Now for the Hard Part

We own another house. Now what? Now we have to make all of the changes we want. This has been in the background from the minute we started seriously considering this house last year -- we knew we'd need to make changes to it to get it where we want it, and felt we could afford to make most of them based on getting it at a low price. Once we had a closing date we turned up the heat on sorting out some of these issues, but alas we never got to any decisions about anything. Access to the house was difficult and inconvenient, which slowed things down. Liane was, as is often the case, consumed by her work at the school, and I had some big distractions/projects going on as well. 

Well, that stuff doesn't matter anymore (as if it ever did). We simply have to make decisions about floor surfaces, wall colors, bathroom remodeling, screened porch, countertops, new door openings, lighting, bar in the basement, and other less major ones. Several of these, particularly the bathroom and porch each require many difficult decisions before they can get moving. It's daunting.

While most people complain about the hassles of dealing with contractors and workers many of them actually enjoy the decision making part. It's an opportunity to "play house" in a way. They like to go and look at materials and dream about what they can do.

I don't.

I have somewhat picky (and unusual) taste and I recognize the difficulty in picking out many disparate materials that are to come together to make something really nice looking -- elegant, but contemporary without being trendy. It's a lot of pressure to get it right. These changes we're making (most of them anyway) are for all practical purposes permanent, and they are EXPENSIVE.

I've already looked at so many pieces of wood and granite I'm about to lose my mind. And that's just for the kitchen. We've only just begun to get started on the bathroom. We're still trying to nail the layout. Haven't even gotten to materials yet. And the porch? We're miles from having all that nailed down. Other things mentioned above haven't even gotten off the ground yet.

We know a good interior designer that we trust, but she's preoccupied with something else right now and not really available. We're just slogging through on our own for the time being.

A Few Reflections on Closing

I've purchased several houses before so I've become pretty familiar with the process. Up until now the most noteworthy part of it for me has always been the ridiculously bureaucratic assortment of documents that must be signed and initialed. It gets so absurd; you have to sign documents to verify you've signed other documents. One time I remember having to sign off on paying something like $25 for an attorney to draw up a document that I had to sign (that's two docs and two signatures) proclaiming that I was not the David A. Stewart who lives in Fort Wayne and had (evidently) defaulted on some other credit obligations. Really? You guys can't figure that out? You need me to sign some bogus paper, and this makes it so? And I'm supposed to trust you with MY mortgage?

Several of the documents are many pages long. Of course you have to initial each page, and then sign the last one. Attorneys are paid untold dollars to draw all this stuff up, and I'm sure it's all generally valid and legally binding, but EVERYONE knows that NOBODY who is signing reads all that crap. It would take hours to close if one were to try. And while nobody tangibly pressures you to sign without reading, everyone is there and sort of waiting to get it done. At one point the lady presiding over it said, when Liane questioned something, "I'd never have you sign anything illegal." Oh...okay. Whatever. It's an accepted practice. Even if one did read it all...so much of it is incomprehensible legal gibberish it's practically meaningless to any normal person. I've always wondered how much of that stuff would truly hold up in court if it were seriously challenged.

By the time everyone gets to the closing all parties are so worn down from the process there is very little resistance or thinking about things. Just show me where to sign and let's get the hell out of here and get on with our lives.

Prior to Closing -- there had already been a variety of little things that happened. I've already mentioned the confusion over the papers (loan application) I was supposed to sign and get back to the lender. One of those included a document that was already filled out for me (nice) making some declarations about my identity: who I am and who I am not type of stuff. One of the references was for a David Q. Stewart. They had already checked that this was not me, but in fact this one is me. In the past I've used bogus middle initials in my name just to see what sort of nonsense direct marketing crap my be directed towards me by various entities. The Q in that case stood for Quicken. A number of years ago I signed up for a Quicken credit card because they had some promotion that got us a good deal on our Hawaii trip (if memory serves). You wouldn't believe all the mail I got for the next few years with Q as my middle initial. People don't normally give out credit cards without your social security number so I'm pretty sure they would have had mine. But apparently the geniuses at Chase just assumed this wasn't me -- probably because of the Q. Whatever, they'll never know the difference, and I didn't want to go through all the gyrations with the papers again so I just signed it and moved on. There are no skeletons there. I paid the bills and eventually stopped using the card. It's obviously on my credit report. Why would they just assume it isn't me?

