Well, Madam Mayor, I am SO glad you like your store. It was really fun making it. And a fun project to be a part of. You know Luna, it WAS getting kind of freaky there for a while. It was the day after I mailed the house out that Kathy posted her "small world" post and I had just written the same to her in a note, tho she didnt know it. Then- the last thing had added to the house was the rain chain sign going down the right side, and Kathy posted the "rain chain video" post, and then her "I been wanting to do this for years post" and sunnyca suggested a REAL similar name to Unique Garden Art. All the while the house/store was in the mail. Thought I'd entered the Twighlight Zone for a while, lol. Seriously tho, I really believe that things just come together like that when the time is right. Sunnyca-the zig zag things are some kind of tie in things for a brick facade. Went with my son to a job he was finishing up a few years ago and they were actually throwing a whole box of them out (can you imagine, lol) They are galvanized aluminum I believe. They look cool hanging from the trees, too, but tend to get tangled, have to work on that, maybe a weight on the bottom. Construction sites are a great place for junk. They throw out a LOT of stuff. Thank you Luna, I did do some sign making with my Dad, when I was very young maybe 8 or 9 or so (many many moons ago). He made the signs for the neighborhood and would let me help him for real, not just busy work. Cait, that fencing comes in a little roll all put together like that, in natural color wood. I got mine at Walmart a long time ago and have used a little here and there for different projects. I'm a sucker for a picket fence :) Thank you everyone else for your kind words. Donna

Well, things are chugging along. The things that were either wrong or annoying about the place have taken a bit more time to fix but nothing has been a horror story so all in all I am pleased. When they removed the faulty previous renovations to the attic (made into an office and bedroom) I thought there might be a lot of rotting wood because of the way things were stained on the siding outside. But rot was minor. The main focus has been getting that area updated since it was in such poor shape. The corrections to the supports and the installation of skylights really opened up the room and the whole thing has now been blessed by the county inspector (yay! a big relief). This old house was built solidly but out of two by sixes whereas now things would be made out of much bigger lumber - so getting things blessed by structural engineers can be tricky. Currently the work is focused on moving the massive HVAC unit from the sunny front of the house to the shady back of the house, building a false chimney up the outside wall to carry the ductwork upstairs to the home office. This involved cutting new holes into the brick foundation wall and re-working all the ducts throughout the house. The old system was patched and in some places just homeowner done and not efficient. The problem now is that I really want to use as much of the basement as possible as a workshop but getting the duct guys to understand me has been difficult. There are certain rules about how sharp a turn and how many feet a duct can travel and I want as much of the ductwork as possible out of the way which doesn't look like it is feasible. So in order to get from one end of the room to the other I am either going to be stepping over ducts or stooping under them a couple of times. Not what I wanted. Most of the problem is that the HVAC unit that came with the house is monster big (actually a good thing), the previous owner didn't have it ducted the right way so it was unable to cool or heat every room and he used small ducts. My crew is putting in these massive ducts which will do a great job of keeping things ventilated and cool but I will sacrifice workspace down in the basement - so I should shut up and quit complaining. The previous owner has never shown up to finish hauling off his junk. My understanding is that he really fell on hard times financially and just couldn't get it together. I've been piling it up and having the workers add it to their loads to the dump (and I've been paying for that pleasure). In addition to all that - I been fixing up my current house to put it up for sale and things are going s-l-o-w. I had such big plans about really going through everything and tossing out the stuff I don't use or need but that just takes way too much time. I'm down to throwing stuff in boxes and piling them up in the corner and hoping that someday I will be able to go through it. The realtor winced when she saw how much clutter I have (and my house is only a quarter of how cluttered my parents house is) and she suggested I find some newer appliances for the kitchen. She also warned that looking at the numbers I should not expect to get much for the house - so that's a bummer, but things are changing everyday so by the time I have it ready to sell and the new house is ready to move into the situation might be better. You asked for numbers: My final low ball offer was just under $30,000 of the debt owed by the seller (remember I thought I found the actual payoff amount online but I was wrong. So I went in thinking I had the facts when in reality I was way off). This made it a short sale and his lender took about a month to accept my offer and forgive the rest of his loan (remember he was about to foreclose). Then my lender appraised the place at $20,000 less than my low ball offer and I said I would only pay the appraised amount. His bank took one week to accept. The realtor pointed out in the closing that the final price was less than half of the original asking price - so it sounds like I got a great deal but the houses value dropped even further after I bought it. So I got it for a song but if things had drug out for one more month I could have saved another $35,000!!!

