I’m nearly complete with the house projects for the VA loan refinance. Well, hopefully done. I have the inspection tonight to ensure I completed all the deficiencies. Projects done for the refinance:
1. Repaint the dining room.
2. Touch up trim in the kitchen and living room
3. Add hand rails and knee rail to the basement stairs
4. Add hand rail and top rail to the garage stairs (to the second floor)
5. Paint the garage
6. Add hand rail and knee rail to the stairs in the workshop
7. Paint trim on the workshop
8. Scrape and paint the front porch
9. Install hand rail on both sides of steps off the front porch (I paid for that to be done)
10. Install hand rail down stone stairs in front yard (I paid for that to be done)
11. Install hand rail on open side of back stairs (again paid to be done)
12. Finish hand rail down front stairs (it was scraped, it needed to be finished). I also still have to add the two balusters – they are in the basement waiting for the paint to dry. I’ll do that when I get home tonight before the inspection.
Now pictures of what was done:
Newly installed railing for back stairsNew railings on front stairs and painted porch.
I will repaint the foundation one of these days to the proper shade of green.
This is a color scheme based on the Sherwin-Williams historic Victorian exterior colors. Concord Buff for most of the house and barns, with Rookwood Dark Green for the trim and Rookwood dark brown for accents.
Here is the house as it stands:
Right now it is white with almost none of the trim painted green. Get rid of the ugly storm windows, and nicer green wood storm windows. But what to do with the enclosed porch. It is pretty ugly.
I am slowly getting projects done. I had wanted to finish Ben’s room first – but the requirements for getting a VA loan to refinance the house is making me do a lot of smaller projects first. I have to paint the barn and scrape and paint the front porch. I painted the dining room. I had to add handrails to all the stairs, even those in the barn (which I admit isn’t really a bad thing). It is kind of a pain – the VA doesn’t care if we have homeless veterans, but god forbid that they live in a house with peeling paint on the barn (or front porch).
A picture of the dining room prepared for paintingThe dining room after repainting
SCENE 1
[AT A SMALL PIZZA SHOP IN THE OUTSKIRTS OF STOCKHOLM NEAR CLOSING TIME]
S: WHAT KIND OF PIZZA DO YOU WANT?
C: WHATEVER YOU WANT.
S: ARE YOU SURE, HOW ABOUT SHRIMP AND FETA CHEESE
C: SOUNDS GOOD
S: WHAT DO YOU WANT?
C: THAT SOUNDS GOOD.
[S SPEAKS TO CASHIER IN SWEDISH. GROUP STANDS AROUND FOR A FEW MINUTES]
S: MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE ONLY ORDERED ONE PIZZA
C: (SURPRISED) HOW MANY DID YOU ORDER?
S: (JUST AS SURPRISED) TWO, OF COURSE. HOW MANY DID YOU THINK I ORDERED?
C: UH, ONE?
Finally we had painting weather today. Okay, mid 50’s but a bit windy. I spent a bit getting the new paint sprayer set up. I had to go to Home Depot for a second 5 gallon bucket of paint, and still ran out (you can see the the top corner that I will need to finish). So, after a couple of hours of work, and very wet shoes from working in the mess behind the barn (which you can see still needs to be cleaned up).
The dogs had a wonderful day outside… Tucker is starting to do a lot better staying in the yard. Now for an evening taking it easy…
We decided, after much fussing, to have our pizza dinner as a picnic. We watched a movie in the theater on the base today, so we didn’t have our normal pizza-movie night. Tomorrow the weather should support painting the barn.
Today we had rain. And snow. Luckily the snow didn’t stick. The boys were up early, and had no problems getting the bus. I started thinking about selling the house this summer (if the refinance falls through) – but I’m tired of moving and that would create its own stresses. More on that later.
I’ve been working on fixing the list of discrepancies in the house that the home inspector identified. The biggest pain in the rear will be the exterior painting. I have to scrap and paint the front porch, paint the trim on the barn and paint the carriage house (I think I’ll rent a paint sprayer for that job).
I have been working on adding handrails to all the stairs… of course that should have been done a long time ago.
Here are the basement stairs. The railings are made from Sapele – I had it laying around. Normally it would be an expensive way to make the handrails.
I downloaded a WordPress app for the iPhone a while ago. I couldn’t get it to work at first. But the new version seems to work.
This morning I started my journey home. We had to get up early to take the 7.30 bus from Storvik to Gävle. I was going to catch a 9.15 regional train to Arlanda. When it didn’t list a track, Susanna asked at the ticket counter. Apparently it was cancelled; they gave me a ticket on an earlier X2000 train instead. It is a much better ride on the X2000.
I had a wonderful week off. I got lots of time to relax. We had good food and ok wine. But damn Sweden is expensive. The exchange rate doesn’t help either.
I have plenty of time at Arlanda for a coffee and some reading (as well as playing on the iPhone).
Saturday was a big family outing. The outing was all planned by Susanna; which of course is nice for me (not having to plan). Our trip centered around watching a play at the Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown, CT. The play was only for one hour (I think it wound up being only 45 minutes or so), so we planned to visit the city and the children’s museum there as well.
We drove up late in the morning, giving us plenty of time for lunch before the play. We parked on the street next to the playhouse (and even saw the fire hydrant that Susanna got a ticket in front of the previous week).
Ben having his root beer at lunch
The first stop was to walk to Main Street and find a place to eat lunch. We walked by a toy store, and of course had to stop and look. I told the boys that they could only look (we weren’t there to get toys). That doesn’t keep them from begging to buy a toy (“It’s only 7 dollars, I’ll pay you back when I get home…”). But we managed to get out of there with no new toys and not too many tears. We had a wonderful lunch at Javapolooza Cafe on main street. The boys even got a free doughnut for dessert, and had their favorite drink ever, root beer.
The next stop was back to the toy store…. where the boys got a toy tank (they were very good at lunch without me even promising them that they could go back and get a toy). We had a few minutes for them to stop and play as we waited for the start time of the play.
Will and Ben playing with their toys Stopping to play
After stopping to play we walked up to the playhouse for the play. It was an original play put on by a group of 10 year old children. The play was about the other side of the story – how maybe the villains in the fairy-tail stories have never had their side told. It was very funny, and everyone enjoyed the play. Even if the boys did get restless a bit (Will definitely had trouble sitting still, and even Ben was restless and bumped his lip on the chair in front of him – don’t ask, I’m still not sure how he did that). It was fun to visit the playhouse that Susanna has been working (volunteering for school – she needs to observe/teach for a two 7 week internships – one of which she is doing here) at for the past couple of weeks.
Playing at the children's museum
After the play we walked across the street to the Kidcity Children’s Museum. The boys thought that was the highlight of the day, and didn’t want to leave when it was time to head home. I thought it was maybe geared for kids that were a little younger, but it had lots of fun stuff for them. It is certainly bigger than the children’s museum in Niantic.
After the museum we all headed home (a tired family) for quiet time and dinner.
Here are some more pictures from our trip:
Susanna at the MuseumTrains at teh children's museum