A few days before closing my agent sent me a document to sign establishing that if there is a dispute between buyer and seller that amounted to less than $3500 we'd agree to use arbitration to settle it. Okay, not really a big deal I guess, and it probably does make sense, but it just comes in an e-mail. So, I have to print it out, sign it, scan it back in and send back. The sellers, as it turned out, signed it at the closing....so....why couldn't my part wait until closing? Why did I have to go to the trouble to do it beforehand?

In the mid-morning of closing day I got an e-mail from our loan officer that she would not be able to be at the closing, and to feel free to call her if something came up. What? Again, probably not that big of a deal, but as I recall this date was set in part because she was open and available. And it was set more than a month ago. Normally I'm pretty nonchalant about this stuff, but my gut told me we were just being blown off. With as much business as I do with Chase, and considering I went with them in spite of hearing some bad horror stories about trying to do mortgages through them, it seemed pretty bogus to me. My response...

Well, that's disappointing. I haven't actually had time to thoroughly look through it yet, and I'm not sure I'll be able to before we get there. We've both really been in a whirlwind this week -- to the point that in hindsight I wish we would have pushed the date back a week or two. Sounds like it's not the best time for you either.

I'm sure we can call if there is an issue.

Thanks,

David

A little while later I got an e-mail from her declaring her other appointment had been rescheduled and so she was coming after all. Ding! -- correct answer. In hindsight we didn't need her at all. She drove all that way and pretty much just sat through it. Had she not been there I'm sure there would have been a problem though.

At Closing -- Pretty typical. We went to a title office in downtown Columbia City. The word "downtown" in reference to the center of Columbia City, while technically correct, sort of cracks me up. There is corn, then a couple of blocks of commerce, then the town square. You can practically see the corn from the square. This factor alone begs the question, "WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?" If you had told me 30 years ago I would end up living in a town where there are as many tractors as cars I probably would have slit my wrists.

Anyway...as usual, tons of papers were signed. That pretty much went as described above, with only two memorable papers to me.

1. I had to sign a paper describing the various forms of my name: David Stewart, David A. Stewart, Dave Stewart, and Dave A. Stewart. I had to sign it at the top (David A. Stewart) and then four more times at the bottom to provide an example of what each of those signatures might look like. The fact that I have never in my life used Dave A. Stewart seemed to not be relevant. Accordingly that signature really looked weird. So much ass covering in this stuff.
2. I signed a paper that among other things declared that my loan percentage would not change. By the very definition of a fixed rate loan I would assume this to be obvious, but it was a point of one of the papers. What was odd was that nowhere on this paper did it actually specify the loan percentage in question. Just that whatever it was, it would not be changing. Well, how would you know? Jeez. And they pay....no...I pay attorneys to draw this stuff up.

Here's the part where it gets weird --  Those who have followed closely know that this house was a short sale. Without going through the details of that again it basically means that the owners were in default on their loan. And worse, I had also been told at one point that they were getting divorced, and then maybe back together (this was confirmed by their agent after the closing). We had also been told they were no longer in town, which turned out not to be true at all. They still live in Columbia City. Not sure what's real and what isn't but it's clearly not a good situation for them. Add to that we are paying some tens of thousands of dollars less than what some would argue the house is worth. I've heard figures for what they paid for it. If true they did pay dramatically more than we are. There also had been an offer on it many months before that fell through at the last minute, and that offer really was tens of thousands of dollars more, but....I just don't see it. I don't see how this house could be worth those kinds of numbers. In as much as our offer came in just after the foreclosure process had been initiated, which means they got no other relevant offers, I'm inclined to think that what we are paying is pretty close to what it's worth. A good deal, sure, but anything is worth about what it can be sold for, by definition. Also, it appraised for a number close to what we're paying, though I don't think that means much. Appraisers are often lazy and not that thorough. I'd love to see what it would have appraised for had the appraiser not known the purchase price.

Anyway...we all arrived at about the same time. It was immediately apparent that the wife was uncomfortable, unhappy, and didn't want to be there. (It's always the woman, eh?) She was cordial enough, but she was suffering. This was probably her/their dream house. It had been so carefully decorated. We don't necessarily like all the choices, but it's clear they were thoughtfully made. The husband, to his credit, put on a great game face and was really trying to be upbeat about it. I thanked him right away for getting all those signatures. (That really was something to pull off.) He later offered to answer any questions we might have about the house. We thought of a couple of basic ones and he did answer well. He offered up some details about the external gas line, and a couple of other minor things. Just seemed like a really nice guy. The woman, however, was just not digging it at all. She almost broke down a couple of times. She courageously tried to hold it together, and maybe even feigned a slight smile a couple of times, but she was hurting.