Husband and I actually found an open house in the area I want. Someone bought it a few years ago for an investment and did a horrible remodel for a flip. Of course the price reflects the so called remodel. What a shame! The setting of the house is real pretty with lots of mature trees and tropical foliage. I think the house was built in 58'. The bedrooms are small but ok, it has a fireplace and pool, patio, two car garage and a nice layout. The agent is one of the popular ones in that area. I gave him my scoop about our future listing and what we were looking to buy as well as our emails ect. The guy was very honest with me when I asked for the new listings to my email before they hit mls online. He said he had a lot of investors that he deals with. I said I would like a crack at the listings they get (thanks Lukk for arming me). He made some sort of comment to the affect that they are priority. I said, you mean I come after them? He said, well lets see, I have five to seven regulars that I get repeat cash sales so what do you think? Me,...here we go again! I'm going to have to do some serious aggression to get a house in that area and get one that was not destroyed with eekkk remodel. That's ok though because I have no shame when it comes to muscling in. I know a little about HUD. My son just bought his townhome through HUD. It took him six months to close. It took the whole family working daily to keep it on track and deal with all the paper work. I think part of the nightmare was due to the 203k (?) loan with the repairs wrapped up in his mortgage and one of the few mortgage companies that did that sort of loan. What a mess, son went through three different people in charge of his case and two managers. They all kept leaving for Wells Fargo. We helped him look and it took over 6 months just to get a crack at something in his price range. Like I said above the only reason he got it is because of the stipulation in the neighborhood where you have to live there a year before renting it out and the fact that it was HUD. Investors didn't have a chance at that one but there were close to 200 people interested. We got the listing fresh off the press by mistake when a realtor we were dealing with sent it to his investors lol. My son put in a bid $5,500 over list and got it. Don't get me wrong, there are deals to be had everywhere down here. Just not in the very best areas unless you have a connection and cash. Or, you want to pay top dollar. Although places are appraising rather low now so that part could come out in the wash. A connection is key though. About the other house husband loved the look of in a near by to my fav neighborhood. Well, it was about a hundred thousand more than he waned to spend. I then made him drive around in neighborhoods in "his" price range. No way he would live there. I'm making progress. Really though, I too want to find a deal so I'm not looking to go crazy. I do want something I can make nice in a decent area though. Ollie, I'm with you on established neighborhood with trees!!! Some of the roads I'm hoping to find a little house on in my preferred neighborhood are not necessarily the nicest roads. However, the reason I like some of those roads is because they have an abundance of natural tropical foliage and trees with older homes. I love the old Florida feel. There is not much of that left around here and I pine for it.

Fun, did you have more than one living space growing up? We had a formal living room and a family room so the family room is where our toys were kept. However, we didn't have nearly the same amount of toys as kids do nowadays! The way our family room was laid out, there was a corner where all the toys were kept. I shared an average size room with my sister, so we didn't have much room for playing in there. I'm sure we did a bit but for the most part, we were in the family room when we were young or outside. I also can't imagine having kids' toys in every room. That would drive me nuts! Most of the houses around here have basements or more than one living area so the basements store the bulk of the toys and then the family room, which is typically open to or next to the kitchen is where the main floor toys are stashed. Having four kids has relaxed my anal tendencies but I still go a little nuts with crap laying around. The peninsula in my kitchen becomes the drop zone but I can't stand having that clutter. And dh is the worst b/c he will leave his stuff there and never come back for it but then get annoyed if I move it or ask him to. He's used to clutter from his childhood. I used to have complete order in the house b/f I went to bed, but now I'm so exhausted by then that I have slacked off a bit and then get all stressed when I come downstairs the next morning to clutter and have to clean up b/f I can function. I'm like that with cooking too - I can't start cooking unless the counters are clear, no dirty dishes out, etc. DH looks at me like I have two heads. Am I the only weird one like that? Oops, sorry, I have a habit off going off on a tangent!