It's October and we are still in Dallas

Thanks to a few issues- AJ the most unreliable carpenter in TX and a housing market in Dallas that has dried up and blown away- we are still living in Dallas and will be here for the next 30 days at least.  To say I am frustrated is to say that the Pope is Catholic- just stating the obvious.  AJ has now promised to deliver the rebuilt cabinets four different time and all four times he has not shown up nor has he called with a reason why.  The great room is full of my cabinet doors and shelves all of which still need to be installed so we can get them out of the great room and stain the walls.  Plus until he gets done we can't install the granite in the Kitchen which means we can't install the backsplash or the pluming fixtures or the flooring and so on and so on and so on!  They are however working on the patio, porch and carport.  All things we added when we thought we would get over $700,000 for the house.

Last week we purchased all the light fixtures except the one for the Kitchen- hey what's the rush RIGHT??? and our friend Jimmy Don (who does some amazing metal work) has finished making our exterior wall lights- they look fantastic and were designed by Jay to compliment the house design.  Sorry no pictures yet, you have to wait with anticipation for the unveiling of the finished product.  Need something to keep you coming back week after week to read this blog!   

Now about the house.  It has been on the market for over 30 days now and we have had no showings.  There have been 3 open houses and the house looks good, but there are also 3 other houses similar to ours on the market in our neighborhood.  They are in the same price range and they have had no showings as well.  I hear talk about the hot housing market, but it seems that is for the houses that are $250,000 and less.  We had no trouble selling the rent house, but it was in that lower price range.  I asked the realtor about lowering the price by $20,000 and he said he believes if we want some action we are going to have to price it to sell and that means a price under $700,000.  He also believes that unless we need to get out from under it, we should wait for the right buyer to come along.  So I guess for the time being we will wait for that special buyer who really wants this house.

I do have a couple of pictures this time for you.

This is the Kitchen at night- still missing cabinets, shelves and hardware

  

here is our mail box

So Close, Yet So Far Away

 

Sorry,no pictures this time.  I am having issues trying to load them on to the computer.  Promise new pictures next week!  So those of you who just look at the pictures will need to do a little light reading this week. :)

We are seeing progress and lots of little things are being completed like connecting the power so we can test light fixtures and connecting the plumbing at the man palace.  Next week they are to pour the concrete for the carport and the landing off the back door that will gradually slope to the carport.  Currently it is like a 13 inch step down from the slab to the ground) not really what we had in mind when we said NO STAIRS at the new house.  

Michael finished the shower and it looks great and Jay has finished the frames for the mirrors in both bathrooms.

All the cabinets have been installed and painted but we needed to meet with our Builder to discuss the fact that I am still not happy with the kitchen cabinets.  To add insult to injury there was a $4,500 CO from the cabinet maker for my specialty cabinets.  In my real world where people respond when you ask them for things like the plans or a return of a phone call or email, I would not have not had a problem with the change order as we added a lot of specialty cupboards and drawers plus cabinets in 3 extra rooms but the kitchen still didn’t work and now I noticed that the cabinet designated to be my china cabinet was not built as I wanted and covered up the light switches for the kitchen. 

OH and the biggest issue of ALL… the center island being too big also makes it impossible to get my stove or fridge into the kitchen, let alone ever move them to make any repairs or cleaning!!  Had I seen the plans (my favorite tag line of late) I would have known that to get everything I wanted in the island would have created this massive counter and would have said we need to redesign.  I’m not a builder or a designer so I expect the professionals to notice things like this and bring it to my attention.  Guess I’m back to my version of the real world and not the real world I live in!!  Anyway to make a very long story shorter, the builder agreed to get AJ to rebuild the center island about a foot shorter and a few inches less wide.  It will still be tight, but at least now we will be able to get the appliances in the Kitchen (small details….) He is also getting AJ to rebuild the cabinet to be used for the China Hutch and surprise surprise we found the missing light switches when we removed the top half of the cabinet.  

We are about a month behind, but should be moving in the first week or so of November.  The other disappointing situation is the sale of our Dallas house.  It has been on the market for 3 weeks and zero showings.  We have done 3 open houses and have had good traffic, but no one interested in making an offer.  It seems the other 3 similar houses listed in my neighborhood have also had no traffic.  We are all priced in the same price range and the smaller homes in the area are even more expensive on a price per square foot basis.  Looks like it is going to take us a while to sell this place.  Just want I wanted 2 mortgages!  Guess I need to keep working!  Good thing I am enjoying what I’m doing and having the House in Dallas will give us a place to stay when we come to the city for work or play.  So I think this is called making lemonade out of lemons!!!!!!!!

