Nina's Soap

When we shopped for our first house, we visited brand new houses and really liked them. However, after a broker told us that the monthly mortgage would be about $1,500 a month for a $199,000 house (3-bedroom house in 2014), my husband didn’t feel like we could afford it. He wanted a move in ready. I like the idea too. At the time our rent for a two-bedroom duplex was about $650/ month. He suggested we continue to rent until we could afford to pay $1,500 / month in mortgage. I was ready to move into our own house and decided we should look for a house with a mortgage close to what our rent was. We had credit cards debt, car loan, & tuition loan, and lived paycheck to paycheck. We got approved for $150,000 loan. We looked at multiple houses and in a nearby town where houses are cheaper. However, with one car, a long commute was not an option so we ended up purchasing in the city we work. The 3-bedroom house we purchased was in good condition but needed some work. The selling price was around $139,000 and we purchased it a little below $125,000. Even though we were approved for $150,000, we didn’t want to purchase a house that costs us much. There was another house freshly painted and landscaped we have looked at, that asked for the same selling price. I preferred the fixer upper as it would have been hard for us to negotiate the price down. It didn’t stay on the market long though. But no many people were interested in our fixer upper as it was hard to look past the smoke stain on the wall throughout the house, the bowing wall in the basement and see the potential. It is seated in a ¼ acre yard in a nice and quiet neighborhood a block away from an elementary school.

Kitchen cabinets with smoke stain

Smoke stain

smoke stain

Questionable bathroom

From the beginning, after we purchased our house, we decided to pay more than the minimum mortgage every month. The minimum mortgage was around $837/ mo including $637.32 for interest, principal, and PMI; and around $200/mo for property tax and home insurance. Our mortgage changed hands (banks) three times within the first four years. We didn’t feel like letting the bank own the house and treat it like an investment when for us it was a shelter for our family. It is nothing fancy but the basic shelter for us with a land to provide us with food. After we paid off our credit card debts, car loan, and tuition loan, we live on the smallest income; use the other income to pay our mortgage with $500 set aside for our businesses’ capital investment.

Prior to move to our house, we painted ourselves, removed the carpet in the living room, sanded and finished the wood floor in the bedrooms.

8-30-2014 Two days after we closed on the house.

The kids and I removed the wall paper from the walls of their room.

I painted the kids room and painted a wall with chalk board paint.

After we moved in, I continued to work in the house especially after the kids went to bed at night and early in the morning before going to work. I painted the basement wall to avoid mold on the wall, put vinyl tile in the basement floor, cleaned and painted the basement bathroom. I put vinyl floor in the bathroom upstairs. My husband and I put vinyl floor in the kitchen and hallway, and laminate flooring in the living room.

We put vinyl floor in the kitchen on top of the old one.

When we first moved it, we put a plastic sheet on the subfloor in the living room since we removed the carpet.

We put our mattresses on the floor and the kids and us slept in the living room for at least a month before the bedrooms’ wood floor was ready for us to move the beds in.

My family of 4 slept in the living room_9-22-2014

We installed the laminate floor in the living room, few months after we moved it.

Boxes of laminate flooring in the living room

Living Room 12-14-2014

The basement floor was painted red and the paint stained our feet so the basement was a priority for me after we moved in.

Red basement floor

Cracked wall filled

I cleaned mold and applied water proof base paint

A room in the basement I would turn into my office

Vinyl floor in some part of the basement I removed

Dirty carpet in some part of the basement I removed

Basement after I painted

The home office painted

The floor under the office carpet was red

The laundry area was carpeted

The floor was red under the carpet

I started to lay vinyl tiles in the basement on 11-22-2014

Basement with new vinyl floor

The office: I painted the walls and replaced the carpet with vinyl floor.

The second year after we moved in, we painted the siding ourselves. The siding needed to be replaced we were told by a handy man because some woods rotted but we couldn’t afford to replace the whole siding. Our previous (duplex) landlord told us to fill the woods with wood putty and paint over. May God bless him. It was the best advice we needed at that moment when the handy man didn’t think it was wise to replace just the rotted woods. We did as the landlord told us and 5 years later we still have not replaced the siding yet.

The basement wall bowed a little and during inspection, we brought in two companies to evaluate the cost of fixing it. Fixing inside with posts would cost about $2,500 while fixing from outside would cost about $10,000. After we moved in, we re-graded the ground around the building and removed vegetation so that water could flow away from the house. I filled the cracks on the basement walls with cement and painted over. The bowing didn’t continue. So I know the bowing is not an emergency situation but would need to be addressed in the future to preserve the foundation. It is a beautiful 1968 house. The house is about 1,000 sq. ft. and the land is about 10,000 sq. ft. There was a huge flower garden in the backyard at the time of purchase.

Flower garden

I turned it into a perennial vegetable garden and moved some flowers to the front yard around the edges of the front yard vegetable garden. We planted many fruit trees over the years.

All these issues that seemed to be scary at the beginning didn’t need an immediate attention at the start. We did what we could. We decided though that when things break and need to be replaced, we will bring professionals and get them done properly especially, if we could not fix ourselves. For instance, a door to outside rotted when we purchased the place. We saved for a year and brought a handy man to replace it along with a storm door. The door has special measurements as the frame was built into the wall. It cost us a little over $1,000. The same handy man replaced the deadbolt on the front door and installed CGFI outlets throughout the house a year after we moved in. Earlier this spring he came to install a deadbolt and a lock on the garage door to the backyard.

We called in an electrician to install a fan in the living room with light on it within the first year.

Within the second year, we have to replace the heater right at the start of winter by a heating company. I cost us over $2,500. It was not expected. The previous heater was less than 10 years old.

We replaced the fridge in the kitchen before we moved in as the one in the house was dirty.

The fridge in the house at the time of purchase

We purchased one at Lowes in clearance.

New fridge 9-17-2014

We had to replace the stove in 2018 (four years later) after 3 burners stop working.

We purchased one on sale.

We replaced the dryer in 2017 after the mesh that retains lint was torn. It was an old dryer and we could not find a replacement mesh. We purchased a dryer on sale and we opted for a big dryer that could hold a comforter.

We re-caulked the bathroom on January 14, 2019.

For all these costs and purchases, we saved to purchase them.

After living in our house for more than 4 years, we believed we made the right decision to purchase a fixer upper and fix it the way we would want it as we save for it instead of rolling all that into a mortgage.

The cable of our garage door broke in the middle of winter 2019 and the professional we called suggested we replace the whole system and the garage door because they are old. It would cost a little over $1,000. We usually keep our car in the garage. But at the moment it is outside until we replace the door.

We intend to save for it and replace it before the end of fall 2019. In addition, one of our kids broke a window in the kitchen right at the end of winter 2019. We taped the glass and intend to save to replace the whole window with frame. The frame is rotting and the window is actually two widows together. We will replace the whole widow and frame when we saved for it. I would talk about how we save for home maintenance in another post.

When living in a house, there will be maintenance expenses as things wear out and the building is constantly exposed to the weather. Whether it is a brand new house, a moving in ready, or a fixer upper, you would maintain the house which comes at a cost. The real question is would you prefer a building company to update everything at a profit, or the previous owner to remodel the house at profit, or bring in professionals to update your house to your taste and save some of the profit you would have paid the building company or the previous owner?