It’s a bouncing baby ... house?

Before I get started, some of you will notice that I am really behind in posting. This post was supposed to be put up back in the beginning of November. The blog will normally run about a week or two behind, not an entire month. So anyway, on to the post...

I must be some sort of masochist or something. I just barely got the current house (2780) almost finished with a multi-year renovation that included new bathrooms, painted ceilings, all new interior doors, baseboards, flooring, fencing, etc, etc. So what do we go and do?? We go out and buy a new (to us) place (245) that needs a flipping shit-ton of work!! I get to start all over again and this time instead of years to do it, I get weeks! I need my head examined.

Let’s back up a little bit and I’ll tell the whole story.

We sort of knew for quite a while that 2780 was not going to work very well as a winter-only type place. We would have to pay a lawn service, a pool service, and have mail picked up or stopped for long periods of time. Not to mention that if anything happened to the place we wouldn’t know about it for weeks or months at a time. Plus, houses in Florida just don’t ‘close up’ very well. So what to do?

Before I answer that I must tell everyone that as a Florida-Boy I swore I would never live in a mobile home. I swore I would never live beach-side. I swore I would never live in a 55+ community. I swore I would never live in another neighborhood that has an HOA. Guess the joke’s on me as I agreed to every one of them!! I seriously need my head examined.

Well, that’s not completely accurate as the place instead of being a typical tin-can mobile home is what is referred to as a park model mobile home. That means that instead of super thin exterior walls, it has 2x6 stud walls and is far sturdier than a regular mobile home and insulates far better. But still. We found it in the same neighborhood that Michelle’s parents (+aunts, uncles, cousin) and sister live in.

The thought process was/is that it’s a neighborhood that is set up very well for snowbirds. For any that don’t know what that is, a snowbird is someone who spends the warm months up north somewhere and comes south to Florida when it gets cold. So we figured that we’re now going to essentially be snowbirds too! Perfect fit! We can close it up, shut off the water and electricity and make the place go completely dead. The HOA mows all the lawns, takes care of the pool and all utilities except electric are in the HOA dues. Perfect! That was the upside.

The downside is that the place we picked out was owned previously by a single guy who is a very heavy smoker. Yep, I can hear everyone groaning. We thought that we could cover up the smell with ripping out the flooring, getting rid of the popcorn ceilings, and a liberal coating of Kilz and paint.

Wrong!! It just permeated everything. So it was all new drywall along with the new ceilings and flooring. Not to mention the leaks in the windows, the bathrooms needed some real help, the kitchen was close to a disaster, and on and on it went. Oh well, time and money cures all issues right?

Normally yes, but there was a slight snag. The house at 2780 sold in about three days when we were expecting a month or more. So much for time. Now instead of weeks of time we now have days.

So that’s a macro view of what we’re doing right now. It’s a simple matter of getting everything done as fast as humanly possible before 2780 closes on the 13^th. We need to get 245 at least minimally operational and that’s going to be a very tall order. 

I need my head examined.