then they will all arrive the same week and it will be chaos trying to get everything installed all at the same time.
Just wanted to say, "Bah!’ to the original premise, that a house bought by people in their 70’s should not be decorated to their personal taste (if outdated) because it will probably have to be sold in 10 years.
Lot of my relatives have remained at home until well into their 90’s.
I had a great-aunt whose television had stopped working, except for sound, when she was in her early 80’s. She did not plan to replace it on the grounds that she would “probably die soon.” Luckily, one of my cousins just went out and bought her a new TV. She lived to be 101+.
Agree…they can have whatever they want. It’s just going to be very hard for me to bite my tongue because their taste is not similar to mine. I’m not sure they could point to anything in a magazine or design website to help me go in their direction.
CB, have you suggested they hire a designer to assist them in choosing the fixtures and materials or are you acting as the designer? If so, you will have to take them around to the various wholesalers so they can see what’s available and then help then coordinate it all from there.
Cherry doesn’t have to be stained really dark. Maybe you could steer them more in the direction of a natural cherry finish:
http://www.shilohcabinetry.com/cherry-finishes.html
And a simpler, flat panel door style, especially if inset (I realize that would be more expensive.)
Are you going to be looking for what’s available at HomeDepot and Lowes?
Personally, I like the red cherry stain.
My concern really isn’t ‘where’ we buy the kitchen cabinets. It’s more… how fast can we get cabinets here that will be within their taste and budget? They are at the age that it’s going to be difficult for them to be displaced for very long. They already have 3 pods of stuff off somewhere and minimal furniture at their house they are selling. Based on the size and shape of the stuff in their listing photos, I have no idea where this is all going to go! Although they are not really buying a house that is much smaller (3 bedrooms plus a nice big office), just all single level
Then you should be taking them to see samples now and doing all the ordering asap. For my bathrooms that I just did, everything was ordered 3 months in advance of scheduled date of project to begin to insure everything wouid be delivered in time.
From my recent experience of a gut remodel, I ordered most things online plus Home Depot. There is a deadline for returnable items so I was a bit reluctant to order too far in advance. As of now, I have a few items that I don’t need or that didn’t fit and are not returnable.
I really cannot order anything right now. We need to get into the house and gut out the kitchen so we can do accurate measurements and a new layout design. They want a wall down between kitchen and family room, and it’s very difficult to measure and envision the new design without being in the space (or at least for me). I have to ‘envision’ it. It drives my crew crazy because they want to know where everything is on a paper layout. All I can do is finally figure it out when the space is opened up and then do a layout design. I then put an X on the studs where I want the outlets, stove, plumbing, etc.
No way am I going to put something on paper until I can stand exactly where the sink is going to be and pinpoint the best view… best layout… best flow… best use of every inch of space. I just don’t trust something on paper way ahead of time.
We are planning to meet at the house in about 2 weeks (before their purchase closes escrow) and do accurate measurements of all the replacement windows and doors. We can at least get those ordered as soon as possible. But, probably will not order and pay until they actually have keys in hand because you never know what could happen to cancel the purchase (or sale of their house)!!
I had a meeting at the new Grandma house on Friday to do a lot of measurements to get ready to order the windows. But, once again, the escrow is pushed out another week. So, it looks like we are not going to be able to start this project until about Aug 29 or 30. That is 4 weeks behind when they had scheduled us to start the work. I sure hope that their painter hasn’t disappeared off into the sunset.
Grandma House schedule is getting very complicated!
Turns out that the parents house is closing escrow today. If everything was a perfect world, they would be purchasing the new house tomorrow because the funds are just sitting in the escrow office. But No!!! Somehow the listing agent of new house did not order the termite fumigation and clearance and now they have to wait until this coming weekend because the termite companies are really busy. Since termite clearance is part of the purchase contract, they cannot close the purchase until clearance papers are received on Monday next week.
Why do I care? Because I have a crew that is just sitting around waiting to start work (we were told today was start date) And, because the poor parents negotiated a 3 week rent back on their home. Now, they are wasting one week of that rent back without being able to start the work on their new home towards moving in. They have just added 1 week to their schedule and I have no idea where they are going after their 3 weeks are up (but it is none of my business).
So… I can see where this is going to go. After 2 weeks of demolition and everything torn apart the elderly couple are going to start begging that they can live in the house while we are working on it. I already heard them mumble “Well, we can just eat out all the time”. This is not going to be good for either party. There is just no way to keep dust, debris, trash and noise out of their rooms. For example, they want all the windows and exterior doors replaced. There are going to be days when the windows and doors are torn out and wide open, not to mention in their bedrooms
Ouch! They are much better off at an extended stay hotel. That’s what we did when our house construction got delayed beyond the two months we planned on.
If the listing agent screwed up, they should pay for the grandparents to stay someplace.
The buyer’s agent should have been all over this, too. And the buyers themselves should have been paying close attention to the details.
Plenty of blame to go around here.