WE HAVE CABINETS

They say good things will happen, have patience.  I am a little (okay a lot) short on patience, but AJ called me on Tuesday to ask me a couple of questions and said he would be there that day to start delivering my cabinets.  Sure enough at noon Jay called to tell me the first load had been delivered.  When I got there on Friday the house was full of cabinets.  We did have some issues.  Issues that wouldn't have been issues if we had ever seen the plans but since we didn't we had to make some adjustments.  One issue was that my center island was way bigger than I had envisioned it.  It had all the items I wanted in it, but because of that it became this behemoth.  To correct the problem would have meant redesigning the entire cabinet and to make sure I got all the elements I wanted it would have most likely meant many of the others too.  I did not have the time or the patience for that exercise.  So now my spacious kitchen will be a lot less spacious but it is still a great kitchen.  We did have to change one set of cabinets, because the design now didn't leave enough clearance to get the refrigerator or the stove into the kitchen.  I'm still not sure about the stove, but we did fix the side where the refrigerator slides through. 

The offending cabinets have been removed to be reworked- it will still be tight.

The entertainment center in the bedroom looks great but i forgot to take a picture.

Here is my seat with storage for shoes in my mud room  I LOVE IT!.

There was also an issue in the bathroom.  Turns out the bathroom specs were for a standard tub and it was built out and plumbed for a standard tub- however the granite and marble guy who made the tub and bathroom countertop made a bigger tub.  It didn't fit.  So everything had to be modified to make it fit.  The plumber was really not happy!  If it looks okay in the end and I am assured it won't leak where they had to cut the drywall I will be okay, if not................  

The next interesting story is our tile guy Michael.  He is a perfectionist so as a result he seems really slow, but I would rather have slow and right than fast and problems.  When I got to the house and went to see how it was going in the shower I realized that the seat he was doing was not what I wanted.  I got a little upset, not at him but at us for not providing a good picture of what I wanted.  Michael said he was at a spot that if I wanted him to change it he could, we would need to order more tile and that would delay his completion, but he could make it like I wanted, no problem.  I love guys like this!!  He was so sweet and came to work on it on Saturday just to make sure I liked what he created for me.  So as a thank you I steamed some of my Tamales and we all (Michael, his assistant, Jay and I) had Laynie and Belinda's homemade tamales for lunch.  It was a good day.

The Millers finally commit to being short timers in Dallas

We did it.  We put the house on the market yesterday.  Here is a youtube video of our house in Dallas.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8QlHuDqEEw&feature=share 
If you can't get the video to play try searching YouTube for Home for Sale at 5402 Morningside Avenue, Dallas, Texas

We have lived here for almost 25 years (December 12, 1989 is when I closed on the house).  The day we moved in was one of the coldest in Dallas without any precipitation that year.  We could never warm up the house that night and the next day we had to use extension cords and hair blowers to unfreeze the pipes.  But Christmas that year was really fun, here I was a little Jewish girl stringing popcorn and baking cookie ornaments for our rush bought tree so that when we brought the girls to the house for the first time on Christmas day it would look like Christmas.  Now 25 years later we will be having Christmas and Chanukah in the new house.  Time to start new traditions, but still keep some of the old (like the annual Chanukah party where we eat way too many potato latkes and brisket or Kumbaya Casserole and tamales for Christmas eve dinner).  It’s been a great house, we have watched our girls grow up in this house and hosted parties for their friends and our friends and family.  Such good memories! 
 

Labor Day weekend at the Ranch

Well folks, life is getting better!  Cabinets are being made and some should be delivered next week.  My husband is my hero, he was so upset that I was upset that he traveled down to the cabinet makers shop to confront them on this matter.  He was successful in finding them open (that has been a rarity of late) and met AJ's father Artero.  He looked him in the eyes and said (something to the effect of), "I can't believe the position you all have put us in. My wife is in tears because she loved the design your son did for her and the kitchen is the most important room in the house to her and now she has nothing and has to start over again. I can't stand to have her this upset. Also this delay is going to cost us a lot of money in delayed completion".  Then Artero explained that they had been buried with work from a national home builder.  Jay proceeded to say "and what is the excuse for not returning phone calls and emails."  There wasn't a good answer for that.  Artero then promised Jay they would get started on the cabinets Monday morning (meaning last monday).  I wasn't holding my breathe but really hoping they would.  Well they did and we should see our first set of cabinets sometime this week.  YEA for Jay.  Also now my friends Marsha and Steve don't have to worry about seeing me on the nightly News and visiting me in the County Jail.

When I got there on Friday the painter had finished staining the ceiling.  It looks awesome.

We towed the smoker back down this weekend and decided it was a good weekend to do some smoked meats. I brought down a ham shank and a brisket from the freezer plus some of my special spicy rub and away we went.  Jay started the smoker at 9:00, added the hickory wood about 9:30 and we put in the meat around 10:00.  Then around 1:00 we wrapped it up tight in foil and let it slow cook for another 3 hours.  Both the ham and the brisket we delicious and we will be eating on them for the next week.  We are improving our BBQing skills every time we use it.  Our repertoire includes ribs, pork loin, chicken thighs and sausage in addition to the brisket and ham.  We are getting to the point where we say, if it's meat, we can smoke it...