This is the human side of these deals. Real estate can be a brutal business. Yeah, a short sale seems like a great idea going in. Get a good deal on something as significant as a home. But they don't tell you of all the hassles, how long and cumbersome everything is, and....they sure don't do anything to prepare you for dealing with your conscience as you rip someone's dream away and pay a fraction of the price they paid for it. That's just an ugly situation, and anyone with any compassion would have to feel bad. Sure, none of it is our fault. I get that. Had we not stepped in the situation would have even been worse for them, but it's still hard. I imagine myself in those same circumstances and I really feel for them. I had thought about this beforehand so it didn't come as a complete shock to me, but it still made for an uncomfortable 90 minutes.

Avoid telling someone their baby is ugly -- At one point while we were waiting for something else, the discussion turned to us. When are we moving, what is the status of the porch, contractors, etc? As I answered these questions I started to go into a bit more detail, mainly relating to the fact that we probably can't move in for a while (due to all the work we want to have done)...and then thankfully my good judgement took over. It occurred to me that I didn't want to make them feel worse by telling them all the things about their house we hate and are going to undo. No need for that.

It was on the tail end of all of this, at the point where they handed over the keys and garage remotes, that he told me one of the garage remotes had been lost in a car accident. "Lost in a car accident?" I thought to myself. Not worth dwelling on. Hopefully we can buy one. Just get me out of here. Actually, get them out of here before this woman completely looses it.

Glad to have it all done, even though it isn't done at all. But I'll never get the images of that poor woman out of my mind. And that's the price of a good deal.

It's Done

Numerous papers signed, i's dotted and t's crossed. We have a new house. Now the fun really begins. I'll follow up with more later about the closing process (mild drama). Next we get in to the trials and tribulations of getting all the remodeling done. We've been working on all of that up until now, with relatively little tangible progress. Now we HAVE to get moving. All of this stuff will probably give us a good taste of what it might have been like to build. So stay tuned...

Cha-Ching!

I sent the wire transfer today. Closing is tomorrow. Definitely can't stop this roller coaster now. The only annoying thing is they charge $30 to do the wire. What a rip-off. I almost protested: "How much money do I have to have in all my Chase accounts before you'll do this for free?" Alas the lady helping me was so nice I refrained from being a jerk.

Chase bank is funny, in kind of a cool way. Faron (cool name) was very smooth and helpful getting the wire going. But she also dug in and looked at the accounts I have with them. Her intention -- at least as stated -- was to make sure I am really in the best type of accounts and taking advantage of everything I can. My initial thought was, "Oh man, what are they going to try to sell me?!" (Isn't it interesting how circumspect we've become about things like this?) But it wasn't like that it all. She was genuinely helpful and didn't really try to sell me anything. The closest she came was advising me to use their free auto bill pay features. It probably is much less hassle and expense for them to do all of that electronically, but there isn't much of a downside to me either after the initial setup. She volunteered to do all of that and show us how it all works. Pretty cool really.

T Minus Two

Two days until close. We're pretty well on track with most of the stuff we have control over. I'm still skittish about the circumstances with the porch and getting that permit, but I just don't think we're going to have the time and resources to bring that situation to 100% certainty before Friday. Additionally it's starting to look like the roof integration is going to be such a problem that we won't be able to build it as large as we wanted to anyway. We have 48 hours to figure out what we can, and neither one of us has time to do it.

Even though Liane gets out of school at 3:15 (officially) she is so consumed with so many things to do she almost never leaves before 4:00, and even then she drags home a pile of work to do. Perhaps the idiots I see on the TV yammering on about how few hours teachers work would like to come over and help grade papers. That would be rhetoric reserved for another blog, but we must remember that the major point of this move, the big reason we are spending all this money to move further away from town into an (only) incrementally better house is to cut down her long drive time to work, which is especially daunting at 6:00 AM on winter mornings with snow and ice covered roads.

Rant over.

The Complete Transaction

A transaction isn't complete until the customer says it is.

