The House

Ok, I've been slacking on the blog but now I have some exciting news to blog about. Well it's probably not news to anyone anymore, but I thought I'd blog about it nonetheless since I'm UBER excited about the whole thing.

The news (for those of you who might not know)!? I'm buying a house!!!

It's 95% of the way there (the purchase process). Just waiting on the window company to get back to me with an estimate for new windows and doors so I can get that rolled into the mortgage then I'm off to secure financing. Then…then…then IT'S TIME! Time to gut that pig's basement and time to refinish all the hardwood upstairs and lay some tile in the kitchen and washroom upstairs and new sinks, and new shower downstairs, and then, and then and then….HAHA, WOOT!

I know it's going to cost me a bunch, but screw it! Yah, that's right SCREW IT! I want to make this project brand new so I don't have to worry about any renovating for years to come. It's got tons of potential and I'm going to bring it to it's prime again!

As I said, the upstairs is all hardwood and the interior doors are all two-toned pine that are in mint condition! The baseboards are 5 – 6 inches wide and it's all old oak! Oh, and for those of you who don't know…a cement truck ripped down the telephone line going to the house last week and in doing so tore off half the siding on one half of the house…OH NO RIGHT?! WRONG, apparently they don't make that shitty aluminum siding anymore, so the current home owners' insurance has to pay to repair it, meaning that they most likely have to reside the ENTIRE house with new siding! HAHA, so new windows, doors, the roof is new and now FREE new siding! How sweet is that?

Oh, and a bunch of other nice features too, like a fire place upstairs (wood) and newer cupboards, etc…!

WAWAWEEWA! I can't wait to get started. Hmmm, I get three weeks vacation at the beginning of July, perhaps I'll use a week of that to bust my ass at the house…we'll see.

Anyhow, assuming everything goes as planned I'll be having a house warming party in the late summer / early fall!

Cheers!
Andrew

Monday…

Hello my peeps…

Well it’s Monday (YES!) and I am so happy to be awake right now (11:18am). OK OK, so I’d rather be in bed sleeping…so sue me!

I’m not sure what to blog about today so I’m going to go with a pretty “broken” blog if you will and discuss a few things that have made their way through my head this morning…

First off, the election is just around the corner (2 weeks or so) and I (along with Matt) are feeling a bit ill to hear that the Conservatives (Steven Harper – Bush luvin’ bastard) are in the lead. Anyhow, this drives me nuts because the only reason people are (as far as I can tell) even considering voting for the Conservatives is because the Liberals were caught with their hand in the cookie jar! Perhaps there are a select few who actually agree with the points the Conservatives are pushing but in reality a large part of their campaign is riding the fact that liberals gave away a few million bucks. Alright, I don’t agree with the fact that the Liberals were stealing from us, and I think they should be punished (and I believe they are being punished right now by having the polls “scare” them), but I don’t agree with letting the Conservatives take power because – and let’s be honest here – whoever is in there is going to steal! As much as I hate it, it’s true! And with that being said, at least the Liberals were giving it to Canadian companies (as far as I know)…BUT, if Harper gets in there he’ll sell the whole country to the Americans! If Harper was in there during the Iraq fiasco our troops would have been over there and our economy would be doing about as well as our neighbour’s to the South. Bottom line is they all steal, so why go with that blue eyed FREAK SHOW and risk having him sell us to his good buddy Bush rather then let the economy continue to be the best it’s been in years and allow health care to continue receiving funding…my two cents…discuss!

Next on my mind is the weekend…I had my mortgage meeting. The meeting went well, found out what my borrowing power is as well as some good tips about renting. I also dog sat, which, was an adventure! Ummm, oh and then there was the fact that my brother has ALL the luck in our family (trade off I guess, I got the looks and the brians – OHHHH, can’t wait to see what you guys say to that). I say that because he won all $460 that was in the pot this weekend for poker! That bastard…he couldn’t lose!

And finally, I read an article detailing how some archaeologists in Guatemala discovered the earliest Mayan writing beneath some pyramid! They dated the sucker using carbon dating (like Lavalife I think – just a little different) and the writing was 2300 years old! DAMN that’s old…apparently they are having trouble deciphering it (YA THINK!?) but they think there is a word representing “ruler” in there some where. My guess is some guy was bored and wrote “Jo Mamma was here” or “For a good time call Chaaktemal” or something like that.

Cheers!
Andrew

“We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients. But we can’t scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me.”

-Jack Handey

Mortgage Meeting…

My reader(s) are disturbed due to the fact that I haven’t blogged yet today so I’ve been put on the spot, which, of course is going to result in a blog regarding my daily life.  With that being said, my life is pretty boring these days so the most exciting thing I can blog about is my upcoming mortgage meeting (this Friday at 2pm).

This is a “milestone” event for me as I have been wishing for a place of my own the last couple of years but I kept telling myself to wait until I was in a better financial situation.  Well, I am now debt free and I’m investing 87% of my monthly income (previous blog postings already indicate this I know) so it’s time I start researching what it is a can afford and when I should buy to take advantage of…let me rephrase that…when I should buy so that I take it up the arse as little as possible (Randall – insert witty comment here).

Anyhow, so the day has come for me to begin researching.  I heard (thanks Matt) that the interest rates are projected to have increased by one and a quarter percent by the fall.  Although that doesn’t sound like much, add that to the current interest rates and stretch it out over 20 – 25 years on a $250 000 – $300 000 mortgage…YEEAAH, it adds up.  So my dilemma?  Welllll, I was planning on saving for the next 10 months or so, so that I could take advantage of the lower house prices in the fall (prices drop in the fall because people want to sell before the winter – just an FYI Randall).  However, I’m not sure that will be worth it now that the interest rates are supposed to jump!  Argh, anyhow, here I go stressing about things I have absolutely no clue about!  I guess I’ll feel better (or worse perhaps) come Friday!

Oh well, I guess no matter what happens I’m getting a house this year…mind you I could just stay at home for the next 20 years and have enough saved up to buy a place with cash and then I wouldn’t have to worry about any of this crap!

-Robert Barone