I didn't harvest any pears this weekend because we are putting our current house on the market this week and I am trying to make it look it's best for showings.  That is really tough when you are still living in it and have extra guests staying with you (one who sheds continually).  Wish us luck on selling the house, I think we are going to need it.  Seems like the market has cooled off a bit.  Actually the house looks so nice right now if's almost hard to believe its our house.  So next week I should be able to add adventures in selling ones house.

Jelly Making time comes early at the Miller Ranch

This post I have a need to talk about something other than the house!!  IT still has me very upset and we still have no resolution to the cabinet problem.  So let's talk about something more entertaining.

In the 6 years that I have been making my "award winning" prickly pear jelly, I have never had the pears start ripening before late September.  This year however, I have beautiful purple fruits and it is only the middle of August.

 It really is a bumper crop and I don't know what I am going to do with all the juice.  There is only so much freezer space available to me.  I harvested about 120 pears last weekend.  It didn't even make a dent!  If only I could sell the jelly and make a decent profit I would be in the money with this crop.  Since I can only really make a profit of about $2.00 a jar I just make it for family and friends.  Now I do have friends and family that love it and remember I did earn first place at the Texas State Fair so if anyone wants a jar they will have to let me know.

It is quite a process to get the juice out of these little fruits and it truly becomes a labor of love.  First I have to be covered from the tips of my feet to the ends of my fingers.  The spines on the cactus can really hurt and the also have these little hair like spines called glochids.  The glochids are the nasty ones because you can barely see them but they attach themselves to you very easily and hurt like hell.  I wear leather gloves when I harvest them and put a pair of latex gloves on before I put on the leather gloves for extra protection.  Last year I tried to get one out of my finger by biting it with my teeth- not a good idea! One little guy lodged itself just under my tongue.  I had to get the tweezers and find jay to have him remove it.  Try talking when you can't use your tongue because it is rubbing on the glochid stuck in your mouth.  Yes, he got a good laugh out of that one and I learned a valuable lesson.  It was so hot this early that I wore a sleeveless top and got them in my forearms and had to sit with the tweezers for a while pulling them out.

After they are picked I have to burn off the remaining glochids before I can boil them and extract the juice.

At the end of the day I had filled 11 bags of juice, enough for 55 jars of jelly.  There is still room in the freezer so I think I will harvest some more this weekend.  Anyone want to join me in the fun.....

Wheels fall off the wagon

 

Well, things have slowed a bit on the house construction.  Everything has been going so splendidly, then the wheels fell off the wagon. The first issue came when the painter came to paint.  Turns out I didn't read the contract as closely as I should have.  Original contract called for 2 paint colors, not 2 per room.  Well I had about 13 colors and we were budgeted for 2.  Also we wanted the painter to use Benjamin Moore paint because we believe it is the best paint.  Change order came in at $3,000.  That's $250 per room counting hallways and utility rooms.  We felt it was excessive, but we wanted the colors and it was either pay now or pay later (and probably pay more) so we agreed to the CO.  When we got to the house on Friday most of the rooms were painted and the colors were close (except my office which was a yellow that looked like a child's nursery).  Problem... no Benjamin Moore paint cans- zero! but lots of Devoe.  So he charged us for BM and used a different brand.  Very annoyed but contractor was insisting that the painter told him he used BM.  We decided it wasn't worth the battle but that the color in my office needed to be changed to what I had picked.

THEN.....

 Remember how excited I was about my kitchen cabinets.  Well the cabinet maker went MIA on us.  He has been promising the contractor for over three weeks to deliver our cabinets and then we hear and see nothing.  Jay even drove by his shop today.  It was all locked up and he saw no cabinets inside.  On his way back to Dallas he called and told me.   I was so angry, but when he told me we are going to have to start over with a new cabinet maker, I just started to cry.  I don't have the plans for the original kitchen, because AJ never sent them to me.  I threw away all my pictures of what I wanted once we had completed the design and don't remember how everything was laid out.  Let's just say I had a total meltdown.  The kitchen was my special room, designed by me for me.  Like Jay's man palace it had all the things I wanted and even some things I hadn't thought of before.  Now it is going to delay the completion of the house by at least a month- so it's going to cost us more in interest charges plus it messes with us trying to sell our house!  It's not even safe for me to think about what I would like to have happen to AJ!!!!!!

I'm going to meet with the new cabinet maker tomorrow, but I'm just so depressed and angry who knows what I'll end up with!

Sorry no pictures this post!