A few weeks ago our mortgage lender sent us some paperwork to sign. About two weeks later I got a call asking if we were going to sign the papers in the package they sent. "What package?" I asked. And from there confusion reigned until the person in charge remembered personally giving the package to Liane. When I dug into in with her we finally figured out she had given me the contents of the package, but somewhere the fact that I needed to sign those forms and get them back got lost in translation.

No real damage was done in this case, but I told the lady that if I don't respond to something within a day or two she should assume something is wrong and follow up immediately. 

At work we deal all the time with customers who claim, "I did not receive my shipment." Usually we find someone else has it, or in some cases an industrious Fed-Ex driver manages to leave it hidden well enough that even the resident doesn't find it. Interesting to see it happen from the other side.

Signatures

Things are looking much better on the house front than they were a week ago. The seller managed to get signatures from everyone around the pond, which is the first step to getting approval for a building permit. I really had my doubts as to whether he would be able to pull it off, but it doesn't sound like it was that hard. Wow. Good neighbors I guess.

Now we have to finalize what we want to do and go actually get the permit. I feel we need to have this set in stone before we close to ensure there aren't any more snafus.

And I Wonder Why I Never Have Any Time...

So a friend of mine started seriously looking for a house last month. They made an offer and it was accepted last week.

By contrast, we've been at this for over two years now.

Almonds and Shingles

Almonds and Shingles. Sound like a strange combination? Apparently not at the Fort Wayne Home and Garden Show. We attended last weekend and saw an oddly eclectic combination of vendors, including people selling chocolate covered almonds, chiropractors, fitness centers, culinary training, footwear vendors, SPCA (Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), the zoo, martial arts, sausage vendors, religious institutions, jewelry vendors, bookstores, a bowling league, vitamin vendors, The Sexual Assault 5K Run (?), purse vendors, Northeast Indiana Bee Keepers Association, as well as all the insurance companies and things you'd expect to see at a home and garden show. And the funny thing is there wasn't just one of some of these odd ones. I think there were three almond vendors on the floor, on top of who knows how many selling some type of prepared junk food or homemade jewelry. There had to be four fitness centers there, etc.

It made for a very weird vibe. In spite of all those distractions, which really just made it harder for us to get around and see what we wanted to see, we did have a few productive conversations with people selling products that directly relate to remodeling (or building) a home.

Hope

There may be a resolution to the building line after all. The realtor has taken the ball and is running with it. We have a possible solution, which among other things involves getting the signatures of all the residents around the pond. Interestingly the current owner (who we had been led to believe was not in town) has taken the torch and committed to getting it done this weekend. Of course that's just one step, but it's arguably the hardest step. That has to be taken before the association and approved, then the building commission, and then I don't remember what after that. But it sounds like most of those remaining steps are formalities. We'll see. The pessimist in me thinks things like, "What are the chances that all of the neighbors will be in town and available this weekend, not to mention being willing to sign off on this?" People don't like to sign things.

I Dropped a Bomb on You

We met with our realtor last night to go over the marketing plan for selling our house (more on that later). I told him about the situation with the building line. He was totally and very visibly bummed, in part because I made it pretty clear this may well be a show stopper.

The situation has gotten a lot worse sounding since we first uncovered it. It turns out there is really no way around it other than to get a variance, which requires, among other things, the approval of the Neighborhood Association, which means it has to go before the neighbors themselves. We don't yet know the details of how this would be done, but any way you slice it I get the impression it could take a while. With our close date two weeks away this is turning out the be a major problem.

What we've been doing the past few days is trying to see what all of the scenarios are. Who really has to approve it, what is the best way (and best order) for getting all that done, how long will it really take, etc. Lots of questions that people don't have good, concrete answers for.

We have learned that the building commission was aware of the existing violation (the current deck is over the line), and it is documented. They believe, but aren't sure (I am not making this up) they contacted the owner some time ago, but they never heard any more about it and for whatever reason never followed up. Of course, now we've put it up on the radar screen again. One guy said that line is important for being able to get pond maintenance equipment in without disturbing the structure. He sounded like he could be someone who might fight it if we try to get a variance. Yikes!

Meanwhile we've gone back to the builder to see if he can work something up that will allow us to have a (smaller) screened porch without needing to go over this line. I am not a fan of this idea, but I think it's at least worth looking at to see if it could somehow be workable. We expect to hear back on that Friday.

So, it's really not looking good at the moment. I can't in good conscience close on this house knowing it is currently in violation of building code, with any doubts about being able to get the variance we'd require to move forward. All of that will take time to sort through.

Poor Chris (our realtor). He's going to dig in and see what he can do to help. And maybe he can, so there is some hope. He said we can ask for (and probably would get) one extension on the close date, but anything more than about three weeks wouldn't happen. That might buy us some time. I have my doubts if that would be enough. Because it's a short sale there's a relative lack of flexibility in what we can do, and communication is very difficult because of their bank's involvement (meaning they are very sloooooow).

This has really taken the wind out of our sails. We keep trying to pack and move forward with everything in case it does get worked out, but it's hard to keep skepticism from taking over.

Maybe the smaller plan will be acceptable. Maybe Chris can work some type of miracle. Maybe, as we continue to probe and talk to people we'll come up with some other angle.

Meanwhile we've started looking at listings again...

Being Environmentally Conscious is Hard

We need boxes for packing. Based on how frequently I see semi truck trailers parked behind local stores this should be an easy problem to solve. In the old days people would just drive to almost any grocery or department store and ask for their unneeded boxes. Usually you'd get some. Hit a different place the next day, etc. Sometimes you could get all you'd ever want from one place. It's a great benefit for them because they don't have to mess with breaking them down or otherwise disposing of them.

Nowadays when people move they go out and buy moving boxes. This borders on the insane to me. They're expensive, and when you're finished they end up in the same landfills as most discarded boxes. (Yeah, I know there is recycling now, but a lot of it still ends up in landfills.) In fairness these purchased boxes can be quite nice for moving. They are just the right size (heck, just having a uniform size makes the truck pack so much easier), and often have other cool features to make life easier. But even though we could get this done much more efficiently by purchasing them it goes against my sensibilities to waste like that.

So we've been trying to acquire boxes from some stores. Now I know why people just buy them. What a pain. We've spoken to four or five different stores now, a few of them on several occasions. Thus far we've  acquired about 10 boxes, most of which were virtually unusable -- they were fruit boxes that had no tops, and large gaps all over. They never seem to have any when we call so invariably it turns into something where they promise to hold some back out of the next shipment they get. Many of these places get one or two shipments per day. However, when we follow up we find that Manager A (who is working one shift) seems to have not communicated it to Manager B (working the other shift). And so we don't get boxes. Try back later, call at such-in-such time, ask for so-in-so, etc. Every imaginable thing, and it doesn't get done. The guy at the grocery where we got the fruit boxes was a hoot. He seemed to have no idea that moving boxes required lids. Liane wanted to ask, "Uh, have you ever MOVED before?" Alas it isn't worth burning more energy debating it.

Of all the things we're dealing with it blows my mind how much time and energy this one simple little thing has now cost us. Thankfully I have stored quite a few boxes in anticipation of our eventual move so it hasn't hit critical mass yet. If I find myself in the store buying boxes in a few days I sure will feel defeated.

Go!

The move has officially begun. Saturday we started packing things up in earnest. Our initial objective is to empty the current house of all items not wanted onsite for showings. Even though the new house is going to be a construction zone for a while we still want to get going on listing ours to hopefully attract some spring fever buyers. We may end up selling it before we're really ready to move, but will cross that bridge then if it happens.

In order to get things out of the house we rented a storage unit nearby. What a hassle that was. The last time I rented a storage unit was back in the band days. One of the bands I was in kept some of our staging gear in one for a while. I think it cost either $19 or $29 per month for a 10' x 20' unit. I showed up at the site and within 10 minutes had the unit rented. Things have changed...

We rented a 10' x 20' for well over $100 per month, which is what it is. What amazed me was the ordeal of getting it all going. After calling the number to set it all up we learned (toward the end of the call) that we were just talking to a national call center for the parent company, not the local owner/manger of the unit in question. So....they had to have the manager call us back to firm up the details. Both of these calls took WAY longer than seemed necessary and covered a lot more detail than we expected or were comfortable with. Nevertheless we pressed on and loaded up the SUV with stuff to take over there. When we arrived we learned that there was a pile of paperwork to do, including a contract that was eight pages long...for a 10 x 20 shed... (I swear I am not making this up). Then, the coup de grâce....they wanted fingerprints! Wow. I fought the urge to just walk out and say, "forget it." Again we pressed on. We were burning daylight and just wanted to get something we thought would take all of 10 minutes completed and checked off the list. Very weirdly unsettling experience. I realize they must deal with a variety of questionable types (the terrorists win again in making our lives worse), but the overriding vibe of circumspection on their part does not make the customer feel good. I can't imagine ever renting a unit there again.

Anyway...over the course of the weekend we made 10 or 12 trips. Sadly Liane's SUV is so small it's going to take a lot more trips to get it done, and that doesn't even count the furniture that has to go, which will have to be transported some other way.

In the midst of making these trips the realization hit me that, at the rate we are going, we'll probably have possession of the new house before the first showing of ours....thereby making the whole storage unit a nearly complete waste of time and energy.

Ahhh yes, moving is such fun...

Bureaucracy

The screened in porch/deck situation is proving to be much more difficult than it initially appeared. We're making this purchase in part based on the assumption that we'd turn the existing deck into a screened porch and then build a new deck next to or behind the existing one. Behind it there is just a few feet before you get to the pond, so I figured we might not be able to get permission to go that direction and would have to go beside it instead. But as it turns out getting permission to build the screened porch itself is in jeopardy.

Apparently the deck was built with no regard for the building line. The building line is the line you cannot build past on your property. The intent is generally to keep you from encroaching on your neighbors with structures. In our case the existing deck already crosses that line, but there is no neighbor there -- the line in question is between the house (or most of it) and the pond. I'm not sure how they got that deck built, but I assume the line was just ignored. In order to build the screened porch, which involves integrating the roof and foundation everything has to be on the up and up with full permits, etc. No way can we build it without getting that line moved.

So Liane has been going around and around with various entities to try to do that, and naturally each one attempts to pass the buck to the next one. No one wants to claim the authority to do it. Initially no one we talked to had any idea how to go about getting it done. Eventually though, if you're persistent enough you begin to learn how to ask the right people the right questions that eventually lead you in the direction you need to go. What a pain.

So we're working from the angle of, "There is already a structure over the line. We are buying the house and want to get the line corrected to correspond with what's there." We are not even getting in to turning it into a screened porch with them -- that would be too much information and could raise concerns we don't want to tackle just yet. We just want to get the line to be consistent with the structure that exists now. That will give us what we need to go for the porch.

Well, apparently this is no small feat. For starters it has to go to the engineer for the original developer, and of course he isn't available. The person who is available isn't sure whether it can be done.

So all of that is in limbo at the moment while someone researches what can be done. We're supposed to hear back by Wednesday. Heck, for all we know they may come back and tell us the deck has to go.

And if that happens....well....I haven't handed over the money yet so I assume there is still a way out of it, however painful that might be.

Oh boy...

90 Days?!?

So one of the more promising sounding contractors has informed us it will likely take at least 90 days to complete the jobs we want done, once work begins.

And if that isn't bad enough I know what it really means -- more than 120 days (figuring in the contractor bogosity factor).

Holy smokes! We may have to move in before completion.


.

Builders Versus Remodelers

Okay, I can see that the funny drama of this is going to get interesting. We've learned that builders, as a general rule, aren't that efficient at, or interested in, remodeling projects. A couple of our remodeling projects are quite extensive so it's possible we will end up using a builder. Nevertheless we have contacted some remodelers in earnest. I'm sure many of them are fine, and I know a couple personally who are great, but can't really do jobs like this, but some of the ones we've contacted....yikes. Remodelers are inherently much more small time operations, sometimes just one or two guys, bordering on handymen types. Even the larger ones have a very small and homegrown feel to them, at least as compared to builders. And you often don't know what they are at all until you've been in contact and talked to them. Talking to them in some cases....

Oh, man....I don't know how to put it exactly. How about stupid. Not the most polite thing to say, and maybe not even really accurate, but that's how it comes across.

First, it's a huge challenge just to get them to return a phone call. Again, they must all be very busy and have all the work they want. Then....it's just really challenging to get them to understand. Liane listened to one guy ramble on for 20 minutes one day about all the experience he has and jobs he's done in the area for years and years. Then he proceeded to ask her how long it takes to get to Columbia City from Fort Wayne. Really? You've never been to or through Columbia City once in your life as a remodeler, not to mention your life on this planet? Oh, I get it. You aren't actually from this planet. Yeah, I'm going to turn you loose with a $10,000 remodeling project in my new house.

The good news for any blog readers. This is going to get interesting.